How many businesses fail? The statistics are enough to give you a tummy ache. If you want to avoid being just one more consignment or resale shop that goes out of business, here are the things I have learned from watching, advising, and consulting with resale businesses across the continent: my compendium of consignment calamities/ resale wrongs/ buy-outright boo-boos that you might avoid if you see them here in black and white.

1 The first way to absolutely ruin your resale business before it even gets a chance to draw its second breath is selling what you want to sell, instead of what the people in your marketplace want to buy. You might adore, oh, say, Argyle socks, but if not enough people in town want or need them… well, let’s just say, a pair here and there of Argyle socks don’t pay the rent.

2 Money. It all comes down to money, doesn’t it? But not only for the obvious reasons. Sure, as an expert said, “The biggest issue that most entrepreneurs have is money. They’re not properly capitalized.” That certainly is a major money issue…but not the only one. Let’s start with not understanding your costs. Fiddling with and using your store space for dollar racks when you could use your energies on $15 racks. Investing in goods which you can only sell for twice their cost, when the same money could be returning many more times the cost of investment.
Then there’s misallocating money. Spending consignors’ money on advertising or overhead. Not having the tax money you have collected when it’s time to transmit it. That’s the business world equivalent of gambling with the rent money.

3 More talk about money: Are you too stingy? Too often, shopkeepers let frugality keep them from efficiency. If you are losing business because you can’t keep up with business, you need to find a way to solve that. But I can’t afford help! Is the drowning cry of many a shopkeeper who would have thrived…if she hadn’t been so cheap that she didn’t want to pay for help. Buying serviceable equipment and functional fixturing may seem like an extravagance, but if it makes you more productive, it’s downright stupid to hoard pennies here. One last word on money: Keep residual cash available at all times. Who knows when you’ll stumble across the deal of the century…or the storm of the century?

4 Now you won’t find this way to ruin your business, I guarantee, on any other “10 ways” list. It’s my own personal bugaboo. The fourth way to ruin your resale business is to bore your marketplace to death. This can be in presentation: Your shops looks the same as it did three years ago; or it can be in merchandise: How exciting and purchase-provoking are your goods? Shake it up. Add a little romance. Put some sizzle in your shop.

5 Reason Number Five that will ruin your business: doing what your competition does. Know what your competitors are offering, but don’t duplicate it. Find your own market appeal. Differentiate yourself by filling an unmet need or want in a more compelling way that your competitors. What’s your USP (Unique Selling Premise)?

6 Letting opportunities waltz on by, while busy humming a dirge. Whatever’s in the news: flash-in-the-pan “community closet running out of clothing for the homeless” or longer-lived ecology concerns/ economic forecasts; the shopkeeper on the way to ruin can’t be bothered to get the shop’s name and philosophy out there, because business is so bad. Self-fulfilling prophesy, that. How to fight this attitude? Learn to write a cogent and useable press release for every media outlet available. Have a press kit ready to go at all times. Read the news and listen to the Zeitgeist.

7 Playing Little Napoleon. Oh it’s tempting, that’s for sure. Resale shops are unique in that their suppliers of goods are many, diverse, multitudinous… and each has her/his own agenda. It’s not like ordering a line of goods from a manufacturer or distributor. Each of your suppliers has her or his unique take on what, when, and even why they want you to help them turn clutter into cash. This can be wearing, like herding cats. In order to herd this bunch of independently-minded cats, the shopkeeper who is ruining her business resorts to fighting words: “you have to” and “you can’t”..leading to energy- and budget-draining confrontations. And it’s not only your relations with suppliers. This Napoleonic attitude can flow over to customers as well. You can’t go around bossing your shoppers into giving you cash for your goods. Much as you’d like to.

8 Mixed messages. The shop who wants to position itself as a Mom-friendly venue but which maintains business hours which don’t match the needs of its target audience. The shop who wants to capture the working woman and her underloved wardrobe but which stops accepting incoming at 4pm. The boutique which wants only the best merchandise, then presents a it to shoppers in a less-than-quality manner. The proprietor who bills herself as the style and fashion expert but who dresses as though she’s running to the grocery on a rainy night. Keep every aspect of your business, from decor to decorum, consistent with your target market.

