Posted in economics of resale on May 5, 2009| 3 Comments »
Which strikes you more... the WORD "money" or this photo?
I got two emails from consignment shops today. Both were focused on the great items they had received in just then, and both mentioned some great, great stuff. Both used a broadcast email service and had designed their email to be tempting and colorful. Each had a nice variety of clothing and accessories, good copy that made me want to get over there (1500 miles and 3000 miles away notwithstanding!)….
Posted in economics of resale, Shopkeeping talk, tagged accepting, accessories on April 22, 2009| 2 Comments »
Some advice to help avoid the fake designer handbag business (that goes beyond the ever-popular and exclusionary “buy in a real store”):
Videos: (more…)
Posted in economics of resale, Shopkeeping talk on April 21, 2009| 4 Comments »
Before you read this post, go visit the well-meaning but clueless Buy Local 3/50 site. While this “movement” might be important, I have had a hard time getting behind it. Let me explain why.
The Gift & Home Channel talks about the conundrum How do we GET consumers to shop local? and answers it We need to TEACH them that shopping locally is helpful to the local economy. (
All CAPS above, my addition for emphasis.)
This ignores the basic tenet of WIIFM and is unhelpful at the least and arrogant at the most. What’s in it for me? is the basic need of shoppers that trumps everything else, always, and especially now with money tight.
Consumers, especially NOW when every dollar is [more than ever] carefully (more…)
Posted in economics of resale, Shopkeeping talk on April 19, 2009|
One of the biggest costs for anyone using a computer printer for consignor lists, buy-outright receipts, price tags, printing out emails and so on can be the ink. That ink, too, is not Earth-friendly, so wouldn’t it be really cool if (more…)
Posted in economics of resale, Shopkeeping talk, Slices of (my) life, Used Stuff in the News on March 21, 2009| 5 Comments »
Back in the 1950’s and the ’60’s and even later, it was not at all uncommon for a woman to have little or no spending money under her private control.This was brought home to me as the only girl-child of a fiercely independent woman, most vividly in my mother’s consignment shops.
One of my mother’s shops, called Pin Money, was in Roslyn, an affluent New York suburb. I started going to “the shop” with Mom when I was just 8. I loved to eavesdrop on my mother dealing with her consignors as I swept the dust-bunnies from under the racks, straightened hangers on the back porch, or lined the index cards on which consignment records were kept.
“What do you need?” the ladies would ask my mother. They stood there in their lovely expensive chic ensembles, with matching hosiery, shoes, even gloves, and asked my mother in her wraparound Madras skirt. They’d take out a little gilt notepad with a cunning little mechanical pencil attached (how I lusted after those!) from their alligator handbags and write down “size 12 lavender tweed suit” or “Jantzen swim ensemble, greens mostly, size 8” and off they would go.
The next time I saw them, they were picking up the proceeds from the sale of these items. They had gone directly to Bonwit Teller’s or Saks or Bergdorf Goodman from my mother’s consignment shop, there to purchase on their husband’s charge accounts specific items…then back to Pin Money to
These women were controlled by their husbands, my mother explained to a wide-eyed little girl, by being given very little money of their own. But, on the other hand, they had free access to their husband’s house charge accounts at local stores. So, for these women to have even a modicum of freedom and privacy on how they spent their money, they would charge a sure-seller on their husbands’ accounts, consign it, and receive a small portion back in cash.
As a matter of fact the very name of my mother’s businesses, Pin Money Shops, was a reflection of that era. Pin Money is the term for money given by a husband to his wife for private and personal expenditures. So Pin Money, the shop, served to supplement, her personal expenditures for some women with clueless husbands. Makes you view “Mad Men” in a new light, doesn’t it?
Another definition of pin money is “a small amount of extra money earned to buy small luxuries”, which is much more gender-neutral, but not near as much fun.
Vintage handbag photo from vintageskins.com which has some great stuff.
Too Good to be Threw is the flagship site of the TGtbT Family of Sites for the Professional Resalers
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 