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| "Love" is looking a bit tired. |
It should be range and service and pricing and even just the ambience of your
shop.
I'll write more about service, pricing and ambience in future posts but for now I want to talk about range.
Do you offer a better range of products than your competitors?
(Note that I used the word "better" not "bigger")
Is your range different and quirky and surprising?
Are you constantly reinventing your product offer?
I would suggest that if you aren't you will continue to lose shoppers to online retailers.
Twelve years ago, I worked near a highstreet which was known for its gift shops, there were five of them but they were all different and all successful.
There was a shop which sold cheap and cheery crap aimed at teenagers, another which was exclusively Japanese home wares another which did the whole lavender potpourri and white crackle lure, French Provincial look and another which stocked high end and minimalist type gifts.
Twelve years later and most of them are gone; the ones that are left are struggling to survive.
It would be easy to pin the blame on the Internet, after all, none of them stocked anything that wasn't readily available online but I don't think that was the problem.
Their success brought competitors, new shops buying the same stuff from the same suppliers at the same gift fairs and putting it out cheaper.
The shop with the Provincial French theme is still there but they won't be for much longer.
Twelve years ago they stocked, leather ottomans, cast iron Eifel tower bookends, magnifiers and key rings, picture frames and those awful wooden words like "love" and "joy" that people put on their mantelpiece and use to collect dust.
Today, they still stock all the same things - nothing has changed except that twelve years ago all of those products were new and interesting but now they can be found in two dollar shops.
The owner shrugs and says that she can only buy what the wholesalers bring into the country.
I say find new suppliers......
We live in the 21st century and right now the human race is more creative than at any other point in history, not only are we more creative but we are also more connected than ever before.
All around the world, there are people making things in their garages and back rooms and on their computers and posting them for sale online.
For a giftware shop there are sites like Etsy which specialise in handmade items like Jewellery and, in fact, just about anything else you can think of and then there are sites like Zazzle and Cafepress who are "on demand" printers - their sites feature literally millions of unique products in thousands of different categories.
I'll write more about service, pricing and ambience in future posts but for now I want to talk about range.
Do you offer a better range of products than your competitors?
(Note that I used the word "better" not "bigger")
Is your range different and quirky and surprising?
Are you constantly reinventing your product offer?
I would suggest that if you aren't you will continue to lose shoppers to online retailers.
Twelve years ago, I worked near a highstreet which was known for its gift shops, there were five of them but they were all different and all successful.
There was a shop which sold cheap and cheery crap aimed at teenagers, another which was exclusively Japanese home wares another which did the whole lavender potpourri and white crackle lure, French Provincial look and another which stocked high end and minimalist type gifts.
Twelve years later and most of them are gone; the ones that are left are struggling to survive.
It would be easy to pin the blame on the Internet, after all, none of them stocked anything that wasn't readily available online but I don't think that was the problem.
Their success brought competitors, new shops buying the same stuff from the same suppliers at the same gift fairs and putting it out cheaper.
The shop with the Provincial French theme is still there but they won't be for much longer.
Twelve years ago they stocked, leather ottomans, cast iron Eifel tower bookends, magnifiers and key rings, picture frames and those awful wooden words like "love" and "joy" that people put on their mantelpiece and use to collect dust.
Today, they still stock all the same things - nothing has changed except that twelve years ago all of those products were new and interesting but now they can be found in two dollar shops.
The owner shrugs and says that she can only buy what the wholesalers bring into the country.
I say find new suppliers......
We live in the 21st century and right now the human race is more creative than at any other point in history, not only are we more creative but we are also more connected than ever before.
All around the world, there are people making things in their garages and back rooms and on their computers and posting them for sale online.
For a giftware shop there are sites like Etsy which specialise in handmade items like Jewellery and, in fact, just about anything else you can think of and then there are sites like Zazzle and Cafepress who are "on demand" printers - their sites feature literally millions of unique products in thousands of different categories.
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| Napoleon’s Bee Aprons from Retrofit the Future |
Take the apron on the left for example - perfect for a gift shop that is known
for that French provincial look.
The design is available on 35 products ranging from Jewellery boxes to
t-shirts, greeting cards to kitchen towels and dartboards and most of the
products come in different colours.
A single apron costs $38.45 (USD) which might seem expensive but you have to
remember that these are online stores, not wholesalers and this site offers a
sliding scale of generous discount for bulk orders starting at 10% off for 11 units and they don't mind if you
order different designs and products to get your the discount.
It's new, it's interesting and it can be exclusive to your shop which means your competitor down the road doesn't have them and can't force the price down in a sale.
And the best bit, you can bet that there are fewer than a hundred of them anywhere in the world.
It's new, it's interesting and it can be exclusive to your shop which means your competitor down the road doesn't have them and can't force the price down in a sale.
And the best bit, you can bet that there are fewer than a hundred of them anywhere in the world.
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