9 Another certain way to ruin a resale business is to assume that everyone’s paying attention. That the $1200 TV commercial you ran will have them leaping off their couches, grabbing their mad money, and rushing over to your store. Or that the front-page article on your shop that you scored last May continues to draw traffic five months later.
Truth is, no one is paying the slightest bit of attention to your business. And even if they do notice a mention of your business and make a mental note to come, they forget. Heck, even your best, most-regular, most-loyal customers and suppliers can easily forget you.
So, to keep from ruining your business: remind them often and in as many ways as you can think of about your business. Magnetic signs on the side of your car are not enough…nor are they “too much.” Anything and everything you can do, in a style appropriate to your marketplace, should be done. Always and forever. You don’t see Coke quitting advertising, do you?

10 According to research conducted by Dun & Bradstreet, 90% of all small business failures can be traced to lack of knowledge. Dozens of small business go under, not because the owners weren’t smart or talented or good managers, but because they were trying to re-invent the wheel rather than rely on proven, tested methods that work. They don’t take advantage of the education available everywhere, from books and Internet sources, SCORE and the SBA, even their own clientele. That’s something I particularly note: the shops which fail are seldom the shops which are actively learning. The ones that disappear have compounded their problems, many of which are listed above, with a staunch refusal to learn better.

"I buy things I don't need with money I don't have to impress people I don't know."

In your ongoing quest for new and quality suppliers for your consignment, thrift, of buy-outright resale shop, are you targeting the right members of your marketplace?

This is something to truly consider. How will you reach and impress and motivate the woman who drives this car?

PS “The 10 Best Ways to Ruin a Resale Business” is coming tomorrow. I’m having a tough time limiting the mistakes to just 10 consignment calamities/ resale wrongs/ buy-outright boo-boos. (Joke, guys, joke!)

Okay, memo to all of your consignment shops, resale stores, thrift stores who moan It CAN’T be time for Back to School marketing, the summer just got started!:

Get over it.

Mother Nature doesn’t determine when your customers want to buy something. The Great Consumer in the Sky (who was called, back when, Madison Avenue and now is called “The Media”) does. When the ads and the websites and the blogs say “Buy BTS” your shop had better be ready.

Why? I can’t STAND the way they rush seasons!

Well, because it’s not all about you. It’s about what your customers want. “Give the lady what she wants.” That’s how you must think, if you’re a retailer. Quite bluntly, what you think doesn’t matter. It’s all about HER.

Help the lady GET what she wants.

Okay, so you’re a one-woman crusade for “Let’s let summer be summer.” Fine. Noble calling and all that. Tally-ho and best wishes and sure I’ll sign your petition. But I have one question: why do you hate your customers so much?

Yes, you read that right. Why are you forcing your loyal, thrifty, eco-conscious customers to go to the (gasp!) mall and big-box stores for their BTS shopping, thereby wasting time, gas, patience and energy (oh yes, and money, money they were perfectly willing to spend in your shop if you’d had what they wanted), simply because YOU think that they should WAIT for fall? Because that’s what will happen. They’ll spend their hard-earned dollars on things that, if they could only wait ’til fall, you’ll have.

But guess what. By September, because you didn’t have what they wanted when they wanted it…your market for BTS will be filled. And the anguished cries of But I spent five times this price on a new jacket for Blair just last month will fill the air of your shop…instead of dollars from happy shoppers filling your till.

So pull out your fall, transitional, trans-seasonal items and feature them in your windows, your advertising, and your swing shop. Khakis and chinos and plaids and sweaters and afghans and silk fall leaves and persimmon pillows and chenille couches and whatever brings autumn to mind. Forget that it’s 90-in-the-shade. Your customers want to. Help them.

But yes, I agree, plenty of summer left.

Lots of resale shopkeepers say But people need something to wear now, now! That’s one reason they LIKE to shop here, because they can get something for this weekend.

Well, yes, I totally agree. And that’s why the second part of your shop rearrangement must be what I call The Rest of Summer is the Best of Summer. It is in fact an advertise-able benefit: The Rest of Summer is the Best of Summer. Need something for next weekend’s barbecue at the lake and all the mall stores have is plaid and fleece? Stop in at MyShop, where summer-fresh styles await!

