Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘resale shopkeeping’

Make some shelves into MORE shelves

Posted in 5- Minute Fixes, Shopkeeping talk, tagged , , on April 12, 2014| 1 Comment »

Need lots of shelf space, but only want to invest in a few of those plastic shelving units? Here’s (more…)

Read Full Post »

BIG ideas for small-rooms shop layouts

Posted in Shopkeeping talk, tagged , on April 10, 2014| 2 Comments »

Many consignment and resale shopkeepers are attracted to shops which are not the standard unobstructed room but rather contain a handful of small rooms. It might be the appeal of a sweet cottage or the reasonable rent of a suite of offices. But are these individual rooms too limiting…or can they actually be taken advantage of to make a shop which invites exploration and discovery, which tempts browsers to turn into buyers?

A collection of small rooms can become a wonderful shop with a little paint and imagination and a lot of moving merchandise around. Here’s how:

Develop your “living room” first. This is the central room of your business, where people enter and exit, and where you will greet visitors. Make this room as large as possible and use it to showcase whatever items will entice the broadest range of visitors into exploring the entire shop. This room serves as the introduction to not only your shop, but to the variety of goods you offer…your “departments.”

With teeny rooms, you can highlight a pop-up shop

It’s the departure lounge, in effect, for your many jewel-box-like destination rooms. In your living room/ lounge, display a taste of your selection. For clothing resale, a mix of accessories plus several mini-swing shops/ display areas of current goods works best to lure browsers onward. For home decor shops, universally-appealing items such as small furniture pieces, colorful soft goods, and gift items would be best used to showcase all your choices which your visitors have yet to discover.

In your auxiliary rooms, your destinations, think style, not substance. Imagine a colorful bazaar in some exotic setting. Each vendor offers an intriguing style statement: brass lanterns and embossed leather ottomans here, cotton candy and colorful all-day suckers there. Some shopkeepers think that they must divide their stock into categories, creating a “bottoms” room and a “dress” room and so on. Or a home goods shop might reason “this used to be the dining room so I’ll put all the dish sets here.”

This may be the way your inventory records work…but it’s not the way people browse, discover, and get tempted into purchasing.

Style divisions is the way to go when you have to split your offerings.

Thus:
* A mostly-clothing shop might offer a room of “Fun weekend wear”, “Looking Good on the Job”, and “Celebrations.” Each of these areas also showcase allied merchandise: sneakers and hiking boots in Weekend, pumps and workday flats in Job, sequined sandals in Celebrations.

Of course, these divisions are fluid. Does a white Spandex turtleneck go in Weekend or Job? And what about the person whose required job attire is actually cocktail dress? That’s the fun of it…and the salesmanship of it. Moving merchandise from one style division to another will increase its saleability, and chatting with a customer about how her weekend wear requires a pin-striped suit because she works as a Saturday receptionist at a law firm, keeps your shop vibrant and exciting.

* A shop which focuses on home goods might arrange its offerings into Country, City Loft, Cottage Style, and so on.

Again, these divisions are ever-changing and quite flexible. Do the saltware crocks go in Country? Well, they could… but this week, they might look really good in the City Loft because that sleek blue patent chaise is the exact same blue…

With even more smaller rooms, you can set up and change continually a pop-up shop that features whatever’s hot in the marketplace now. These could be style fads, seasonal necessities, or simply a look/category/style you have a lot of right now. Thus, a smaller room might be Safari! or Resort Wear or all your black and white offerings.

Read Full Post »

Are your customers rationally satisfied? Too bad.

Posted in economics of resale, Shopkeeping talk, tagged , , on April 8, 2014| 3 Comments »

Ran across this report recently… interesting way to approach your customer service.

 

…customers who are extremely satisfied — those who provide the highest rating of overall satisfaction with a company’s products or services — can be classified into two distinct groups: those who are (more…)

Read Full Post »

Help your new store manager succeed

Posted in Shopkeeping talk, tagged , , , , on April 5, 2014|

Help your consignment or resale manager succeedDoing some research for a consultation client store, I found these 6 steps in developing a manager that all shops could use:

I would love to have a quarter for every new manager I’ve seen flail and flounder in his/her new job. Since in most cases each was promoted because he/she is a great individual contributor but has little if any management experience, it’s not too surprising when that person takes a while to find his/her footing.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

Good thoughts in a jar

Posted in 5- Minute Fixes, Really good ideas, Shopkeeping talk, tagged , on March 27, 2014| 6 Comments »

Here’s a way to keep yourself and your staff attuned to the happy reasons you run a consignment, resale, or thrift shop.

Too Good to be Threw is the Premier Site for Professional Resalers

And a way, too, to put the not-so-happy aspects of running the shop in the proper perspective.

Keep a jar on your sale counter. Every time something NICE happens, write a “happy memory” note and tuck it inside.

  • Compliments, friendly customer, the perfect display everyone adores.
  • The little boy who HUGGED the toy car his father bought him.
  • The home-baked cookies Mrs. Jones dropped by.
  • The sun shining.
  • The customers who clapped when shy little Lucie came out of the dressing room in her first-ever prom dress.

Every time something NOT SO NICE happens, and you’re irked or upset or downright mad, open the jar and throw away a happy memory note. If you can. Is the NOT SO NICE happening…

  • the short-tempered consignor,
  • the customer who always wants you to sell her something for less than it’s priced,
  • the neighbor who smokes right near your open shop door

… really worth tossing a happy memory for? If it is, fine, throw one random happy memory away.

But I think you’ll find you’d rather hold on to the happy memory, and toss the bad incident where it belongs: in the trash.

Here’s to a packed-full jar of happy memories, and to your very seldom feeling that something unhappy requires you to fish a happy out and throw it away. Hey, here’s an idea… at your staff year-end holiday party, how about opening that jar and reminiscing about

all the wonderful times you’ve had all together in your shop?

.
The photo, as far as I can tell, is originally from inchmark.squarespace.com

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »