Consignment, Resale and Thrift Shops Archived Article brought to you by TGtbT.com, The Premiere Site for Resale Professionals
Ask Auntie Kate:"How long should my consignment period be? I currently have a 90-day consignment period. Should it be shorter? What symptoms should I look for that might be telling me that?"
What’s best for you? If your shop is always overcrowded, and you are turning down things you could sell for lack of space, if you feel the only way to cope with massive incoming is to place a numerical limit on your suppliers... a shorter period might be called for. Examine the selling percentages for items of different "ages." I’m sure you’ll find that percentage highest in the first three or four weeks, with the percentage of sales going down as items age. Goods which have been on the sales floor for 60 to 90 days probably have the lowest selling rate, so you could be using up space on items least likely to sell. Your consignment period might change, too, as your shop matures. After all, in your first year, you have fewer customers, and so fewer probable buyers for a given piece, than you will, if successful, later. As you build traffic, a shorter period might be wise. A new shop might have 50 potential customers see a given item during the 90-day period; a more-established shop will have 50 people look at it in a few days. I was in a shop one day when the owner was crowing over the fact that she had just sold a $45 dress. . . which had been on her racks for nine months! Just imagine if she had removed that item at 60 days. That would have given her seven months to use that space for other items. If that space was filled with a $30 item which sold every 30 days, she would have realized $210 for that same space (that is, 7 sales of a $30 item each month for seven months.) And customers would have seen that many more possible choices, and so be motivated to visit more often! Perhaps one hanger-space doesn’t sound like a lot. But if this held true throughout the shop...Hmm, 10,000 garments times that seven more stock turnovers... Are you worried about making the change from 90 days to 60? Thinking that consignors will desert you? I wouldn’t. Consignors simply want their items to sell. If you explain to those concerned that a faster change of stock means more customers, that should do it.
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Auntie
Kate replies: A shorter consignment period will give
you more variety as merchandise flows in and out of your
shop. A 60-day period is what many, if not most, shops use. Some
shops use 6 weeks; some use a 30-day
period.
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