So: gather the most-summery of your merchandise together in one (back corner, beHIND the fall stuff) area of your shop, add signage, and promote that your shop “has what you need when you need it.” Just don’t blow off all those eager next-season shoppers or you…and they…will regret it.

One out of 10 shoppers shops resale...how will you target the other 9?

America’s Research Groups estimates that 15 percent of people shop at resale or consignment shops each year; 21 percent shop at a department store at least that often.

That’s a figure worth pondering.

(Goodness only knows the percentage of people who shop resale regularly. I’m guessing it’s less than half of that 15% who say they do. And half of those people, probably shop say in a used-book store or an antique shop, once in a great while. So I’m gonna restate that figure and err on the side of caution: Only 10% of people shop resale more than once a year.)

Which means that there are 9 potential customers out there that you can appeal to. Not all of them will be the customer for your shop, but enough of them are future “regulars” that you should be excited. Wouldn’t you love to have TEN TIMES THE BUSINESS you have now?

My challenge to you: think of SIX ways you can get that 90% at least come EXPLORE what you have to offer. Even if only ONE out of the NINE decides that your shop is for her/him, why, you can DOUBLE your business.

SIX ways. Go ahead, grab a pencil and start scribbling. I’ll wait.

Look over your ideas now. Pick the “easiest” TWO to try right now, before the fall/BTS season hits. What makes one of your ideas “easiest”? Well. time money effort of course…but also “likelihood of success”.

Share which two you’ll try starting NOW by telling us below! Then come back and tell us what happened when you decided to broaden the audience for your business.

Day 5 of a week-long mini-webinar. If you’d like to add a comment, feel free. If you’ve just discovered us resale and consignment shop owners and thrift store managers, the webinar starts here: Day 1

How can the Lipstick Index help resalers?
words in first pp and links to my sites, inc start-a-shop (March & Ap highest ever hits at TGtbT, resalers are looking for ways to improve, and at HTC, people are trying to learn how to consign)

Estee Lauder has a market indicator they call a “lipstick index”. “We definitely see a spike in lipstick sales when the rest of the retail climate is challenged. It’s the small luxuries that do well. Lipstick offers an easy pick-me-up or splash of color in an otherwise dreary moment….”

It’s thought that a consumer turns to less expensive indulgences, such as lipstick, when she (or he) feels less than confident about the future. Therefore, lipstick sales tend to increase during times of economic uncertainty or a recession. This term was coined by Leonard Lauder (chairman of Estee Lauder), who consistently found that during tough economic times, his lipstick sales went up. The indicator has been quite a reliable signal of consumer attitudes over the years. For example, in the months following the September 11 terrorist attacks, lipstick sales doubled.

The beleaguered economy has educated consumers on the art of frugality. And while many shoppers have axed discretionary items from their budgets, lipstick remains one of the affordable luxuries women won’t live without.

Well, this is interesting, Kate, you may be thinking, but what does it have to do with resale shopkeeping and Perceived Value? Others may be thinking: Kate says we should sell lipstick in our stores and think A: Kate’s crazy and/or B: Quick, where can I get it wholesale?

Well, no, I don’t (necessarily but it might be a big hit for some shops) think you need to start selling lipstick. But you DO need to start paying attention to, and gratifying, that “small indulgence” for your clientele. For lots of reasons:

• Being able to find and afford a small, colorful, pampering indulgence in your shop will raise the Perceived Value of your entire business
• It will satisfy the Positive Outcome guidelines we talked about in Day 4
• It will set you apart from your boring resale competitors who are just slogging along, moaning in their beers about how the price of gas means no one’s buying anything
• It’ll sell YOU on the whole concept of POP (point-of-purchase) merchandise, which can literally pay your rent out of a square foot of leased space
• Something bright and sparkly and “luxurious” will change the perception of “secondhand store” as we talked about in Day 3 much more readily and visibly that just about anything else you can do. Reason enough to have these small goodies in your shop!
• Adding the right color lipstick, the perfectly-cunning bracelet, the all-natural furniture polish or the nostalgic plaything to a shopper’s experience during their visit saves your shoppers time and thrills them as we talked about on Day 2, leading to great word-of-mouth
• And offering interesting little POP items is a terrific way to find out, very subtly, what your clientele values, as discussed on Day 1 when we started off this mini-webinar.

