Best un-observed tip in the manual: do a “check letter.” Do you? This is a communication specific to consignors/ suppliers that tells them

what you want suppliers to know now.

Things like what you need, what’s going on, “hot sellers” and the like. It can be enclosed with consignor checks, handed out when they come to pick up money, or given to them when they come in to consign, sell, or donate goods. Best choice: all of the above!

An example? Here’s the consignor tips letter enclosed with their monthly check that I wrote for a non-profit consignment/ thrift shop I used to volunteer at. Notice it contains

• changeable information (next month’s consignment dates), 
• static information (when consignors can reclaim their items, for example)
• and most importantly, how they can use the wonderful things they can buy at the store, thus covering the “buy this” message and answering the unspoken WIIFM at the same time.

Click here to see the sample consignor letter: conltrmay2011

If you’re a BOR: make a version that is handed out with their payout. If you run a charitable, donation-only NFP: ditto, to be handed out… and mailed, once a season perhaps, to your recorded “big” donors.

Sure, you could use Facebook or a broadcast email for this if you think they’ll see it and read it and remember it tomorrow. But nothin’ says lovin’ like an honest-to-goodness letter in the mail.

So, do YOU do a consignor letter? Why or why not? How often do you rewrite it to present up-to-the-minute information that will help them and help your shop?