Everything is looking up for the rich shopkeeper. She makes SURE it does.
They plan ahead.
Do you have every event, every ad, every blog message, website change, consignor letter and bag-stuffer….even every display window theme, between now and the end of the year planned out? Know when and how you will let your prospective audience know about the events? If so, you may be a rich-shopkeeper-in-the-making.
They seize the opportunities.
If you look for, search out, recognize and even MAKE opportunities for your business to grow and diversify, to attract a wider audience, you may be a rich-shopkeeper-in-the-making. If you know which of your customers are bloggers and, among your fellow merchants, whose clientele overlaps with yours, you may be a rich-shopkeeper-in-the-making.
Rich shopkeepers harness their energies.
If you have learned to delegate, if you are careful to use your time wisely, and if you know there are some things truly worth the price, you may be a rich-shopkeeper-in-the-making. If you simply refuse to waste energy getting upset over something you have no control over, like a snippy customer or a competitor’s rumor-mongering, and spend it, instead, doing what you know will help your business, you may be a rich-shopkeeper-in-the-making.
They face facts.
If you truly know what’s going on in your business, even if it goes against everything you feel, and then you act on it, you may be a rich-shopkeeper-in-the-making. If you offer what your community wants to buy and at what price points, even if that is vastly different today than it was when you opened your shop, you may be a rich-shopkeeper-in-the-making.
Rich shopkeepers aren’t afraid to acknowledge that every day, there is something to learn.
Rich shopkeepers know that something as self-evident as cutting lengths of pool noodles into boot trees, which they’re embarrassed they didn’t think of, is a great idea. (I’m not: someone told me this!) Rich-shopkeepers-in-the-making know that there is always something new to learn, or something they knew but which has gotten overlooked recently, or something that they really feel like smacking their foreheads over. Rich-shopkeepers-in-the-making love to learn, anywhere and everywhere they can.
Some Products for the Professional Resaler that could make YOU into a rich-shopkeeper-in-the-making
Money-Wise Guide to Accepting & Pricing Read about it
Selling MORE…to MORE People…MORE Often About
Pakaways: More Freedom, More Profit About
What do you do to make your shop successful?
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Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 
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What a great website…I bought your book several years ago when I started working for a non-profit that wanted to open a thrift shop. I had owned a children’s consignment for 7 years, and had worked retail in your big discount mega stores. Your book with my retail experience made us a success. We now have 2 stores and a booth in an antique mall and looking to expand to another small town nearby. In these hard economical times everybody is looking to save money. Do up your shops by color and decorate! Advertise and do a lot of promotions. You can’t help but to succeed. I now go help our other non-profit shops throughout the state help set up shops and redo existing shops not making money, to turn it around. My most important tip of all …. get rid of a manger who doesn’t want change. People who want to learn more and do more are who you want running your thrift or consignment shops. I am now working on website and facebook. Thanks!
Clarissa, Thank you so much for the advice. I was wondering if you still help out other non-profit shops. I am on the Board of Directors of Care Net of Schuylkill Co and we have a Thrift Store. We are currently taking a good hard look at making changes. I would love to talk to you. If this reaches you my name is Kimberly and my email is kimberlypace@verizon.net. I hope this reaches you. 🙂 God Bless
Those are good points, but the PRIMARY thing rich consignment shopkeepers do differently is they are excellent marketers! They study, plan and implement marketing plans and ideas throughout the year. And, they start every year with a detailed marketing calendar and plan. Marketing is the lifeblood of any business, especially retail! Without NEW customers and consignors NO resale shop will survive.
Excellent point, Jocelyn, and you know how I harp and harp on marketing, advertising, and letting people know about your business both here on the blog and on my site, TGtbT.com .
Truth is, I could have listed 15 or 25 things rich shopkeepers do that poor ones don’t… including your very point of planning ahead and devising a calendar. I am always dumbfounded when I get questions about upcoming seasonal/ holiday times that could be great for marketing… because I always get these questions a week or two in advance, when it’s really too late to do anything meaningful. One of the Products for Professional Resalers that’s in development now is just that, a marketing calendar!
I appreciate your comment and agree with you 110%!
Always helpful… thanks Kate…