Resaling is almost completely about perceived value, I said at the start of this week. I hope that you now have a better feel for how easy…and profitable…polishing your business’s perceived value can be. Have a great weekend, I’ll be back Monday.

Day 4 of a week-long mini-webinar. If you’d like to add a comment, feel free. If you’ve just discovered us resale and consignment shop owners and thrift store managers, Day 1 and Day 2 and Day 3 will bring you up to speed.

A large part of perceived value of the goods in a store…any store…is that there WILL be some good goods to buy at a dollar value the shopper wants to pay. If there’s doubt as to whether the shop will have what you want to buy, you’re much less likely to pull into their parking lot when you happen to drive by, and even less likely to put your shoes on, grab the car keys, and go shopping. Especially in the $4/gallon days we’re enduring now.

So Perceived Values includes Positive Outcomes. Just about every single time a person walks into your shop, she should receive something of value. (Exception: the postal carrier, although feeding said person with homemade cookies does seem to lighten everyone’s day ;-) )

With luck, talent, and a great selection of perfectly-priced goods, every trip in will reward your customer with a armload of goodies and you with money.

But can you bat a thousand?

It’s not possible, of course, to sell something to every visitor on every visit. They will not always be in the mood to exchange their hard-earned dollars for anything you happen to have. There are many ways, however, to reward them for the trip in.

Studies say that after 3 or 4 or whatever, trips to your shop without a “reward”, shoppers tend to put your shop in the back of their mind. And that’s no place you want to be! So, if you can’t sell her something today, what can you do to have her trip have a positive outcome?

You can give her something. Of course, you’ve already given her a smiling welcome and your warm attention and a sense of community, but I mean literally give her something. It might be something that naturally arises (I can’t count the times I gave customers a recipe when they were fretting over dinner, or the name of my favorite seamstress, manicurist, frame shop) or it may be a “thanks for coming in” gift.

Something to remember me by

What can you give that will please the recipient and help her check this visit to your business as a positive one, even if she didn’t find what she was looking for, or indeed something she didn’t know she wanted until she saw it (you canny marketeer you!)

Well, it could be an “advertising specialty” like a pen or a raincap or a sewing kit. But these, sometimes, cost you more than they get you. After all, advertising specialities aren’t always, well, very special are they? If you want something more personalized, more unusual, how about:

• Your favorite recipe or recipes
• Lists that are tailored for your target audience: Childcare or stain removal tips, fashion tips, Decorating for a Handful of Dimes
• Our Customer Service Brochures
• Your local resale group’s brochure of shops or your community’s shopping guide

Whatever you use, be sure to make it worth keeping, and make sure, it goes without saying I hope!, to include your shop information on it. And make it special: Hand it out on a nice recipe card, keep the Customer Service Brochure in an attractive basket, present it with a flourish as ” a little something to thank you for stopping in at MyShop today.” (Use the name of your shop…you’re imprinting the customer to associate MyShop with the warm feeling of getting a gift!)

The gift that keeps on giving

Small gifts like these do several things. They reward your loyal customer for being loyal, they are a take-away that reminds them of your business, and they set your business apart from those places that could care less when you walk out empty-handed, ungreeted, ungood-bye saluted… and unrewarded for the effort they made to come in.

Here’s your free gift from Kate and Too Good to be Threw’s Products for the Professional Resaler (notice how cleverly I did that. The first sheet of our new Friendly Fortunes, these 8 positive “fortune cookie” sayings can be printed out in color or black & white, folded and placed in a giant brandy snifter, a pedestal bowl, or even a colorful sand pail, and you can invite each and every customer to “Have a Fortune on the Shop that can Save you a Fortune: MyShop.” Just e-mail Kate from TGtbT.com and ask me to send you the PDF file, along with a coupon for a special discount on the entire Fortune Kit, including instructions on how to add your shop info and how to use this most-original, most-inexpensive shopper’s reward! (This isn’t a plot to add your email to any list. I’ll send you the Fortunes, then that’s it. It’ll be up to YOU to discover all the wonders at TGtbT and HTC and where you can sign up for our free newsletter if you want!)

