Every consignment, resale and thrift shop (heck, every retail store) needs its very own AGD. What’s yours?

It could be animal, vegetable or mineral. It could be ceramic, stone, bronze or made of rags.

But it needs to be big enough to be a presence, unusual enough to be noticed, and stirring enough to be talked about.

What is it? It’s your

Attention-Getting Device.

The best AGD I ever saw, hands-down, was a very realistic, life-size dog. He stood there, mildly smiling at you, from a different room vignette every few days in a consignment furniture shop. This AGD was so beloved that children brought in Milk-bones for it.*

Other AGDs can be related to your shop name (giant pinata bumblebees hanging from the ceiling in a shop called Honey’s?  A bejeweled tiara’d vintage mannequin whose name is  SecondHand Rose?), your location (a dapper rag doll dubbed Grandview Grandee?) or your mission (Recycled Rosie, a made-of-junk statuette on your loading dock?)

Or what better AGD and mascot could a gently-used kidswear shop have than a giant Great Green Baby. This example’s from Great Green Baby, but it’s only doll-size (and, apparently, no longer sold). I’m thinking adult-human size for impact, aren’t you? Maybe you can use the photo for design inspiration.

Now, AGD usually means something at the beginning of a speech or presentation, something to make people sit up and notice. But after all, we want to do that all day long in our shops, don’t we.

I once suggested to a bridal shop that they take an old mannequin, outfit her in the most flamboyant wedding gown they could find, supplemented with yards and yards of tulle veiling, with streamers and flowers, for drivers-by to notice. Move her around, from front door to side, inside to out, even on the roof some days. Change her bouquet. Let her hold a jack-o-lantern when it’s that time of year. The shopkeepers didn’t like the idea. I still think they missed the opportunity to stand out from a sea of sameness on that one.

Heck, a flamboyant AGD even makes a great publicity hook. And the best AGDs sometimes travel, always dress seasonally-appropriately, and have bios on their (you should pardon the expression) home page on the Internet.

What AGDs have you seen and remembered?