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Posts Tagged ‘resale shopkeeping’

Inspiration in desk piles.

Posted in Really good ideas, Shopkeeping talk, tagged , , , , , , on September 1, 2013|

I’ve been spending the holiday weekend going through and actually DOING SOMETHING ABOUT all the notes and catalog pages and so on on my desk. (Yeh, I know, I’m a bundle of laughs and a real party animal, aren’t I?)

In amongst the October 2012 notes and the Christmas craft ideas yanked from a 1996 magazine (none of which I have felt moved in the past 17 years to do) were a couple of gems. Here’s one.

A customer of a consignment or resale or thrift shop wrote (somewhere, who knows? I take lousy notes)

How many times have we come out of [Shop Name] doing the happy dance!?!

Doin' the Happy Dance in front of my Favorite Consignment Shop!Would this not be a terrific photo op for YOUR shop? Seize the opportunity, when you have an excited and happy customer in front of you, to get her to pose, in front of your shop, with her purchase on/ in a bag/ on a hanger/ on the mover’s dolly, while dancing/ jumping/ cartwheeling in joy?

Hopefully, your shop name’s in the picture too, but if not, just add it with Picmonkey or Ribbet or whatever.

Think how many ways you can use this:

  • As a Facebook entry
  • In a Facebook Album: Our happy customers!
  • Twitter, Instagram, Google Plus, all those sites
  • As a photo in your entry or on your shop’s community bulletin board
  • On your blog (as a category!)
  • On your web site
  • In a slide show for your web site, a commercial* for your shop
  • As a print ad
  • As an uploaded photo on your Yelp etc reviews

Heck, you could even invite the year’s Happy Shoppers to a brunch event in your shop one Sunday to thank them! Talk about word of mouth!

 
* Ask a photographer friend about model releases.

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Tell me WHY.

Posted in 5- Minute Fixes, Not-for-Profit Resale, Shopkeeping talk, tagged , , , on August 29, 2013|

Telling someone to do something, without giving a reason why, only works for toddlers. And not very well at that.

So if you want your shoppers, your donors, your sellers or your consignors to DO SOMETHING, anything, for goodness’ sake, take a few moments to

tell them WHY.

What's in it for ME, ask all your Facebook friends.

Sure, they should think of you. But remind them why it’s so important. Keep a list of reasons to donate to your nonprofit, or sell to your buy-outright, or consign with your consignment shop, and use them in rotation. Bonus: watching your stats, you might even figure out which message means the most to your audience, and which means more traffic through your shop.

For example, just adding on a few words to the above message would “paint a picture” that would remain top-of-mind in your FB fans’ minds when they’re thinking of donating. Now, the NFP that posted this status update was a consultee of mine, so I know a little about what good donations to their stores do. So I’d suggest a few more words along the lines of:

  • Your gently-used dining room set could help finance a wheelchair for a sick grandparent.
  • The things your kids have outgrown could go back to third grade with a child who has nothing that fits.
  • Loved that cocktail dress 3 years ago? Let us turn it into tuition at business school for an eager-to-learn teen.

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How to tell when you NEED a staffer

Posted in economics of resale, Shopkeeping talk, tagged , , , on August 26, 2013| 3 Comments »

One of the causes of slow growth in consignment, resale and thrift shops is easy to diagnose:

Not enough hours in the day.

If you feel like you’re continually spending non-open hours in your shop playing catch-up, or if you find yourself getting impatient with shoppers or suppliers because your to-do list is getting longer by the day, it’s time to hire some help.

But hiring is scary. How can you justify adding payroll to your business overhead when you’re still not making a living yourself?

Some advice from Team Work: Staffing your Store

How to tell when you NEED a staffer

There are always warning signs that you need a staffer, or another staffer. The trick, of course, is recognizing these signs and acting on them before you start damaging your business, your income, or the morale of the other people involved in your shop.

