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Posts Tagged ‘advertising’

Snooze Alarm: Stop nagging, start enticing.

Posted in Shopkeeping talk, tagged , , on April 21, 2011|

Another installment of the thrilling series

Are you putting your customers to sleep?SNOOZE ALARM: Really really boring ways to say things

Some exceedingly talented consignment, resale, and thrift shopkeepers can manage not only to sound boring, but (more…)

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Let your merchandise speak for itself.

Posted in Shopkeeping talk, tagged , on April 20, 2011| 14 Comments »

You know I think consignment, thrift, resale shops underutilize photos. I think every shop could use a lot more of them. On their sites, on their blogs, in Facebook (hey, whatever happened to flickr and twitpic?)

And you know I am a fan of (more…)

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SNOOZE ALARM, Part 2: Tell ’em in a way they really will HEAR.

Posted in Shopkeeping talk, tagged , on April 13, 2011| 5 Comments »

More of our mini-seriesAre you putting your customers to sleep?

SNOOZE ALARM: Really really
boring ways to say things

Facebook and your shop blog are great places to let fans, friends, and followers know what your customers want to buy. And many consignment, resale, and thrift shops do, indeed, mention “what we need.” Good idea….done in an intriguing and interesting way.

But oh, oh, oh. Watch your language. (more…)

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Getting Full Value from the Good you do

Posted in Not-for-Profit Resale, Shopkeeping talk, tagged , , , on April 11, 2011| 4 Comments »

Think of all the good your shop does for your community:The good consignment, resale, and thrift shops do in their communities

  • You collect items which, while unsalable in your business, are useful and needed in various charities around town. Quite possibly you even donate your time, sweat, and gas money delivering these items around town.
  • Perhaps you maintain consignment accounts whose proceeds go directly, as cash (always needed!) , to charitable causes. Perhaps you actively seek out non-profits to partner with in this way.
  • You donate door prizes and silent auction items and things for goodie bags to charitable fundraisers. Maybe you take out ads in the Band Boosters program or give the local theater group some costumes and props.
  • Unsold items are carefully sorted by you for donation where they will do the most good.
  • You donate space and your traffic to the Pep Squad booth selling Christmas wrap, the Girl Scouts with their cookies, the animal shelter with their hug-a-pup event.
  • Your provide a sales outlet for handmade crafts from the assisted-living crafts programs or a venue for the community college’s interior design classes. Maybe you do presentations on entrepreneurship at a local school or give a “dress for success” show at the women’s resource center.
  • You donate a portion of sales proceeds from various events (bag sales? dollar racks?) to local non-profits.
  • You provide X jobs for the community and plow back $Y into your community…a substantial figure, when you count consignor/seller income from selling through you, salaries, rents, local business supply purchases, on and on…)

Do you get full value from the good you do in your community?

Do you publicize your good deeds and the helping hands you extend to a broad spectrum of local assistance?

It’s one thing to donate clothes to a church’s free clothing pantry or to give $1 per bag sold at your bag sale to the emergency shelter. It’s another thing to let your marketplace know that you are fully vested in, and active with, people helping people right here at home. That, when they patronize your business, they are taking part in a network of loving concern that reaches not only their lives, but their neighbors’ as well.

Think of it this way: when you let people know that you’re doing good, you’re inspiring them to do the same.

Toot your horn. Modesty only becomes those who sit back and don’t do anything to interweave their lives with others’.

Be bold in declaring that when folks do business with you, it benefits not just them, but also your community. Step up and say

“We step up and we thank YOU for doing the same by dealing with us.”

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What’s more important: tempting their imagination or telling them how much it costs?

Posted in economics of resale, Shopkeeping talk, tagged on April 7, 2011|

So what’s more important: tempting their imagination or telling them how much it costs?

(Or, in the case of our consignment, resale, and thrift shops, telling them (more…)

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