Auntie Kate The Resale Expert

Day One of a week-long mini-webinar. You are encouraged, if you like, to add your comments after this post.

Every shopper past the stage of preferring a nickel to a dime because the nickel’s bigger, understands that the value of anything offered for sale depends not only on its intrinsic worth (is it silver or silverplate? Polyester or silk?) but on the worth that specific buyer puts on it for a hundred other reasons. That’s why the same item will sell at a garage sale only if offered at a fraction of the price it would fetch in an antique shop. The location and ambiance of a market adds to the perceived value of the item.

A study says that people who were given a sip of the same wine, in two different glasses, one a basic Styrofoam cup and the other a Tiffany goblet, rated the wine in the goblet better-tasting. When asked how much they would spend on a bottle of “these two different wines”, the wine in the more luxurious glass was valued much higher. That’s perceived value. The experience of sipping the wine in an elegant glass added to the perceived value.

Why would a resale retailer care

about perceived value?

Because it affects, directly and every minute of every day, the prices the shop can “get” for their goods. In a very real way, resaling is almost completely about perceived value. So in this modest webinar, we’ll talk about how you can increase the perceived value of every last thing in your shop, every day…without spending a lot of money or effort in doing so. Selling your items more readily for more money will not only put more money in your pocket, but in the pocket of your consignor as well, which of course leads to better business.

Adding perceived value is important to the buy-outright shop as well, since store-owned goods must get the highest-possible return on the shopkeeper’s investment. And for the NFP donations-only thrift store run as a fund-raiser for a charity, perceived value is vital to their best donors with the best potential items to give: I love to give my things to that shop because everything looks so nice there and they obviously raise a lot of money for their cause. Even the most selfless donor doesn’t want her precious previously-owned items to be sold for a pittance. Click on these two photos for close-ups… can the resale shopkeepr set higher prices in one versus the other?

Where can I get me some?

First, before you go charging around trying to add perceived value to your goods, you need to know just what your potential market considers a value. While I think we can all agree that any shopper looking for any item in any price range values cleanliness and politeness above dingy surliness, there are major differences in target markets. Perceived value to your clientele may be edgy hipness (the terminably cool teen/twenties marketplace), early-morning hours (if your childrenswear shop is located within eyeshot of a day-care center) or the ability to conduct business in a language other than English. On the other hand, black dressing rooms and the latest rap wonders on your sound system won’t add any perceived value to your St. John knits-loving audience. (To say the least.)

There are a few more “universal”, or nearly-so, ways to increase perceived value for all markets. The most obvious one, in this time-pressed Zeitgeist, is convenience. Who among us hasn’t spent more for milk at 7-11 at midnight because the grocery was further away and unlikely to be open then? A less obvious one, but one that many resalers overlook, is the likelihood of success. A large and ever-changing array of goods will, in the perception of the shopper, increase the chances that she will, indeed, find something on her trip in, and thus the time and energy invested in coming to your shop will be value well-spent.

Tomorrow, we’ll explore how you can make your “wine glass” be the more luxurious one, which is Step One to making perceived value in your shop higher. In the meanwhile, you might be interested in how we added perceived value to a very small shop’s limited holiday stock in one hour, with zero cost. Try it in a corner or two of your shop before we meet again…

Day 2 of this mini-seminar, Day 3 , Day 4 and Day 5.