Here’s a favorite thing that will guide your browsing customers AND save you hours of straightening time. Color-coded mini-markers that slip on the neck of a hanger. Think how YOU could use them:
* To indicate Petites or Talls while keeping clothing in the right size range.
* To denote Boys, Girls, Gender-neutral in T’s, jeans, and other items.
* To mark linens folded on hangers: table, window, bed, bath. Keeping these usages separate makes for an easier shopping experience for your customer, which means more sales for you.
* To call attention to higher-end designer items. Makes it easy for even part-time staff to keep them on the proper racks, or for buyers to understand your price structure if you mix your price ranges within categories.* To point out vintage, costumes, whatever would be useful for your staff or your clientele to know.
You could even go hog-wild and assign a different color mini-marker to sizes XS, S, M, L, XL throughout the shop… thereby being able to create appealing completely-colorized racks. Imagine being able to have a rounder of black pants here, of tan there, of the rest-of-the-rainbow over there, and STILL helping shoppers “find their size”! That’s a way to banish the mish-mash of merchandise in consignment and resale shops!
(Oh sure, it takes work, keeping things on their color-coded hangers properly…hey, everything takes work!)
For a [update: a little more than a nickel now] nickel apiece, these hanger mini-markers might become one of your favorite things as well!
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 
[…] #4: This one is my absolute favorite: Mini hanger markers indicating petites and plus sizes. Now, this is a new- stuff store that merchandises their […]
these are similar to one of MY favorite things, which is colored price-tags. i’m just starting out in the consignment business, but i have this idea for using them to tell me when and what needs to be moved or price-changeded. i found a company that sells paper tags in 10 different colors and 2 different sizes. each consignor will get a unique tag specifically for their items. to create hundreds of different tag styles, i’ve developed a punch-marking system to further differentiate the tags in addition to color and size. i’ll put each consignor’s unique tag on a calendar for each of their markdown days, and each day i’ll look at the calendar to see what needs to be reduced or put on the sale rack. tags will be placed on the bottoms of items so they hang clearly visible, and all i’ll have to do is quickly eye-ball down the racks to find the ones i’m looking for. the price is right too! the tags come in lots of 1000 for $8, and since everything has to be tagged anyway, it’s a total gimme.
i thought about putting the tags on the tops of the hangers like the color coded plastic markers, but what happens when people put things back on the wrong hangers when they try things on? i think it’s best to mark each item individually.
anyhoo…..what does everyone think? yay, or nay……?
These little markers are the single best change we made last year. Our entire staff LOVES them – and so do our customers. We use the SM/M/L/XL ones, as well as the solid blue to denote Petites. It’s amazing how something so simple can make life so much easier. Now, when someone mistakenly slips a pair of size 2 khakis on the rack with the size 12’s, it’s not a big deal if that rack isn’t actually groomed for another week. A quick scan across a rack quickly finds misplaced items – and this happens several times daily. They really come in handy during big sales when things tend to get unorganized at lightening speed. Customers learn pretty quickly to take a quick glimpse on other racks “just in case”.
CG
These are wonderful! We used these at the shop where I worked in college; mostly we used them to denote Talls or Longs on jeans and pants. They are awesome and are certainly noticed by customers. Glad you found them so cheap!