Tomorrow, our last day of Perceived Value: The Lipstick Factor

Day 3 of a week-long mini-webinar. You are encouraged to add your comments. If you’ve stumbled upon us resalers and consignment shop owners and thrift-store managers, here’s Day 1 and Day 2, to catch you up.

Now of course we’re not talking just old clothes here. We’re also talking used playpens, secondhand mirrors, previously-owned couches and handbags and vases and books and lawn mowers. You know what I mean.

Some misguided souls might believe that “used” and “value” are a contradiction in term, an oxymoron, like “jumbo shrimp” and “California expressway.” Is there any way to alter their mind set?

So today we will examine the Feasibility of Changing Perceptions

Why bother? Because there’s a whole giant world of shoppers out there who have never ever shopped for anything secondhand. (They do have a tendency to “forget” that their home was lived in by another family, that Aunt Milly’s Rosenthal china was “used” before they inherited it, and that their teenage daughters are swapping clothes like no one’s business, pun intended.) Can we, with the use of perceived value, make shopping secondhand a GREEN LIGHT?

Here’s an exercise on changing perception from another blog:

Wine makers know that screw cap bottles are better and cheaper than the traditional cork. Yet it is impossible [for the wine makers] to change to such caps. It may be because buyers would equate screw caps with inferior wine. It may be because the whole event of wine drinking requires the cork.

How can this be changed?

1. It is possible that the transition could be made if the screw caps were very expensive in the first place - for example, enamelled. If such caps became collectors’ items, than the transition might be accomplished. Here the changed perception, from seeing screws as less desirable to more desirable [italics mine--Kate], is an example of the direct blocking of the ‘cheap’ image.

2. We might go in exactly the opposite direction. We could sell exactly the same wine at two prices: £12 with the usual cork and £10 with a screw cap. People would now set out to convince themselves that the cork was not that important a part of the event of wine drinking.

3. Another approach would be an education campaign to show that corks could go bad and could leak, whereas screw caps could not. This would be less effective than either of the other two approaches - making screw caps either dearer or cheaper - but could be combined with either.

Now, translating this example into marketing resale goods is simple. 1. We could make our product more desirable. 2. We could offer similar goods side-by-side: new/ relatively expensive and previously-loved/more budget-friendly. 3. We could show and continually promote why used is better.

Some thoughts to get you started on how this applies to your shop.

Point 1: Making your products more desirable than new. They’re more convenient. It’s more pleasant to shop with you. Price, of course, but also selection, style, and usability. Changing “used” into the advantageous, wise way to shop (at least, for the merchandise YOU carry!) Perceived value: is it more pleasant to shop for budget-friendly goods in your store than anywhere else they are likely to shop?

Point 2: Offer new and used side by side: Create “new” sections in your store, being sure to label each item so in an obvious manner (since we know it’s often impossible to tell!) Signage such as New Whatitz from $15 and Experienced Whatits from $6 will allow shoppers to make their own choices. Promoting a “new” section in your shop and in your advertising also gives the I wouldn’t DREAM of buying used consumer a reason to come in. (Or an excuse, if her snooty neighbor sees her shopping in your place!) Alternative: SHOW what new costs vis magazine illustrations and ads versus what something very similar costs at your shop.

Point 3: Show and promote that used is better. You know all the reasons. (If you don’t, check out The Best of Too Good to be Threw.) Find the specific reason that speaks to your target market and promote it constantly. In every way. Lead people into perceiving that the value is in your shop…whatever value THEY, umm, value.

Any more ideas? Let us know! Click the little comments box below to add to our suggestions!

Tomorrow: Perceived Values includes Positive Outcomes (and a free gift for you from me)

Day 2 of a week-long mini-webinar. You are encouraged, if you like, to add your comments after this post.

Value-added goods sell for more, and faster, and your clientele is happier.

