Tuesday, May 28, 2013

The Cupboard Is Not Bare!

At this time of the year, so close to one of the two major Gift Markets, our store begins to look a little sparse.  Some of our customers show concern that the sparseness of the store is an indication that we are going out of business.  It is definitely not the case.
We used to put a banner across our front windows which said BIG SALE.  We are a bit reluctant to do that now because inevitably customers will interpret that banner as an indication that we are going out of business.
It appears we need to make something very very clear:  retailers have BIG SALES.  It is a method of scooting out the door odds and ends of wonderful merchandise and providing our customers with a bargain in order to make space for the new merchandise we will see at the Gift Market.
This particular June Gift Market is our last chance to select what we want to carry for the extremely important FOURTH QUARTER.  You've heard of Black Friday, haven't you?  That title is not a mournful title but rather it indicates that the Thanksgiving weekend is traditionally the time when consumers decide to shop for the holidays.  Their purchases begin to put retail in the Black....i.e., we seriously begin to make money.
What that means, friends, is that the last 3 months of each year are really the time that retail is in full swing and purchases are way up.  If something doesn't sell during the fourth quarter you absolutely know that you have made the wrong choice of merchandise for your customers.  Those items are the ones which go on the 75% off sale table!!
Please pass the word around to all your family and friends:  Sweet Tooth is not going out of business, but is actually making room for the candy, gift and jewelry items which will fill our store and make the aisles narrow during the fourth quarter.   (remember we have already begun to order holiday candy and there was a lot of it!!)
Summer is a great time to offer clearance bargains.  And those sales can help consumers purchase holiday gift items at reduced prices.
The storage area in our own garage has clear Rubbermaid Boxes filled with early purchases for holiday gifts.  After all, we retailers are consumers too!

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Fond Memories of the Peppermint Pig

Yesterday was the 21st time I sat with our Redstone Foods sales rep Gary and ordered Halloween and Christmas/Chanukah candy.  Of course, Jeff was there as well; nonetheless it is me and Gary who go back to our tiny little office space in Sweet Tooth/Farm Shopping Center.
At that time I knew NOTHING about ordering or selling candy.  I knew how to eat candy but my tastes were pretty narrow.  Our office space was so tiny that the back of my desk chair hit the door of the bathroom.  And when my dad bought us a refrigerator (full size, mind you!) and we put it in the office, there was very little space for storing candy.
I really don't know how we did it.  But I do know that without the experience Gary brought to the candy biz, we probably would have made a lot of mistakes that year and even this year!!
You might want to know......how do we order candy or even other merchandise so far ahead of the time we will receive it?  How do we know what people will buy?  How do we know if we are missing something which will be the hottest item of the season?
Part of the answer is experience.  To tell the truth, we spend time comparing what sold last year and what was a complete flop (yes it happens) with what is available again this year.
As for the new candy, we depend a bit on what Gary advises us to do.  And Gary depends a bit on what his customers think will be a good sell through. 
I guess you could say that some of this whole business is simply a crap shoot.
More and more we factor in the question of whether what we are ordering will show up in grocery stores or Sam's or drug stores?  Companies these days are often inclined to go for the gold....the larger customer who will order tons more than individual retailers will order.  Once burned, though, we don't return to that manufacturer again.
And to tell the truth, we do have certain standards which we apply to ordering candy.  We really want to stock candy which is special, which customers won't find everywhere, candy which more and more people who travel overseas encounter across the ocean.  Customers these days are a little bit more sophisticated, yet they still watch their pocket books.
And then there is that certain candy which pops up in the order book....it is new, it is brilliantly packaged, it is going to be a lot of fun.  I remember fondly the Peppermint Pig and the Chocolate Titanic.  We really loved those candies from the get go and our customers did too.
So, we are off and ordering for the 4th quarter.  In a month we go to the Dallas Gift Market, looking for those gift items which jump off the shelf and scream:  I Am The One!!
Here's my new motto:  If you do what you always do, you'll get what you've always gotten and you'll be who you always were.
What do you think?

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Retail: Not Always Glamorous But We Love It

