Are most of your customers women? Do they support other women?
If so, you might wish to encourage them do so, using your consignment or resale shop to help. March 8 is International Women’s Day. Not a lot of lead time for those shopkeepers who haven’t planned ahead, but here are some ways you might use your shop to do some good:
- Suggest donations to the movement, offering your clients an incentive to do so.
- Host a small event, asking for specific donations as an “entry fee.”
- Dedicate a percentage of sales on that day to a worthy charity whose mission is extending a helping hand to women.
- Offer a discount on a purchase to those who bring in a donation on that day. Extend the discount through the weekend, perhaps March 8 to March 11, to allow for word-of-mouth to build your donation.
- Dedicate proceeds from your dollar rack to a women’s charity for that same time period, labeling the rack and spreading the word via your social media.
- Or simply do an attractive display of ODs in your swing shop that you will be donating to a specific local charity.
Get on the phone today to find a clothing or home goods pantry which helps the women of your area if you are not already working with such a group. See what donations would be most useful to them. Tell them what you can do to help. Ask for their assistance in getting the word out and publicizing your event. Even a small contribution from your business and its fans could make all the difference to those in need.
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 
Will do Kate.
Kate. The following are some ways that we like to give back.
Our local women’s shelter has an account with us that is funded by donations from our community. The ladies can come and choose anything in the store & not just what the charity has available to them. Our consignors can choose to have items donated to the women’s shelter account. Another thing we did this year. We had a prom consignment event in February. February is teen violence awareness month. We had a Miss Ritz contest and all of the contestants had to bring an item (s) to donate to the shelter and they had to write a short essay on why the shelter benefits our community.
We participate in the local Breast Cancer Support group Paint the Town Pink event by donating a large percentage of our sales of pink items to that day.This year we will be putting together a team to raise money and walk in the Hope for a Day walk.
Giving back gives us a great deal of joy!
Thanks for sharing some of your help-the-community ideas. Great stuff ladies. In fact, so great, this info should be on your web site! If you’re coming to NARTS Conference this year, come to my “What ME, Have a Blog?” workshop and I’ll show you how EASY that would be…