It must be holiday selling planning time! Marcy writes:
We opened May 2011. It’s about 3200 sq feet, with great visibility on “the main drag”. Many folks will have to drive by us to get to the bigbox stores on black Friday. …I am considering opening for Black Friday. With no “history” to rely on, am I crazy to open on Black Friday? Should I throw my hat in the ring and open at 3:00 am offering expressos? Would love to know your thoughts and the experience of other shop owners! Thanks!
There’s plenty of info in Holidays in Resale on this topic, but help Marcy out here:
what’s YOUR experience with opening the Friday after Thanksgiving?
What did you do right or wrong? What are you planning to do this year and why? Share, by commenting below! No inspiration here to contribute? These past posts talk a little about Thanksgiving in the resale world. Maybe they’ll contribute to your thoughts?
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 
Great suggestions and ideas! I never even thought of opening early for Black Friday…now we are going to!
[…] about what other shops think about Black Friday and start letting your clientele know what’s […]
Our town has a big Christmas parade that evening, so we open and do very well. When I first began and ran the small store by myself, I did not stay open the first year. I remember for ages after that, people would come in and tell me they had been by that day with their relatives/friends from out-of-town, and were disappointed that we were closed. Now we’ve moved to a larger location still on the main drag, and we even stay open during the parade. And yes, we let people use the restroom!
Thanks Jan, you’ve hit the nail on the head… how many folks have houseguests who would ADORE a trip to your shop? We used a big poster board, multi-colored markers for out-of-towners to add comments, and a big MAP to put stars on, as in “How far have YOU come to shop MYShop?”… it was really fun, got people socializing, and you KNOW when they’re socializing, they’re egging each other on to SHOP!
We were all set to be closed on this, our first Black Friday, assuming that people will be out looking fir bargains on new products, but this thread is encouraging. I’m curious if store location is a factor. Our store isn’t near many retail stores, so unless you are passing by or visiting one of the few resturaunts near by we are a little off the radar.
Black Friday has proven to be a total bust for us. We gave it a try 3 out of the 4 yrs we have been open and offered donuts, juice, coupons, and discounts if they brought a friend. We advertised for weeks each year, and even did a survey one year to see if folks were interested. The survey got lots of response – the sale didn’t. My daughter and I were discussing this just yesterday and this year I think we will just be closed on Black Friday and enjoy the day with family. I say that right now but I do feel another survey coming on!
We offer specials but customers then to be more of an afternoon crowd. We typically hit well above sales goal for the day. I appreciate the ideas, sounds like it is possible to bring in the early crowd with a little planning.
Last year was our first Black Friday. It was a good day for us as well. We did not open early but we did have a sale on some items. It wasn’t huge discounts but we were busy all day. I plan to do bigger and better this year. We will be open early, serve breakfast, and have a giveaway for a predecorated Christmas tree. Advertising for this event will begin the first week of November. Good luck to all!
We open early (at 8 am) and offer Free Breakfast. Since many of these people have been shopping very early, they are hungry at 8. We have a fruit tray, bagels, etc and they love it. We do very well on Black Friday.
We opened in September 2010 and were unsure about opening “Black Friday” last year…we offered refreshments (cupcakes and bottled water), opened for regular hours and had discounts on gift certficates and had (at that point) our biggest sale day. Our advertising was in the newspaper, on our website and our fledgling Facebook page.
We have had great success with “private” events for our best customers, so this year we are having a preview sale, 2 hours earlier than our normal hours, by invitation only for our best customers. Everything in the store will be 20% off all day, but our invitees will get first dibs. Makes them feel important and appreciated!
Open, open, open!!!!! We began in February of 2010 with 3700 sf on a main drag and I thought we should close and enjoy the holiday at Thanksgiving 2010. I thought all the bargain hunters were at the big boxes. My husband disagreed and so we opened at the regular 10AM time with 30% off the entire store excluding furniture and handmade goods by locals. We had 10 regulars waiting for us to open and had our best sales day since our opening, $3500. This year we are opening at 8 am and will see what happens. I too had regulars in the week before to find the things they wanted and some tried to hide things so we went through the store and relocated items to where they were supposed to be. Four hours of a line that was 20 people deep at opening. Only advertising iwas n the local Clipper coupon magazine.
A long time ago, I used to think that there was no way I could compete, so it was just business as usual for me. Then one day, I read a blog from a bunch of other shop owners who had their own ‘Early Bird’ sales and did phenomenal business. So I bit the bullet and gave it a try…and oh my goodness they were right! I open an hour earlier, with everything an extra 25% off from 8am until 10am, then we switch to an extra 20 % off until noon, then we switch to an extra 10% off until 5 pm. It is CRAZY busy. My loyal customers are waiting in the parking lot (some even scope out what they want earlier in the week and come back for the sale). We have a blast changing signs and making the announcement 5 minutes before the discount changes to get in line. The sale falls at a great time to sell off stuff while people are still shopping. It is so fabulous that we copied the whole procedure for Memorial Day in the Spring.
I recommend opening at your normal time, my experience is that I am busier on the Saturday and the Sunday!
We own a small consignment shop on a main drag on the way to the big stores.We opened early 2 years ago. We usually open at 11 and we opened at 8.We didn’t have 1 customer before our regular time. We did alot of advertising and we offered everything in the store at 50% off for 3 hours.After 11 we were very busy for the rest of the day.Go figure.We won’t open early again..
J, thanks for contributing! What methods did you use to get the word out about your discount? Why do you think that it was ignored?