You know I always preach that true, caring customer service and attitude is the easiest, cheapest, and more productive way to differentiate your consignment, resale, or thrift shop from its competitors. This is true whether your competition is other resalers, big-box stores, online stores…whatever.
But there’s something else you need to address: the importance of having your past shoppers and suppliers think of your business FIRST… before the other options available to them.
What’s the absolutely biggest reason for shoppers to think of you first? Beyond quality, service, price, timeliness, and innovation, there is one more. One that will get customers in more often, cause more word-of-mouth, and put food in your family’s mouths:
Selection.
If a shopper is to enjoy, remember, and repeat her visits to your business, she has to be reasonably well-assured that she will find something wonderful she never knew she needed every single time she comes in. And if she not only finds something every time, but many somethings, all the better!
Having a vast and rapidly-changing selection is especially important in resale retail, because try as we may, resale shops are not The Gap or Saks Fifth Avenue. Our customers cannot simply pop in any day and snag a specific need, say a white tee or a pair of black silk trousers. We’re not that kind of store. Resale shopping is all about the thrill of the hunt!
Which means we have to make sure our customers know that, busy as they might be, if they don’t stop by often they’ll lose the opportunity to score a few— or a few dozen— treasures. How do we do that? Two ways: have a vast selection every time they visit, and make sure that they crave to see it all, every last rack and corner, every time.
What, you say, your place isn’t that big,
how can you possibly have a vast selection that changes so fast that your customers will buy it today, because it may not be here tomorrow? How can they see it all, every time? The magic you will weave is expressed in one word:
turnover.
With a well-designed shop, using every possible inch, your turnover rate will amaze you. Never again will a customer say, “Well, I’ll just wait and see if it gets marked down”, because she’ll know that long before that time comes, some wiser shopper will snap it up.
If there is one Product for the Professional Resaler I wish I could gift every shop I see with, it’s The Essential Guide to Using All your Space. It’s chock-full of all the terrific things you can do to
make turnover happen,
which leads to selection, which leads to very happy shopkeepers. If you think you could improve not only the space you have, but the ability to lead shoppers through it, get this Product.
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 