Auntie Kate The Resale Expert

I’m like any other customers of yours. I often can’t remember the name of a shop that I want to recommend to a friend. Which means all the good will built up during my visit gets lost before it becomes profit-building word of mouth.

Make sure that never happens in your consignment or resale shop. Ideally, you’ll have chatted with everyone who comes in and be able to comfortably offer your card, “here, take our card to remember us by. See you again soon!”

Yes, business cards work well. But what else can you add?

If you sell childrenswear, or simply have a lot of parents with young children come in*, how about a handout for the kids?

Connect-the-dots, find the words, and paper dolls are great activity sheets you can create inexpensively, by simply adding your shop’s info to a free printable found on the Internet. If your budget allows for color printing or crayons for coloring, that’s nice, but even a maze in black-and-white will be enjoyed by kids… and may even get posted on Grandma’s fridge, creating another customer for your shop. Try offering a different sheet every few weeks to keep interest high.

And of course the kids will clamor “Let’s stop at the puzzle store”… AKA

the McDonald’s marketing strategy.

These types of handouts are great for fairs and booth use to spread your business name far and wide. Local cafes might be delighted to receive these from you to keep their customers happy, and that gains you a whole new market of folks who think your shop is just the friendliest local business.

* (Your shop doesn’t sell kidstuff, or you don’t see a lot of little ones shopping with their moms? Try a customer service brochure. Ideas for 9 different brochures are on the TGtbT.com Layouts Page.)

This is the Pinterest board which inspired this post, but I’m sure you can find thousands more ideas by searching yourself.

Please, just be sure that you are allowed to use the images for your shop!