Stumped!!

Sometimes things or situations just have you stumped.  Like how to put together that bicycle you are giving for a Christmas present...without the instructions!!  Or how many tablespoons of sugar did Grandma put in her recipe which she never wrote down for you..
I have recently been stumped by a few situations at Sweet Tooth.
Here's one:  why do vendors send you a display with 24 spaces and 25 styles of merchandise?  Is there a style in the collection that the vendor thinks is a real loser, therefore the vendor sends it just to get rid of it? 
Here's another one:  you place an order at the June Market and it isn't until just days before the January Market that you finally receive the entire order?  Or a vendor presents a number of styles of their product, you order all of them and then find out months later that the vendor was just testing the water and never intended to make all those styles.
How about a third:  a vendor has a new collection of jewelry coming out in a month.  You are able to order it in plenty of time to put the collection out for customers to purchase.  The vendor even has postcards, posters, email blasts and more to publicize the new collection but you are instructed not to tell anyone about it or show pictures of it until the "release day".  So how do you motivate your customers to get ready for new product without giving away what is apparently a state secret??
Fourth:  vendors flood the market with their new product, never caring if your next-door-neighbor retailer has the same product as you do.  Then the vendor wonders why you don't re-order more frequently, never thinking that the "pie" is now split between you and your neighbor.
Fifth:  how long does it take a retailer to figure all this stuff out?  I guess at least 20 years since occasionally we are still stumped by these and other situations.

You Might As Well Eat Dirt

Over the years customers have asked us about our candy in the jars.  Most of the time they take a look at the jar candy, find the one they want and then ask us how they can get the candy out of the jar.
I suppose this question comes from the fact that lots of retail has now gone to "self serve".  Not at Sweet Tooth.
If the candy is unwrapped, then we get it out of the jar or case, weigh it, pack it up appropriately and then give it to the customer for payment.
We think of that process as "customer service" and it has been our policy and procedure for 20 plus years.
So what do I think when I go into a store and see candy in barrels or plastic tubes, where the expectation is that the customer will serve him or herself?
I imagine you already know what I think about that.  But let's spell it out.
                                                         I JUST CAN'T HELP IT!! 
I think "Who has put their hand in the candy?"  "Who has gotten candy out of the jar and then decided against buying it?  Did the customer put the candy back in the barrel or tube?  If so, were there hands involved?"
"How many people before me decided to have a sample from the barrel or jar?  Did that person ask for help or did that person just reach in for the sample?"
I suppose I could go on and on with my thoughts about this question, but sometimes I even make myself a little neurotic with these thoughts.
I could think "Where is the sneeze guard?  Do employees in those stores have permission to slap the customer's hand that goes into the jar?  Is there an intercom where announcements about dirty hands is blasted for customers to hear?"
I think I've been reading too many of David Sedaris' short stories.
Just to reassure you, if a customer ever puts his or her hand in a candy jar at Sweet Tooth, that candy goes into the trash ASAP.
This particular event has happened so few times over the years that we rarely have to even think about it.  As guardians of candy, we would rather eat dirt than eat candy after hands have been in the jar!!

The Dog Days

Since I was not sure why people refer to this time in August as "The Dog Days", I decided to do a little research.
Defined as the sultry days of summer, July through August are referred to as "Dog Days"
Romans associated hot weather with the star Sirius, the "Dog Star", the brightest star in the night sky.
Romans also believed that "Dog Days" were an evil time, when the sea boiled, wine turned sour, dogs went mad and people were full of disease.
Other definitions defined "Dog Days" as a period of stagnation.
I do know that things really do slow down at this time of the year.  there's the stagnation part... and if weather is a factor, the rising thermometer is surely a sign that hot weather will be with us for a while.
When you have a store like Sweet Tooth, you aren't really selling much that people "need"; rather you are presenting and selling things that people "want".
Take chocolate, for example.  Every grocery store and pharmacy check out station is loaded with impulse gifts, some of which are candy bars.  So it isn't the case that people can't find a candy bar most any time they want one.
The difference is that Sweet Tooth sells a line of chocolates which are more exclusive, actually better chocolate in most cases and often brands which aren't at the check out lines.  So a trip to Sweet Tooth yields chocolate or candy which is truly worth the cost and the calories.
The same goes for gifts and jewelry.  At Sweet Tooth we think it is lots of fun to sell the more unusual, the more fun, the less available and in doing so, we are encouraging our customers to have as much fun as we do. 
We like to be known as "The Happy Place" where our shelves and displays make people smile and feel really good about their purchases.  We prefer to be the brightest shopping star in our local universe.
To borrow a phrase from Southwest Airlines, we know our customers can shop anywhere they want....including online.....so we appreciate the fact that they have selected Sweet Tooth as their gift and candy store.