Here's what happens at Sweet Tooth after a major holiday or a major event in our store.  It isn't glamorous,  in fact it is "work:  I am not always sure that customers know just how much work is involved in retail.  There is the cleaning, the schlepping, the carrying, the inventorying, the straightening up, the moving around of displays, the checking in of new merchandise......
For the past 2 days Sarah H. has been inventorying our Kameleon jewelry.  Sarah checked for damaged pieces, for overstocked pieces and she cleaned the entire display.
Sarah also prepared an inventory of Kameleon pieces which we might need to return (it's called Stock Balancing) so that we can have room and funds for ordering pieces we need.  Sarah re-displayed all the jewelry pieces in the case, changing out the jewel pops in every one of them.  And finally she cleaned all the trays and the glass in the display case.
In between times Sarah waited on customers.
After Jeff moved our Monkeez and Friends plush animals to a new home, Lisa rearranged all the Lindsay Phillips shoes and accessories and we put them on sale at 50% off.
Doris and Olivia have been restocking candy, cleaning the candy cases and spinner and making certain that the candy order list is up to date on what we need to order.
Jeff has been working on the email newsletter, keeping up with our Facebook page, schlepping boxes of merchandise, preparing our work schedule, making final arrangements for the new credit card processor and keeping our daily records up to date.
I have been re-ordering merchandise, including Trollbeads which is offering us a Stock Balancing option, checking on upcoming orders, processing payment for invoices and calling customers who have special orders pending at our store.
Stock balancing, just to explain, is a process where a manufacturer will allow retailers to exchange merchandise which has been sitting around without sales for merchandise which retailers need and believe will sell.
Not all companies offer that option, but the ones which do are truly partnering up with us retailers to assure a more successful "sell through" of their merchandise.
Next week we will sit down with one of our candy distributors and order Halloween and Christmas candy.  It takes us at least 6-8 hours to place those orders.
In mid-June we will all go to the Dallas Market to spend about 8 hours a day walking the showrooms, placing orders, deciding what we think will sell during the balance of the year and renewing our friendships with our sales reps.
Folks, that's the sort of work us retailers do throughout the year and we love it!

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

I Am On My High Horse!

As my mother would say, I am on my "high horse" today and I've just got to write about it.
This morning's Tulsa World headline was "Senate OKs Internet sales tax".  And guess who voted against this bill?  Senators Inhofe and Coburn.
Senator Inhofe says the bill represents a "tax increase" and he is concerned that "layers of red tape for online sellers"  would hurt consumers.  U.S. Representative Jim Bridenstine who is also opposed to this bill says it will "stifle economic growth and drive online sales overseas where tax collectors can't reach these companies."
Give me a break!!  Do any of our elected representatives care one bit about all us small retailers who make up the vast majority of business in the U.S. and who are obliged to collect sales tax from our customers?  What about our red tape?  What about our overhead, employee salaries, taxes, utility bills, rent and inventory costs?  Why are we asked to compete with multi-million dollar online businesses without any help from our elected representatives?
Do you know that Oklahoma loses about $225 million dollars a year in tax revenue because of online sales? This is money which would go to schools, to roads, to preserving our environment, to raises for a variety of employees.  What this new bill would do is equalize the sales environment for all us little guys.  And at the same time raise all sorts of money for improving our standard of living in Oklahoma (and other states too).
Now I am not against online sales.  I have already stated that I occasionally order items online.  All I am saying is that I am willing to pay the sales tax on those items, which will go to help my state. 
Why our elected officials are not on that band wagon I cannot say.
If you take a look at the list of those companies and organizations which support or oppose this bill, you will get a real picture of what is going on.  And I say, whenever possible, support local business,  What you spend help keeps our economy stronger, keeps our fellow Oklahomans employed, provides funds for all those services which are so important to our standard of living and giving a leg up for those who need it.  And if you have to order something online, do so because the item you want isn't available locally.  What you may save on the price of the item and the non-payment of sales tax isn't worth depriving yourself, local business and all Oklahomans of the tax money we need to get our state out of the ditch of being 49th in so many categories.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

A Little R & D

This weekend at Sweet Tooth we are hosting a Trunk Show from a jewelry company called Obsidian Jewelry.  We have carried a few pieces of their jewelry--primarily silver with gemstones -- and we like it very much.  This time, though, we have several hundred pieces of the jewelry and we are investing some time and a bit of money in promoting this jewelry line.
Here's the catch:  there are many kinds of beautiful gemstones and we pride ourselves on knowing a bit about all the items we sell in the store.  So, of course, we needed to do a little R & D  (Research and Development) so that we wouldn't disappoint customers when they ask:  "What is that?"
For the past hour I have been googling onyx, jasper, chalcedony, quartz, lodalite, drusy and more....trying to develop short, quick but informative paragraphs about all these gemstones so when we get the inevitable question:  "What is that?"  we will have an informative answer.
I wonder sometimes if consumers think, as I once did, that retail is simply ordering, displaying, selling and paying the bills.  It never occurred to me that researching the history of an item would be part of the retail world.
I guess many of us get our concept of "sales" from the stereotypical picture of the car salesman, twisting a customer's arm, embellishing and pushing and out talking the customer to get a sale.
What a shameful way of looking at retail.  Occasionally at Sweet Tooth we get the customer whose attitude about the person behind the cash register is patronizing and negative.  At that point we ask ourselves why standing behind the counter makes us "less" than the person making a purchase.  It's something to think about and hopefully we are working to overcome that image.
What makes the R & D assignment a great deal easier is access to Google.  Just think if I had to make a trip to the library (and by the way, I love libraries) and I had just a short amount of time to come up with the answer to "What is that?".  It would be an all day search.  I'd rather go to the library and check out a great novel or a book of short stories.  I spent plenty of research time in the library when I was in college.  The MLA (for those English majors) was a time consuming assignment....one which at that period of my life I never imagined would be short circuited by something called Google.
The life of a retailer is complex....more so than one might think....full of adventures, new information, interesting questions and customers who actually want to know something about what they are buying. 
This was my day at Sweet Tooth!!