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Tara, proprietor of Born Again, is having an interesting event in her shop next week (sorry, all the slots are taken!) for one hour only, a single hour after closing on the Friday before her big seasonal clearance bag sale.
I think it’s absolutely brilliant, and I think you’ll agree.
Here, let her tell about it:
The first TWENTY people who bring us 5 non-perishable food items (donation for the Lewiston Food Bank) secure the coveted privilege of attending the Pre-Shop the Stuff-A-Bag Event.You can stuff as many bags as you like for the $20/bag fee ~AND~ use your same-day $5 voucher to shop in the newly arrived Fall/Winter items in the main store.This is the first time we’ve offered these “Pre-Shop” slots, after many requests, but there are only 20 available so get your Food Bank donations to us now before they fill up! For more information, please call us at xxx-xxxx.
So why is Tara doing this event?
Well, I haven’t spoken directly with her, but I am sure these factors played into her planning:
- Gets them in with their 5 donations before the bag sale… when they jjust might get nervous that something they want won’t last ’til then, so they buy it.
- And when those 20 people come in, that’s another couple of hundred people (10, 20 people in the shop at that moment?) who overhear/ see what’s going on and want to be in the know as well… so they sign up for all the social marketing the shop does.
- Supports a local charity (good for the community, good for her customers who become aware that their help is needed, and, of course, makes a terrific news story: 100 food bank items donated thanks to Born Again)
- Feeds on the “exclusivity” we all love. Only 20 people! Urgency and exclusivity are always good marketing tactics.
- Gets the 20 most avid stuff-a-bag shoppers in before the crowds (easier on the shopkeeper!)
- Makes those who didn’t get to be one of the in-group pay closer attention to any and all communications from the shop.
- Besides the hour’s extra staff coverage (they’ll probably be there anyway, the evening before a bag sale, right?) this promo costs the business ZILCH. No extra discount given, no paid media advertising… heck, for an hour at a bag sale, your customers won’t even want refreshments!
- And probably more factors went into Tara’s planning that I’ve overlooked… what do YOU think? What benefits, and what drawbacks, come to YOUR mind?
I’m sure Tara will have pix of the Lucky Twenty and their single-hour event… here’s hoping she shares them with us!
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 
Are the items only bought-outright items? Or consignment, too? How do you figure how much to pay your consignors? I have consignment only and am hoping to do a bag sale very soon as I have a ton of stuff right now. I am ordering Auntie Kate’s bag sale book, but is there anything you can tell me until the book arrives?
Hi Betsy,
This post isn’t specifically about bag sales as such, and it takes many pages to discuss that, as you’ve noticed when you looked at http://tgtbt.com/shop.htm#6
What to include in a bag sale is mostly up to how you have your consignment agreement written, whether you have been planning since the beginning of the summer selling season for a bag sale, and how much summer stuff you haven’t sold before this. There’s not a quick answer to your question.
If you haven’t already planned for your end-of-summer-clearance, which can be a bag sale or something else, I would suggest you do it ASAP. Assuming that you sell clothing, your shop should already be less than 25% summer leftovers, and 75% early fall.
You can use the search function here on the blog to find more posts about bag sales.
I hesitated to post a response to this since it’s about me and my store, but since no one else has yet, here goes!
First of all, thank you Kate! It means a great deal to me that you felt my promotion was Auntie Kate Blog worthy.
You were right on with all the reasons you stated for pursuing an event like this. Some addition reasons…
Every Bag Sale we have trouble with parking. A line of anxious shoppers starts forming 30 to 60 minutes before we open our doors. The next wave comes into our lot before the first wave is finished shopping and ends up double parking and blocking in the first wave. This means we have a parking problem for hours since the first wave of shoppers can’t get out to clear parking spaces.
Side note: This time around, my husband and oldest son will both be here for the express purpose of directing parking/traffic. We have residential neighbors who use our property easement for access to their own properties. We cannot allow anyone to park in such a way as to block our neighbors’ access.
We have only one register. During past sales we’ve had up to a 45-minute wait in line to check out. Down the line, I hope to add another register. Until then, allowing our 20 most excited shoppers to pre-shop the sale means 20 less people in line. We’re implementing some other ideas to keep the line moving, as well.
We’ve carefully weighed out what the “right” number of people at the Pre-Shop Event should be. We don’t want to have too many at the Pre-Shop that it takes away the urgency and excitement on the day of the sale, especially because those Pre-Shoppers are the most excited.
If this works well, we might add more tickets to the Pre-Shop Event but have it tiered (i.e. bring us 15 items to reserve a Pre-Shop ticket for the 1st hour, 10 items for the 2nd hour) allowing more people to Pre-Shop, but still keep the crowd to 20 at a time for ease of movement, check-out wait time, and parking considerations.
I welcome any thoughts, advice, wisdom from my experienced colleagues, and I also welcome others to use this idea, expand on it and share your experience!