Auntie Kate The Resale Expert

Okay, memo to all of your consignment shops, resale stores, thrift stores who moan It CAN’T be time for Back to School marketing, the summer just got started!:

Get over it.

Mother Nature doesn’t determine when your customers want to buy something. The Great Consumer in the Sky (who was called, back when, Madison Avenue and now is called “The Media”) does. When the ads and the websites and the blogs say “Buy BTS” your shop had better be ready.

Why? I can’t STAND the way they rush seasons!

Well, because it’s not all about you. It’s about what your customers want. “Give the lady what she wants.” That’s how you must think, if you’re a retailer. Quite bluntly, what you think doesn’t matter. It’s all about HER.

Help the lady GET what she wants.

Okay, so you’re a one-woman crusade for “Let’s let summer be summer.” Fine. Noble calling and all that. Tally-ho and best wishes and sure I’ll sign your petition. But I have one question: why do you hate your customers so much?

Yes, you read that right. Why are you forcing your loyal, thrifty, eco-conscious customers to go to the (gasp!) mall and big-box stores for their BTS shopping, thereby wasting time, gas, patience and energy (oh yes, and money, money they were perfectly willing to spend in your shop if you’d had what they wanted), simply because YOU think that they should WAIT for fall? Because that’s what will happen. They’ll spend their hard-earned dollars on things that, if they could only wait ’til fall, you’ll have.

But guess what. By September, because you didn’t have what they wanted when they wanted it…your market for BTS will be filled. And the anguished cries of But I spent five times this price on a new jacket for Blair just last month will fill the air of your shop…instead of dollars from happy shoppers filling your till.

So pull out your fall, transitional, trans-seasonal items and feature them in your windows, your advertising, and your swing shop. Khakis and chinos and plaids and sweaters and afghans and silk fall leaves and persimmon pillows and chenille couches and whatever brings autumn to mind. Forget that it’s 90-in-the-shade. Your customers want to. Help them.

But yes, I agree, plenty of summer left.

Lots of resale shopkeepers say But people need something to wear now, now! That’s one reason they LIKE to shop here, because they can get something for this weekend.

Well, yes, I totally agree. And that’s why the second part of your shop rearrangement must be what I call The Rest of Summer is the Best of Summer. It is in fact an advertise-able benefit: The Rest of Summer is the Best of Summer. Need something for next weekend’s barbecue at the lake and all the mall stores have is plaid and fleece? Stop in at MyShop, where summer-fresh styles await!

So: gather the most-summery of your merchandise together in one (back corner, beHIND the fall stuff) area of your shop, add signage, and promote that your shop “has what you need when you need it.” Just don’t blow off all those eager next-season shoppers or you…and they…will regret it.