And of course that’s what we what: good profits for us and our suppliers, more turnover, and thrilled customers spreading the word far and wide. Perceived value is in the eye of the beholder, as they say beauty is, so there’s no one answer that will work for every shop, every market, and every shopkeeper. Let’s take a look at the biggies today.

The wine glass: A shop which adds value to your goods

Yesterday, we showed and talked a little about your shop’s appearance, and I suggested you look around your shop with fresh eyes. There’s a little trick, two actually, I’d like to share with you.

• Whip out your camera (you do, of course, keep one at the store for all sorts of reasons we can talk about next week) and TAKE PICTURES. It is absolutely flabbergasting how the camera “sees” things your proprietor’s eyes skim right past. For example the situation to the right: you as shopkeeper see the sterling jewelry. The customer sees those big clunky price tags reminding them that this stuff is, umm, (hush!) USED. They can barely see, yet alone value, the wonderful assortment of interesting jewelry here.
• Second trick, used by painters: Turn your back to whatever you’re looking at, and look in a hand mirror. Gives a different perspective, shakes up preconceptions.

Okay, that’s it for now on the look of your shop. If you aren’t tickled to death with how you, so far, have solved the problems of limited space/ variable and varied merchandise in your shop, take a look at Shop Sizzle, which has literally HUNDREDS of ways to make your shop look like steak instead of pot roast.

But as “nice” as your shop looks, that’s not all that might count.

Yes, you can indeed make your shop look “too” good. If the look, furnishings, decor and displays of your shop are elegantly perfect, and your target market is more down-to-earth, you could be intimidating the very folks you want to be comfortableshopping with you. Many’s the novice shopkeeper who wants to sell “designer” in a blue-jeans town before she really buckles down and learns that the Mart brands are just fine, thank you, to her marketplace. There’s a lot more folks who love WalMart and wouldn’t step foot in Saks. (And as an aside, guess which corporation makes more money?)

There are “experience” shoppers (those who love love love Pottery Barn and Anthropologie for the ambiance: they want their lives to be like that) and whose perceived value of the goods offered in those stores is high. Then there are “value” shoppers, who are relatively immune to ambiance, who simply want something at a good price. (Ever try shopping in Restoration Hardware with a man? You’re oohing and ahhing over the cunning hand-held shower for $400, he’s saying “%^$# you can get the same thing at Ace Hardware for less than $20.” Lesson: if you’re in an Ace-type market, better BE Ace. And keep the men at home.

So if your target market is more price-conscious, what will add value, in those customers’ eyes, to your merchandise?

• “Compare to” pricing. In our resale market, that’s usually “Originally” pricing. If you know that item was $129 new, include that info in your tag description: “Originally $129/ Our price $34″
• .99 endings on your prices. Or .87 or .69, whatever. It’s silly, it’s true, it works: $6.99 is a steal, $7 is not so much a steal. (Related: “Today Only! $1.29! Limit 3 to a customer.”)
• Any and all markdowns. Even if they aren’t “true” markdowns. How many businesses put a $95 price tag on something, and 3 days later, “mark it down” to $69?
• Yellow and red. Yup, those clown-color sale tags and signage are effective. Add slip-on markdown tags to mark downs and watch them fly out the door. Similarly: the BIG TAG idea that Cynthia suggested, CG used as discussed on Sharing.
• Layaway plans. Especially at the beginning of a season. She doesn’t need a winter coat yet, so it’s hard to justify putting out the money for it now. But she knows winter always comes, so layaway suits her lifestyle and wallet better.
• Beat garage sales at their own game, plan for bag sales and dollar racks and BOGO events. Especially BOGOs!

So you see, “perceived value” is not only, and sometimes not even, about looks. It can also be about price.

What about that time-pressed shopper?

Now I am going to have to get over a teensy-weensy little bit of prejudice here about the “I am SO busy, because I am SO important” mind set. If I’m honest, I hate that attitude so much because, well, you see, My name is Kate and I’m a timeaholic. (Or I flatter myself that I used to be.)

Time-pressed shoppers value, above everything else, time. They will pay more and gladly if it saves them time. And if you want them to shop in your place, you will do best to keep that firmly in mind. How to appeal to this type of resale shopper?

