Day 3 of a week-long mini-webinar. You are encouraged to add your comments. If you’ve stumbled upon us resalers and consignment shop owners and thrift-store managers, here’s Day 1 and Day 2, to catch you up.
Now of course we’re not talking just old clothes here. We’re also talking used playpens, secondhand mirrors, previously-owned couches and handbags and vases and books and lawn mowers. You know what I mean.
Some misguided souls might believe that “used” and “value” are a contradiction in term, an oxymoron, like “jumbo shrimp” and “California expressway.” Is there any way to alter their mind set?
So today we will examine the Feasibility of Changing Perceptions
Why bother? Because there’s a whole giant world of shoppers out there who have never ever shopped for anything secondhand. (They do have a tendency to “forget” that their home was lived in by another family, that Aunt Milly’s Rosenthal china was “used” before they inherited it, and that their teenage daughters are swapping clothes like no one’s business, pun intended.) Can we, with the use of perceived value, make shopping secondhand a GREEN LIGHT?
Here’s an exercise on changing perception from another blog:
Wine makers know that screw cap bottles are better and cheaper than the traditional cork. Yet it is impossible [for the wine makers] to change to such caps. It may be because buyers would equate screw caps with inferior wine. It may be because the whole event of wine drinking requires the cork.
How can this be changed?
1. It is possible that the transition could be made if the screw caps were very expensive in the first place – for example, enameled. If such caps became collectors’ items, than the transition might be accomplished. Here the changed perception, from seeing screws as less desirable to more desirable [italics mine–Kate], is an example of the direct blocking of the ‘cheap’ image.
2. We might go in exactly the opposite direction. We could sell exactly the same wine at two prices: £12 with the usual cork and £10 with a screw cap. People would now set out to convince themselves that the cork was not that important a part of the event of wine drinking.
3. Another approach would be an education campaign to show that corks could go bad and could leak, whereas screw caps could not. This would be less effective than either of the other two approaches – making screw caps either dearer or cheaper – but could be combined with either.
Now, translating this example into marketing resale goods is simple. 1. We could make our product more desirable. 2. We could offer similar goods side-by-side: new/ relatively expensive and previously-loved/more budget-friendly. 3. We could show and continually promote why used is better.
Some thoughts to get you started on how this applies to your shop.
Point 1: Making your products more desirable than new. They’re more convenient. It’s more pleasant to shop with you. Price, of course, but also selection, style, and usability. Changing “used” into the advantageous, wise way to shop (at least, for the merchandise YOU carry!) Perceived value: is it more pleasant to shop for budget-friendly goods in your store than anywhere else they are likely to shop?
Point 2: Offer new and used side by side: Create “new” sections in your store, being sure to label each item so in an obvious manner (since we know it’s often impossible to tell!) Signage such as New Whatitz from $15 and Experienced Whatits from $6 will allow shoppers to make their own choices. Promoting a “new” section in your shop and in your advertising also gives the I wouldn’t DREAM of buying used consumer a reason to come in. (Or an excuse, if her snooty neighbor sees her shopping in your place!) Alternative: SHOW what new costs vis magazine illustrations and ads versus what something very similar costs at your shop.
Point 3: Show and promote that used is better. You know all the reasons. (If you don’t, check out The Best of Too Good to be Threw.) Find the specific reason that speaks to your target market and promote it constantly. In every way. Lead people into perceiving that the value is in your shop…whatever value THEY, umm, value.
Any more ideas? Let us know! Click the little comments box below to add to our suggestions!
BTW, that $5 word, oxymoron? Oxymoron is from the Greek oxy (“sharp” or “pointed”) and moros (“dull”). Thus the word oxymoron is itself an oxymoron, says Wikipedia.
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 
Two things, perhaps, that might help the sale of your adult clothing. First is improving the perceived value and you don’t do that by upping the prices. It might be that the adult section is not seen by casual shoppers, or that the area doesn’t provide enough separation, physical or mental, from the children’s area and its implied “you are here to be a mother not a woman” message. Maybe the adult area needs a bit of a “slightly sassy” ambiance?
Second is being sure that you are carrying what your adult customers want to buy. I’d say, without seeing it, that if your adult section prices average $10 to $13, you’re offering the same casual, durable, not-overly-exciting clothing that “mothers of young kids” wear every day and see offered for sale everywhere. “It’ll do” clothes in “harmless” styles. Maybe it’s time to kick your selection up a notch?
And third, of course, is finding a way to market your adult clothing to women who have no reason to shop in what they perceive as a children’s shop. That is, non-mothers, or women who are, in shopping mode, not thinking of the fact that they are mothers. If your adult clothing gets lost in the sea of kidswear and gear, you will always be limiting your potential customers not only to mothers, but to mothers who are in your shop specifically to do their “motherly” duty… and motherly duties preclude focusing on what they, as adult women, want.
(Probably more of an answer than you wanted! TMC: too much coffee!)
Kate–I’m enjoying your webinar!! It gives me lots to think about. Question–my kids clothing sells fast, women’s not so fast. Average kid’s clothing price is $7-8, average women’s is $10-13. Do you think the perceived value isn’t high enough on the women’s and I should up the price, or do you think people in general see the kid’s prices below $10 and want to keep their spending limits to the $10 range? I am targeting Mom’s shopping with their babies, toddler’s and elementary school age kids.
Thanks for doing this workshop!!!