A weekly feature where you can visit a gently-used, recycled blog post. It’s even better the second time around. Because some info here on Auntie Kate is just Too Good to be Threw.
Archive for the ‘Shopkeeping talk’ Category
Deja Vuesday: The 4 Rules of Making it BIG in Consignment
Posted in Deja Vuesday, Shopkeeping talk on September 7, 2010| 2 Comments »
A weekly feature where you can visit a gently-used, recycled blog post. It’s even better the second time around. Because some info here on Auntie Kate is just Too Good to be Threw.
Happy Labor Day. Read my consignment labor of love.
Posted in Shopkeeping talk, Slices of (my) life on September 6, 2010| 1 Comment »
If you have time between the potato salad and the picnic, read my labor of love this Labor Day.
Free for the reading on the internet.
The Picker Who Perished, a TGtbT Consignment Shop Mystery.
If you like it, you can even purchase real, autographed copies of it for resale or for drawing prizes in your resale shop or for gifts to your best clients, staff, or volunteers.
TMI?
Posted in Shopkeeping talk, tagged Products for the Professional Resaler, success on September 4, 2010|
There is simply Too Much Information out there, isn’t there?
You haven’t got enough time to possibly USE all the great info out there for resale and consignment shops, do you? There’s fuzzies to hunt down and kill, shelves to straighten. Shirts to colorize. Not to mention a life to live.
Count on Auntie Kate to help you.
She sorts out all that information out there into usable ideas for our resale industry. No more wasting time winnowing through advice that would be great…if you were a banker or a restauranteur or a major corporation with offices in ten key cities.Avoid being out of your shop’s staples by pricing slightly higher. If you never have enough of best-sellers, maybe you have underpriced them. from 101 Daily Tips in the Luncheonette.
You want some ideas for promotions especially for resale stores? And how to make money off of them, before during and after? You’d love to see some window display guidelines and themes? How about specific suggestions for dealing in home furnishings, childrenswear, or how to buy outright without losing (pardon the pun) your shirt? No more wishing you could gather the info to actually HELP your business prosper.
Set goals for your promotion. If your event is not a financial windfall but the paper runs a wonderful article, will that be worth the work?
from Promote with Pizzazz in the TGtbT Shop.
How to switch seasons for maximum sales? Hold a bag sale or create a dollar rack? Use the powers of pakaways to make next season bigger, brighter, and better? The ins and outs of pricing, displaying, arranging and advertising the vast selection of used goods that come in your door? No more trying to translate college-professor ideas into what works in real-life resale.
Stars are a holiday theme with terrific promotional ideas. Dozens of stars make great window trim. Hang more from your ceiling. Put one on each dressing room. Give away a How to be a Holiday Star brochure: tips, recipes, and why it’s fun to shop at your place. from Holidays in Resale in TGtbT Shop.
Is your time money? Of course it is. Don’t let TMI drown your business or engulf your personal time. Focus on Products for the Professional Resaler for immediate, useful, and feasible ideas to make your shop be all it can be. Visit the Too Good to be Threw Shop, the TGtbT Layout Ideas Collection, and the Lunch with Kate mini-Products. And get
the information you need to make your shop be all you dream it can be.
Say they want to bring stuff in. What happens now in your consignment or resale shop?
Posted in economics of resale, Shopkeeping talk, tagged consignment on September 3, 2010| 1 Comment »
When a potential supplier to your consignment, resale, or thrift shop asks about bringing items in, what happens?
I mean, besides your friendly, upbeat enthusiasm?
Do you have a how-to brochure right on your counter (and in your entry and by the dressing rooms for easy pick-up) that they can take home with them, to
turn their impulse into dollars for them, your shop, your cause?
No, no, no. I do not mean a copy of your consignment agreement or a flier about the good your charity does. Or even “what we buy.” I mean a real, honest-to-goodness how-to handout that will not only
increase quality incoming
but save you time,
and save them face.
If you don’t have a how-to handout now or if yours is not as welcoming as you would like, this would be a good weekend to develop one.
Points to remember as you develop the language for your brochure:
- Keep it light and easy, open and encouraging.
- Use bullet points (they’re so easy to scan, aren’t they? You’re doing it now.)
- Show your personality. Imagine you’re speaking to one person. You wouldn’t boss them around, would you?
- Brag on your business. Project confidence that your shop will be able to sell their goods well.
- Point out, in a subtle way, how your shop can help them pass on their underloved possessions better/ more effectively than any of the alternatives available to them.
Don’t forget to include:
- What’s in it for them (it’s not ALL about the money. Offer alternative reasons to sell their items to you, consign them at your shop, donate them to your cause.)
- Give them justifications for getting rid of “perfectly-good” possessions (they really do need permission!)
- A simple, step-by-step way to tackle that big job of cleaning out.
- A selling message about your shop (after all, everyone’s a customer, even those with overloaded closets and cupboards!)
Then, before you produce your brochure,
check it for spelling, typos, awkward sentence structure. Better yet, have someone else check it (it’s hard to see one”s own mistakes, isn’t it? Happens to me all the time.) You don’t need to follow those 5th-grade grammar rules about incomplete sentences and dangling participles, but you do need to make it understandable.
Then give it to
a handful of honest, eagle-eyed and sharp-brained friends, customers, buddies for their opinion. Does it sound easy? Appealing? Lucrative? Does it present your business the way you’d like to be perceived? Are they all revved up to sort through their stuff?
Sound like too big a job? You have more pressing matters at the shop? You could simply
order the Customer Service Brochures Layout Idea Kit from Too Good to be Threw, which has this brochure and 8 others for $49. Heck, $49 is less than a half-hour’s for a graphic designer. That’s NINE different brochure ideas you can use as the starting point for your own Customer Service Brochures. You can even, if you wish, take the printed-out brochures directly to your local printer, ask that your shop logo, address, etc be pasted in, and order up as many as you like!
More consignment & resale shop promotional ideas: October is…
Posted in I've been meaning to tell you, Shopkeeping talk, tagged promotions, success on September 2, 2010|
Is that a dog or a popcorn kernel?
Is that a dog or a popcorn kernel?
It’s fun to have something to tell your shoppers, a reason for them to return and a reason for them to talk about your shop, isn’t it?
That’s a good reason to have an event in your shop. It doesn’t need to be elaborate (after all, you’re probably up to your (more…)
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