A suggestion for consignment, resale, and thrift shops:

Add a little pizzazz to your shop. While you’re changing seasons is a great time to go

Weird & Wonderful.

Think about it, or get out the results from your last Customer Survey and take a look at why your customers shop resale. One of the reasons people tell me they love to shop the small, independently-owned secondhand-merchandise places is because they can always find a little treasure, something weird & wonderful that they weren’t expecting, and that no one else has. A kind of anti-run of the mall look, whether it’s for their wardrobe or their domicile. So why not offer some more weird & wonderful? After all, there’s only so many jeans and ginger jar lamps one family can absorb.

Ah, but weird and wonderful. Think of the things you get offered that, while they won’t appeal to everyone, will have others swooning and tweeting and just generally giving

great word of mouth about your shop!

Here’s some weird & wonderful I’ve run across. Imagine it all merchandised together in a delightful Anthropologie type of presentation:

Embroidered sheepskin jackets, overly-worn jean jackets, artfully-faded old men’s Madras dress shirts, funky, not-quite-vintage styles of clothes. Distressed leather poof ottomans, ornate Fifties coffee tables (terrific repainted in black gloss!), worn wicker shelves.  Aunt Emily’s bottom-drawer stuff: printed hankies from the 40’s, chiffon hostess aprons, souvenir tea towels* from odd places, lace bits and bobs from her grandmother and silky wide ties from her first husband back when.

Making a Weird & Wonderful corner, vignette, department in your shop can take the image of your business from boring to bodacious! (Not to mention, having this area makes all that weird stuff look great, and increases its perceived value!)

* Send souvenir tea towels to me and your shop’s prosperity is ensured. See TGtbT.com for my mailing address.