Auntie Kate The Resale Expert

Day 4 of a week-long mini-webinar. If you’d like to add a comment, feel free. If you’ve just discovered us resale and consignment shop owners and thrift store managers, Day 1 and Day 2 and Day 3 will bring you up to speed.

A large part of perceived value of the goods in a store…any store…is that there WILL be some good goods to buy at a dollar value the shopper wants to pay. If there’s doubt as to whether the shop will have what you want to buy, you’re much less likely to pull into their parking lot when you happen to drive by, and even less likely to put your shoes on, grab the car keys, and go shopping. Especially in the $4/gallon days we’re enduring now.

So Perceived Values includes Positive Outcomes. Just about every single time a person walks into your shop, she should receive something of value. (Exception: the postal carrier, although feeding said person with homemade cookies does seem to lighten everyone’s day 😉 )

With luck, talent, and a great selection of perfectly-priced goods, every trip in will reward your customer with a armload of goodies and you with money.

But can you bat a thousand?

It’s not possible, of course, to sell something to every visitor on every visit. They will not always be in the mood to exchange their hard-earned dollars for anything you happen to have. There are many ways, however, to reward them for the trip in.

Studies say that after 3 or 4 or whatever, trips to your shop without a “reward”, shoppers tend to put your shop in the back of their mind. And that’s no place you want to be! So, if you can’t sell her something today, what can you do to have her trip have a positive outcome?

You can give her something. Of course, you’ve already given her a smiling welcome and your warm attention and a sense of community, but I mean literally give her something. It might be something that naturally arises (I can’t count the times I gave customers a recipe when they were fretting over dinner, or the name of my favorite seamstress, manicurist, frame shop) or it may be a “thanks for coming in” gift.

Something to remember me by

What can you give that will please the recipient and help her check this visit to your business as a positive one, even if she didn’t find what she was looking for, or indeed something she didn’t know she wanted until she saw it (you canny marketeer you)?

Well, it could be an “advertising specialty” like a pen or a raincap or a sewing kit. But these, sometimes, cost you more than they get you. After all, advertising specialties aren’t always, well, very special are they? If you want something more personalized, more unusual, how about:

• Your favorite recipe or recipes
• Lists that are tailored for your target audience: Childcare or stain removal tips, fashion tips, Decorating for a Handful of Dimes
• Our Customer Service Brochures
• Your local resale group’s brochure of shops or your community’s shopping guide

Whatever you use, be sure to make it worth keeping, and make sure to include your shop information on it. And make it special: Hand it out on a nice recipe card, keep the Customer Service Brochure in an attractive basket, present it with a flourish as ” a little something to thank you for stopping in at MyShop today.” (Use the name of your shop…you’re imprinting the customer to associate MyShop with the warm feeling of getting a gift!)

The gift that keeps on giving

Small gifts like these do several things. They reward your loyal customer for being loyal, they are a take-away that reminds them of your business, and they set your business apart from places that could care less when you walk out empty-handed, ungreeted, ungood-bye saluted… and unrewarded for the effort they made to come in.

Tomorrow, our last day of Perceived Value: The Lipstick Factor