Teamwork: Staffing your Store from Too Good to be ThrewMolly wrote:
We have been open for 6 months. The shop has been very well received. We’re still not making a profit. However, with the increase in customers we can no longer process much consignment during the day. I’m absolutely scrambling to keep up with processing. I often come in at 11pm when my kids are in bed and work until 3 or 4am. As a last resort I reverted to being closed on Mondays to catch up. I am trying to convince my husband that hiring a person will pay off in increased sales. He says my problem is that I’m not being firm enough in saying “No” to new consignment. I really disagree. Each consignment is a potential goldmine. I say my problem is not getting too much, but just figuring out how to process it quickly and sell enough of it. My husband is very reluctant to spend money on an employee. What do you think?

Marriette answered:
Do you do everything yourself, from checking the merchandise in to putting the
merchandise out? Plus take care of customers? When I started getting
overwhelmed with merchandise, I hired someone. Their responsibilities are to
wait on customers and put out merchandise. I do the sorting and processing.
They do the hanging and putting it out.

This is a great start to figuring out not only that you need help, but that it’s costing you. Working four or five hours past normal store hours? Closing a day a week? Both of those options are costing you way more money than any staffer could possibly cost you. Marriette suggests the next most important step: determining just what areas of your business you need help in. After all, how can you find someone to help the shop prosper, if you can’t define what it is you need a helper to do?

But can I AFFORD paid help?

Read more in Team Work: Staffing your Store

 

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Do I blog, Facebook, or Instagram that?

Posted in Shopkeeping talk, tagged , , , , on August 25, 2013|

Where would you put this announcement?It’s all about social media, when you want to motivate those who friend/ follow/ fan you to come in to shop.

There’s lots of stuff that you could share online that would polish the reputation of your business for the long-term, that could get shoppers in quickly, or even sell an unusual piece of merchandise you just got in. So where do you tell folks?

You want it FAST

Time-sensitive messages, such as items you just got in or today’s specials, need Facebook or Instagram. Which you use depends on your number of followers. Both, of course, is the best option. Twitter works well, too.

Scads of info for bricks-&-mortar shops using FB.
 

You want it to LAST

These types of updates should be relatively timeless: companionable “chats” about your shop’s mission or vision; casual “friends'” type info like beauty tips, merchandise use, even recipes; points of view on using the type of merchandise you sell, such as “what type of sofa suits” or “what the kids need for camp.”

For messages you want to last, use your shop blog. After all, a mini-essay or even a few links to “Decorate in eco-fashion” or “Which necklace for which neckline” can be Facebook-able for months or even years afterword: a single blog entry can be used to alert potential customers on social media to your business many times!

More on blogging for your retail store, and even a resale-specific Product for the Professional Resaler.

You want the PAST to improve your business FUTURE

Have you used your remodel, move, or even just the backstage prep for a special event as Facebook status updates or tweets? Combine them with a selling message and put it on your shop’s Pinterest. Then, later, you can remind folks of your shop simply by saying “Have your seen our Santa Sale pins? To be sure you don’t miss the Valentine Values event, sign up for our email notices!”

Using Pinterest for your resale business.

(And that brings up the issue of when and how to use your broadcast email capabilities. But that’s another post! In the meanwhile, here’s our past entries about email.)

Now, you know, or can learn, to interconnect the various social media so your contributions to the constant web conversation show up where, and when, you want them to.

Don’t forget, a good entry or update is often repeatable on that channel or others… at a different time of day, on another day, or even months later.

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Can they text to join your e-mail list… right in your consignment shop or on your resale blog?

Posted in 5- Minute Fixes, Functional Friday, Shopkeeping talk, tagged , , on August 23, 2013| 2 Comments »

Start the e-conversation with a text to join optionDo you use Constant Contact to send customer emails? Can your shoppers text to join while they’re in the shop… or reading your FB or blog?

This tutorial tells how. Looks easy… and they even create signage for you!

After all, you want the most folks you can to receive those emails from you, right?

And who doesn’t have their phone in their hand, right?

I’m guessing that the other broadcast email suppliers can do something similar. (Tip for dinosaurs who don’t text (raising hand) : THEY need a phone, not you 😉 )

 

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