Auntie Kate The Resale Expert

How many times do you or a staffer touch incoming merchandise?

Ever thought about how much time that takes?

Ever thought about how much MONEY that takes?

• Take the batch from the consignor/ seller/ donor. Put it in your accepting area.
• Label it with the info you will need to later process it.
• Sort into things you can accept and those you can’t.
• Enter it into inventory.
• Go back and price each item.
• Rehang, fold, whatever. Maybe even steam it? Place on the sales floor.
• Label NTYs. Move them into short-term storage. Fetch them when the consignor/ seller comes to take them back.

I’m tired just typing that. Think about how you operate. Is there a way to stop touching these items over and over again? A way that not only will make you more efficient but that will please your supplier? A way that will allow you to get incoming on the sales floor in less than 24 hours? A way that your time can be spent selling, not accepting (after all, selling’s where the money is!)

Here’s an excerpt from Your Money-Wise Guide to Accepting & Pricing to help you make the most of your accepting/pricing time:

Tricks to quicken clothing check-in:
1- First, check the areas most likely to have too much wear: armpits, crotch, neck and wrists. Stains,  pilling, discoloration. Then, whether any elastic the garment might have is still snappy. Soil often shows most on the satin neck label.
2- Check for fading across shoulders, under lapels, across collar. Yes, things fade even in dark closets.
3- Next, holding the hem of the garment, pull it out so the front is as parallel to your lights as possible. Spots and stains pop out (this is the real reason for items having to be on hangers, and of course for having good lighting at your check-in area!)
4- Check fasteners: buttons, snaps, zippers. Then seams and hems (both for no missing stitching and for twisting which results from a garment being cut incorrectly when it was new and once it was washed, skewing. Knit fabrics are especially prone to this.)
5- Not everything, of course, is “good as new”. But at this point you need to examine according to your own standards. Is a missing button okay on an Escada suit, but too much of a flaw on an Anne Klein dress? Is that Eileen Fisher T-shirt artfully faded or is that Hanes T just too greyed? A bit of wear might be acceptable on something you really need (for example, a size 16 mother-of-the-bride outfit) but not on something you have an abundance of (size 6 Levis.)

And of course you don’t need to go through this entire process if the item is one that doesn’t pass the first few tests: a style your clientele wants, clean, odor-free. THOSE items get put aside without a second glance. The above 5 steps don’t matter if it’s not a style your customers will buy, if it’s soiled or reeks of smoke/ moth balls/ pets.

For more on how to accept and price incoming with profit in mind, get your own copy of Your Money-Wise Guide to Accepting & Pricing, a Too Good to be Threw Product for the Professional Resaler. Wouldn’t you love to have an hour or more back, every day? You can!