Moving an Elf on the Shelf around
your resale, thrift or consignment shop during the holidays can be a fun promotion, enhance your shoppers’ exploration of your shop, lead to merriment and make your social media lively, loving… and local.
Archive for the ‘Really good ideas’ Category
1 Hour Holiday Windows for Consignment & Resale Shops
Posted in Really good ideas, Shopkeeping talk, Weekend Warrior, tagged christmas, holidays, resale shopkeeping, sea of sameness, small business, word of mouth on November 15, 2015| 3 Comments »
From the author of The Big Book of Window Displays: The Art & Business of Irresistible Windows comes these examples:
Yes, you want your shop to look festive all the holiday season long. No, you don’t have much time, money, or space.
Well, here’s some inspiration you (with, maybe, a little help from friends & family!) can do in one hour, andleave up from now til 2016…
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Like trees, but crave some eye-catching color in your display? Washi tape!
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Or maybe a festive valance would suit your shop’s branding better. Try ornaments:
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Or yard-sized candy canes!
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TRULY one-hour (or less!) is my favorite off-the-cuff holiday look. Take a big brush and some water-based paint, and do a big yellow star inspired by this heart.
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If you have a steady hand, use this as inspiration for a window pen painting spree. Try three per window, high enough to not obscure your merchandise display:
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If you have a few minutes to spare, leave tiny doodle messages in the corners of your mirrors throughout your shop:
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Why you’re the last person you should ask
Posted in Really good ideas, Shopkeeping talk, tagged consignors, customers, daily operations, resale shopkeeping, starting a consignment shop, success on October 19, 2015| 2 Comments »
When you first started out, you probably based your business plan for your consignment or resale shop on what you wanted or thought you’d want if you were a customer. And that’s okay, ’cause you had lifelong experience as a customer. Your gut instinct (along with the advice in Too Good to be Threw Complete Operations Manual) got you started.
But now, whether you’re a year in or twenty years in, you have lost something… and it’s for the better.
You are no longer a “typical customer”… and you can no longer go with your feelings when making decisions about how your shop will grow and develop.
So stop asking yourself “What would I like?”
Instead, ask “What would my target customer like?” For example, you may have, back when you opened, chosen to have business hours that ended at 5pm. After all, we need to be home to get supper on for the family, you reasoned. Women haven’t got the time to shop after work. But if you continue to close at 5pm, because that was your decision way-back-when…. and don’t use your recent experience to observe that many of your shoppers want to shop on their way home from work… at 5:15 or 5:45 or even, depending on your market, at 6:15… you may be hampering the growth of your business.
In other words, once you become a shopkeeper,
your typical-shopper instincts wither and die.
You no longer can walk into a new-merchandise store, whether it’s a department store, a boutique, or a hardware store, the way a typical shopper would. Instead, your shopkeeper mind is cataloging a hundred things: what their signage says. Whether your ease of passage is impeded upon by displays. And so on. You are no longer, and never will be again, the typical shopper. Your personal reaction is no longer a reliable indicator of the right thing to do. But that’s okay, because you have turned into a retailer. A retailer who can ask, instead of What would I like?,
“How can I make their shopping experience more delightful here than anywhere else?”
Popping in on a consignment shop… and falling asleep.
Posted in 5- Minute Fixes, I've been meaning to tell you, Really good ideas, Shopkeeping talk, tagged display, merchandising, resale shopkeeping, success on August 24, 2015| 6 Comments »
I was early this Saturday for a meeting, and decided to stop by a small consignment shop I’d visited before.
Theda Bara, shown here in 1917, would have loved to see your Weird & Wonderful shop racks!
It’s a perfectly-fine shop, and I’ve bought here before, so I thought I might find a treasure or two.
What I found?
Stealing ideas from Amazon
Posted in Really good ideas, Shopkeeping talk, tagged advertising, profit, promotions, resale shopkeeping, selling, small business, starting a consignment shop, web, word of mouth on June 30, 2015| 7 Comments »
So you want more folks to follow your social media, use your app, think about your consignment, resale or thrift shop every day?
Here’s (more…)
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