Auntie Kate The Resale Expert

Remember high school (shudder!), when whether or not you were popular was the absolute only thing that mattered?

Three sociologists at Columbia University, Duncan Watts, Matthew Salganil, and Peter Dodds, conducted the following experiment . . .

* They recruited 14,000 people to register at a website
* This website allowed people to listen to, download, and rate songs by unknown bands
* One group was given only the names of the songs and the bands, while . . .
* The other group was also shown how many times each song was downloaded

The results were startling, and highly informative . . .

The group that had no idea which songs were being favored by others downloaded a radically different selection of tunes from the group that could see which songs others were choosing.

Those who could see which tracks others downloaded were much more likely to also download those songs.

This is “social confirmation”: being able to ascertain what other people think about the songs (in the above example), yourself/your image (to get back to the high-school analogy) or your business (to address what we today really care about!) will drive more downloads/ BFFs/ traffic to your shop.

It’s a human trait to believe that the choices others are already making are the superior choices. Whether or not it’s true that popularity rules, it does.

How does this apply to your resale, consignment, or thrift shop?

You must build traffic, word-of-mouth, and public notice every single way you can, every single day.

It might be balloons tied outside your shop, a terrific and ever-new web site or blog, lots of suppliers stopping in all day every day, fresh merchandise presentation every time your clientele turns around, new and gossipy news about your shop. Social confirmation is what will make your shop prosper.