Auntie Kate The Resale Expert

So you want to have a promotional event in your consignment or resale store. You have visions of hordes of people pouring into your place, having a good time and throwing money into your till.

You see brand-new customers coming in for the first time and loving your merchandise and values. You envision rewarding your regulars with a treat and added value. And you daydream about all those people who have heard about your store finally coming in and realizing how terrific your place is!

“Gee guys, let’s put on a show! We’ll use my folks’ garage and we’ll put up posters inviting everyone!”

Planning a promotion, while it can be as much fun as that show in the garage when you were eleven (and a lot more profitable!), cannot be as spur-of-the-moment. An effective promotion for your store needs thought, planning, and flawless execution. And most of all, a promotional event needs to suit your shop’s image. What works well for one shop may not for another. So how do you design a promotion that will benefit your store?

Keep one simple premise in mind as you plan your promotion. When deciding on details, ask yourself

“Does this choice promote my business the way I want it to?”

As you start to plan a promotion, you need to answer many questions. How specific and well-considered your answers to these questions are could well be the difference between a wildly successful promotion and a humdrum one. Think about:

* What concerns, needs, or wants do my customers and potential customers have that I can meet with a promotional event?
* What type of promotion that fits the above is feasible for my unique situation? My store’s image? My own personality?
* What do I want to accomplish with this promotion? How can I plan for immediate and future profits from this event?
* Can I create a promotion that is likely to achieve these goals with my available time, energy, and money?

Let’s look more closely at the first question: What concerns, needs, or wants do my customers and potential customers have that I can meet with a promotion?

Think of all your regular customers. They’re great, aren’t they? Now think of all those members of the public who are not your customers. And of the increases your business could be showing if only a small percentage of strangers could join the ranks of your regulars!

Customers have all sorts of concerns. Many of these you already solve for them, which is exactly why they are your customers! Think about the benefits you offer to your regular customers:

Your shop offers merchandise less expensively than most stores, so you solve your customers’ money concerns.

You attract many local residents, thereby solving their distance concerns.

Your store is better organized and easier to shop in than many others, so you help with the time concern.

Your selection is carefully chosen and attractively presented, a perfect solution to the supply concern.

A promotion can show that your shop has the solution to these concerns. Your promotion will remind regulars and also attract the stranger who is not yet convinced that you can help them.

While highlighting the basic benefits any shopper wants, your promotion can also play on the ultimate benefits every person wants out of life: money, freedom, time, security, belonging, and prestige. Helping people obtain these ultimate benefits is what your promotion can be designed to solve. Imagine: Customers can
* spend less MONEY,
* gain FREEDOM from the tyranny of look-alike mall stores,
* save TIME by not wandering through giant discount mega-stores,
* have the SECURITY of knowing you care personally about them,
* feel like they BELONG by dealing with a locally-owned store,
* and gain PRESTIGE by being a valued customer of the best resale store in town!

But it takes a promotion to get people to know all this about you. A promotion designed with the customers’ best interests at heart is a promotion that will get attention before, during, and for long after your event.

What your regulars like about your store will give you a handle on what your potential customers will value. Let’s say you have a handful of very chic women who shop in your women’s store because they love to put together different looks. They hate to blend in with the masses. Think about these women, their likes and habits, and design a promotion that would appeal to them and to women like them who don’t yet shop in your store. Maybe they’re arty and you could sponsor a showing for an up-and-coming artist or a dramatic event in your shop. Perhaps they are society belles, and a tie-in with the ballet would be an attraction that will get new faces in and familiar faces in more often.

Or perhaps, in your children’s shop, some of your best customers are grandparents. What do they like about your shop and how could you promote that to potential grandparent-shoppers? Possibly with a drawing for a free month’s use of crib, playpen, and high chair for the visiting grandchild?

A third example, for furniture and household accessories shop, could be the occasional regular who is furnishing a second home. Think of all the uninitiated public who have the same needs, and create a “Second Homes Love Second Hand” promotion. Or appeal to the student with a “Design your Unique Dorm Room” contest, with the prize being some spectacular piece from your inventory.

Read more in Too Good to be Threw, The Premier Site for Consignment, Thrift, & Resale Shops. For all our Products offerings, visit the TGtbT Shop for Professional Resalers.