Are you raising, and then re-raising, your standards for your business?
When I opened my shop, I didn’t have price tags. I cut scrap paper up into little squares, wrote the consignor number, size, and price on them, and safety-pinned them onto my merchandise. Part of the reason for this was that I didn’t know where to buy price tags…but mostly, it was economy. And being unsure of what my future might hold. Why spend money if I was going to fail at this? Yes, part of my stinginess was because of a lack of confidence in my career future.
Well, soon I was comfortable with, and flush enough, to buy real price tags. And funny thing. I noticed I could add a .50 to that $3.00 pair of pants and get $3.50 for something that last week was only worth three dollars to my customers. Imagine! Just because I spent a penny on the right equipment
…I could get 49 cents more in profit!
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That rung of my ladder, teeny as it was, built my confidence. And that confidence showed itself to my customers…so much so, that not only did they happily pay $3.50, but they even asked me what they should wear with those pants. That’s because
When I polished my shop’s image, I buffed up my reputation as a professional.
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Mismatched hangers are quite often a resaler’s first “splurge.” After all, new hangers don’t “work” any better than the assorted hangers you accumulated over the first few months, but you like how they make your merchandise look…”like a real store.” So you splurge…and you learn something. Suddenly, customers start bringing friends in to “this cute shop I was telling you about.” Those hangers or tags or the awning out front boost business. You’ve raised your standards. You’ve climbed a rung of your retail ladder.
Thus, stepping up to the next rung can give one a lift into the next, and the next, and the next. A simple raising of your standards from generic merchandise bags to something with a little more style could well raise the image of your shop so much that the quality of your incoming goods could, as though by magic, take a step up the rung as well. Your standards are now a little higher.
A sleeker, more “professional” store has almost a magical influence on the way your business is perceived.
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It’s perhaps silly that most customers will be more apt to buy the diamond ring on a blue velvet pad in a clean, unscratched showcase than the same diamond, same price tossed into a cigar box in a showcase mended with duct tape. That a row of track lighting shining on those couches will let you sell each for more than if they were lit by general fluorescent lighting. But it would be even sillier for a shopkeeper to think that the make-do dressing rooms or the scruffy flooring doesn’t hinder her business reaching the stars.
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 
Open since April 1st, and always asking ourselves what can we do better?
The list is long because everyday is a learning day, and like anything else it is when you stop growing that you start dying.
I don;t belive in learning curve, i belive in huge circles. If you have been in business for a long time and nver ask yourslef what can I do better that means that you are fouling yourself at being the best. “Success is not the position in which you stand but the direction in which you look”
Great saying, “Success is not the position in which you stand but the direction in which you look”
Maybe if NARTS ever invites me to be Keynote Speaker again (haven’t been since 2004, a generation ago in resale years) I’ll use that!
I guess this new project is ‘stepping up a rung’: we’re putting in a brand new porch and sidewalk. I never thought I’d be excited about a bunch of cement, but I am.
Next on the rung: carpet. I absolutely hate replacing the old wool, victorian carpet we now have, but it’s getting tired too. Since we have to be closed for a couple of days for the porch work, maybe now is the time….
From the moment I opened up I have been looking for new things to upgrade . I’m one who gets bored quickly – I am constantly changing displays- show casing different items in our window – updating our website daily – thinking of new events and more !
I started out with all matching hangers – all matching racks. I like the flow of the racks and matching hangers. You walk into a retail store – and everything matches one another.
I opened my store with a regular retial store in mind. Affordable and Chic – I wanted it to look like any other retail store you’d walk into , whether it was in a charming area or a mall.
I started out with a GoDaddy website- and recently launched my brand new website with an ONLINE STORE!
Anytime anyone walks in they always say how much they “Love the store” and “how cute the decor is”…
I have been pondering this for a few weeks. We’ve been open since the last week of June and we are well into the black. But WHAT ELSE can I do to improve our sales and get the word out that we are here! Here are few things I am looking at…
1. Can I improve my floor plan? Lighting? Displays? How can I use creative displays to show off merchandise? (Right now I am considering vintage, wooden doors to make displays)
2. How can I participate in the community?
3. What are other ways to advdertise besides the newspaper and Facebook (what I am doing now) I just bought a 9ft. blow up Halloween cat to put on my sidewalk to celebrate October. It’s super cute and even lights up and moves it head. So far, the customers are loving it.
4. Monthly specials-I want to be known for a fun monthly promotion every single month. Right now we are giving away Halloween themed hand sanitizer with purchase and doing “Mummy Money”.
Just my thoughts…
I have climbed so many rungs from the beginning, I think there are too many to list (including mismatched hangers LOL!).
Next on my ladder is to have my website professionaly done. I designed mine on godaddy and while it is ok, it’s not awesome. And I want awesome!
Thanks Kate for making me think about it. I need to get it off my someday to do list.
Hey, my to-do list is vintage. What else do you call a list that has things on it from (literally) the year 2000? And TheResaleGuru.com ? That’s had a “coming soon” label on it long enough that I’ve renewed the domain twice.
That’s going to be my next project, using WordPress.com, which is so easy, to make TRG into a full-fledged web site instead of a blog. And it would be instantly up-datable and cheapcheapcheap to own.
I’ve been toying with the idea of doing it live, “on stage” so shopkeepers can follow along if they like…but I’m thinking October wouldn’t be the ideal time to ask people to pay attention!