Auntie Kate The Resale Expert

(Episode #3 in a series: read Episode #1 and Episode #2)

Time to get serious with your consignment, resale, or thrift business. You can’t afford to fail now. A multi-episode blog entry.

It’s an Internet world, like it or not. If “they” can’t find your shop at the tip of their fingers, you’re losing traffic and credibility. If a potential client searches for the word consignment or resale and the name of your town, and doesn’t find your complete, attractive, to-the-point web site, her immediate gut reaction is

“She must be playing store”

and her immediate reaction is to go to the site of your competitor.

The same holds true, “She must be playing store”, if your site doesn’t readily give the viewer information sought, a reason to find you, clear directions, and a taste of the ambiance of your shop. Whether you use a complete site, a “web brochure” type of site, a blog, MySpace or Facebook or any other Internet presence: ya gotta have presence. Not having your shop on the web is the equivalent not having a sign over your store and being located in a deep dark forest.

True, not all your present and future clientele is Internet-savvy. But are you willing to blow off the vast majority of your target audience which is? Take a look at Pew Internet’s figures, which are almost two years old, and weep, if your web site isn’t doing the job it could.

Should you use a free web site? Yes, if you understand that it’s not something “ready in an hour” as those folks brag, just as your shop wasn’t ready in an hour. It’s a tricycle with training wheels, and the goal is, of course, to be able to ride a bicycle. Use a free site if you need a taste of how web sites work…then graduate, quick as you can, to a more professional-looking site. Any cost involved is literally peanuts when you look at the results you can obtain.

Need inspiration for your site? Take a look at what I think are the 10 best sites… that is, the most effective sites for brick-&-mortar resalers, cruise the web on your own with bookmarking in mind, and get to work. It’s worth it, I guarantee you!

The final episode in this series, #4.