• Maintain, and use religiously, your want list and customer book.
• If she’s coming in to see something you put aside for her, have related merchandise ready to present. She asked you to look out for a matte celadon vase, at least 14″ tall? After youshow it to her, have at your elbow the marvelous silk peonies that would look so great with it, the celadon dressing gown, and the Feng Shui decorating book. And have the bubble wrap and shopping bag right there too.
• Pamper her. A Conversation with Kate: 10 Ways to Pamper your Customers

Tomorrow: Perceived value and old clothes. Oxymoron?

Some things, other people say better than me, so I steer you to them

I interrupt our mini-webinar to bring you this post, which is something I’ve been meaning to tell you.

It’s all part of that effectiveness-vs.-efficiency thing I have fought all my life, and which perhaps is hindering your success too.

Remind me to talk about that after our webinar is over. But in the meanwhile:

Seth Godin on “Two Seconds”

Day One of a week-long mini-webinar. You are encouraged, if you like, to add your comments after this post.

Every shopper past the stage of preferring a nickel to a dime because the nickel’s bigger, understands that the value of anything offered for sale depends not only on its intrinsic worth (is it silver or silverplate? Polyester or silk?) but on the worth that specific buyer puts on it for a hundred other reasons. That’s why the same item will sell at a garage sale only if offered at a fraction of the price it would fetch in an antique shop. The location and ambiance of a market adds to the perceived value of the item.

A study says that people who were given a sip of the same wine, in two different glasses, one a basic Styrofoam cup and the other a Tiffany goblet, rated the wine in the goblet better-tasting. When asked how much they would spend on a bottle of “these two different wines”, the wine in the more luxurious glass was valued much higher. That’s perceived value. The experience of sipping the wine in an elegant glass added to the perceived value.

Why would a resale retailer care

about perceived value?

Because it affects, directly and every minute of every day, the prices the shop can “get” for their goods. In a very real way, resaling is almost completely about perceived value. So in this modest webinar, we’ll talk about how you can increase the perceived value of every last thing in your shop, every day…without spending a lot of money or effort in doing so. Selling your items more readily for more money will not only put more money in your pocket, but in the pocket of your consignor as well, which of course leads to better business.

Adding perceived value is important to the buy-outright shop as well, since store-owned goods must get the highest-possible return on the shopkeeper’s investment. And for the NFP donations-only thrift store run as a fund-raiser for a charity, perceived value is vital to their best donors with the best potential items to give: I love to give my things to that shop because everything looks so nice there and they obviously raise a lot of money for their cause. Even the most selfless donor doesn’t want her precious previously-owned items to be sold for a pittance. Click on these two photos for close-ups… can the resale shopkeepr set higher prices in one versus the other?

Where can I get me some?

First, before you go charging around trying to add perceived value to your goods, you need to know just what your potential market considers a value. While I think we can all agree that any shopper looking for any item in any price range values cleanliness and politeness above dingy surliness, there are major differences in target markets. Perceived value to your clientele may be edgy hipness (the terminably cool teen/twenties marketplace), early-morning hours (if your childrenswear shop is located within eyeshot of a day-care center) or the ability to conduct business in a language other than English. On the other hand, black dressing rooms and the latest rap wonders on your sound system won’t add any perceived value to your St. John knits-loving audience. (To say the least.)

There are a few more “universal”, or nearly-so, ways to increase perceived value for all markets. The most obvious one, in this time-pressed Zeitgeist, is convenience. Who among us hasn’t spent more for milk at 7-11 at midnight because the grocery was further away and unlikely to be open then? A less obvious one, but one that many resalers overlook, is the likelihood of success. A large and ever-changing array of goods will, in the perception of the shopper, increase the chances that she will, indeed, find something on her trip in, and thus the time and energy invested in coming to your shop will be value well-spent.

Tomorrow, we’ll explore how you can make your “wine glass” be the more luxurious one, which is Step One to making perceived value in your shop higher. In the meanwhile, you might be interested in how we added perceived value to a very small shop’s limited holiday stock in one hour, with zero cost. Try it in a corner or two of your shop before we meet again…