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Great shop. Wish I could remember the name.

February 10, 2013 by Auntie Kate of Too Good to be Threw

Consoignment shop goodies

Obviously, this is not the photo that goes with the real-life example I’m talking about. But it’s pretty, isn’t it?

Nice, colorful photo of a consignment shop’s wall display posted on the shop’s Facebook page with this message:

“Great summer tops — at  [name of shop deleted]”

Almost immediately, this exchange took place:

    • [FB fan, name deleted] Where ?
    • [shop replies] Where what?
    • [fan] I don’t see on my phone what store this is or where it is located. Thank you.

And the shop replied, politely, with the shop name again (notice that it was also in the original post.)

Now, admittedly, that fan with a phone was being a bit dense. But the shopkeeper could have helped out a little, with the simple addition of the shop name and/or address, URL, phone,

in the photo itself.

Add text to your photos. Too busy, you say, to alter the quick shot you took? To make your photos worth the electrons they’re printed on? Well, then, include a sign in your photo that has your shop name on it. Do something to make the effort you took to take the photo and post it, worth it.

Side benefit: The more they see your shop name, the less likely they are to send their friends to the wrong shop… ’cause they don’t remember your name.

Lesson learned: Leave nothing to chance. Or, they aren’t paying attention. (And there’s a Part 2 to this blog topic, ’cause it’s Important.) Or Let your merchandise speak for itself.

Posted in 5- Minute Fixes, economics of resale, Shopkeeping talk | Tagged , |

Love letters: How to get them

February 9, 2013 by Auntie Kate of Too Good to be Threw

Well, ’tis the season of love… hearts and flowers everywhere, love is all around and so on!Do your customers love your consignment shop? Let 'em show it!

Why not make marketing use of Valentine’s Day… by asking your clientele towrite a love letter to your consignment, resale or thrift shop?

There’s two ways to do this, depending on what use you will make over the coming years of their compliments.

* The tactile way: Hands-on is most appropriate for Valentines, don’t you think? Provide your customers with paper and pencil, and on the bottom of the provided paper, add a little line re “Optional: Name______________ if you will allow us to use this in our marketing for MyShop”

* The social media way: Provide them with a card listing the various sites on which they can review your shop online. Expect a low rate of results on this… very few people will be motivated to save the card, and actually go to those sites. But it’s worth printing up some cards which basically costs only a few bucks.

Either way, make your request attractive and appealing: Give the “tactile” folks the heart-embossed pencil to keep, give the “social media” folks the card tied with curly ribbon to a baggie of candy hearts.

Here’s hoping your shop gets lots of Valentines this year that you can use on your site, blog, social media all year long!

Image by arztsamui courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

Posted in 5- Minute Fixes, Shopkeeping talk, Teeny Tips | Tagged , , , |

Go ahead, be a boy scout.

February 8, 2013 by Auntie Kate of Too Good to be Threw

Honest, trustworthy & loyal: a consignment credo

February 8 is Boy Scout Day, and the Boy Scout Law sounds like Continue Reading »

Posted in Shopkeeping talk | 2 Comments »

Non-sensible (nonsensical!) resale and consignment statements.

February 7, 2013 by Auntie Kate of Too Good to be Threw

Waking up your brain cellsSome real-life examples of flubbed opportunities, unclear wording, and just plain silly, silly, silly shop wording on the Internet.

Seriously? Does this make sense?

“We are not offering any BOR this month because January is too slow.” Um, excuse me, but because you’re not selling much this month, you will handicap your seasonal changeover? Are you trying to make February slow too? 

When you buy, you should NOT be using “today’s dollars”, that is, your immediate inflow, but rather, be watching your open-to-buy for a longer stretch of time. Perhaps this shop owner would profit by reading The BIG Book of Buying Outright

Seriously? Can you translate the following into something easily scanned?

Ran across this message on a consignment shop web site: “Hours of Operation: Sun: 12 p.m. – 5:00 a.m., Mon: 9:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m., Tue: 9:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m., Wed: 9:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m., Thu: 9:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m., Fri: 9:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m., Sat: 9:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.”

Couldn’t they just have said “Open 9 to 9 Monday-Saturday, and Noon to 5 every Sunday“? (I’m assuming they actually, upon reflection, know better than to say 12p.m. [there is no such time; p.m. means “after 12” so what’s 12 after 12?] I’m also assuming they didn’t really mean they were open on Sundays until 5 a.m., AKA 5 in the morning….)

Seriously? Well kiss MY grits.

Yes, this message was in all caps. WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO SELECT WHAT EVER LABELS/BRANDS & STYLES WE FEEL REFLECT OUR TARGET MARKET. WE DO NOT HAVE TO ACCEPT ALL OF YOUR ITEMS. WE DO NOT HAVE TO EXPLAIN WHY WE ARE NOT ACCEPTING PARTICULAR ITEMS.

And guess what? I DON’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THAT ATTITUDE.

Graphic from searchquotes.com

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Posted in Shopkeeping talk | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments »

Come in, take a look around, grab some ideas.

February 6, 2013 by Auntie Kate of Too Good to be Threw

You can learn a lot by looking. For example, this lovely photo just BRIMS with exciting ideas Continue Reading »

Posted in Shopkeeping talk, Teeny Tips | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments »

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