Consignment & resale shopkeepers can clean up on costumes year 'round!

Did you let your consignors*, your sellers, or your donors know that you want those Halloween costumes now?

No?

Then do it forthwith! (That means make it snappy!)

Why? Because, yes, you can make money from costumes of all sorts the whole year ’round. Read on, for an article from a past issue of our print newsletter, which we no longer publish.

Sell costumes year ’round

Looking to build your business? Have you considered costume sales and/ or rental?

Dressing up in funny clothes has expanded beyond just Halloween, and adults of all ages are having fun. There’s Mardi Gras, Valentine’s Day, Presidents’ Day, Easter, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas. And social occasions: murder mystery parties, historical reenactments, frontier days, renaissance festivals, plays and skits, even class reunions. ….

To start a collection of costumes for rental, concentrate first on costumes that will appeal to the largest group of customers. Pirates, ghosts, clowns, witches or warlocks, and magicians can be male/ female, old/ young, skinny and fat! Then branch out into costumes that will work for other events: Santa and elves (and reindeer?), George and Martha Washington, Uncle Sam,
Cupid can be for Halloween or other times.

Simple-to-develop costumes can add to your selection: flappers (straight shift with lots of fringe, beads, headache band or cloche hat, ankle strap pumps) and cowboys (suede vest, chambray shirt, bandanna, tooled belt, hat) come to mind. Or create a hippie outfit with tie-dye and ethnic accessories with frayed bell bottoms.

Finding costumes and putting pieces together can be fun. Estate and garage sales, dance recital costumes, theatrical groups and school drama departments are places to spark your imagination. Re-examine some of your “no thank you’s” from consignors with a costume-minded eye. Would that gaudy ‘70’s lounge gown make a great skinny Liz Taylor? A tired black nightgown a good witch? Old Hawaiian shirts, tattered leather jackets, even old waitress uniforms can become useful!

Near Halloween time, of course, you will have your costumes on display, but what about the rest of the year? I visited a shop in Florida last year that had a big album with costumes photographed on friend-models complete with props. Each page listed the sizes, pieces included, and rental prices. Don’t forget you can offer the same basic outfit with different accessories for a different costume. Add a coonskin cap to a cowboy, substitute moccasins for the boots, and you have Davey Crockett. A witch with fangs becomes
a vampy vampire. A Farmer MacDonald bibbed outfit with straw tucked into its sleeves and neck and a holey felt hat is suddenly a scarecrow.

Before you set your rental or sales price, investigate local pricing. You will probably be pleasantly surprised at how much people are willing to spend for a little fantasy!

If you decide to rent costumes, your rental agreement should spell out what is included in the rental, price and security deposit, times to pick up and return all pieces, and penalties for lost or damaged items or late return.

Don’t want to bother renting? Sell that costume with a written guarantee to buy it back within 30 days for a percentage of your price!

* If you are basically a consignment shop, this is a good area to test out the concept of buying outright, both as far as how comfortable and fiscally alert YOU are, and how your clientele takes to it. Who knows? Maybe you’ll have such a ball buying  outright that your whole field of operations grows!