• Kevin Natapow

 

The long-standing customer service experience question- a good one! My opinion is that anything you can do within reason to make your customers experience the best it can be and set yourself apart from everyone else is worth every penny and effort. Wrapping can be a real pain but depending on what you use for your own non-seasonal merchandising. For us, we used 4 different sizes of brown paper kraft bags with our logo printed on either side. And 4 sizes of kraft paper boxes with our logo on top. We used sage jute rope to tie bows on the handles with sprigs of dried lavender from our garden and brown kraft tissue inside fluffed out for presentation. That is what we did all year long and during the holidays, we had a family member send us a big box of cedar bough clippings from the Pacific Northwest and we would put a sprig in the bow on the handles and/or under the jute tied around the boxes. It was really attractive and we offered it for free always. Our merchandising expenses were slightly higher then normal but we built those into our retail costs of all items sold. During busy times, we always had 2 people on both registers and at least 1 person doing the wrapping in the back bar area and 1 person circulating the floor. During the December rush we would have 4 people behind the cash wrap rigging up sales and wrapping and 2-3 people on the floor. If we got too backed up we would often ask people who wanted extensive wrapping to come back later and it was up to them if they wanted it or not. Being as we offered it for free we did not feel bad if it did not work with their schedule. Bottom line, whatever you can do to make your customers feel like you are the best store EVER is worth it and should be done. You have to be better that Pier 1 and World Market and it is these little things that make people come back and feel special!

    1. Agree! Many of my customers say they appreciate the care and presentation of their purchase.

 

  • Kevin Natapow

 

It makes a huge difference- beyond what we may even see in that moment.

    1.  No wonder Momentum was so wildly successful! Those small touches are huge for developing customer loyalty.

 

  • Kevin Natapow

 

We always got such positive feedback on our packaging! Men loved it too cause they didn’t ever have to wrap anything.

    1. Could you talk about how you incorporated merchandising expenses into retail costs?
    2. LOVE the cedar bough (and lavender) add!

 

  • Kevin Natapow

 

Well if you look at your annual P&L and see what % of sales your merchandising expenses are you can take what is above normal or what you feel you can’t eat yourself and build that % premium into your overall margins. For example if your COGS is 52% and your merchandising expenses are 1-2% higher then you may like or is normal for a shop your size you could increase your over margins to absorb that cost. If you can get your gross profit up to 52-55% you will be absorbing some of that additional cost. You just don’t want o overprice your merchandise but honestly most items I see are underpriced anyway and can bear a higher margin (except for our Canadian friends)…

  1. Our gross profit was 53% last year but I would like to see 55%. Merchandising costs seemed like an area where I hadn’t looked, so this is very helpful!
  2. Additionally I will add that our store is 23 years old and we used to actually WRAP boxes in wrapping paper for folks. It was craziness. 3 years ago we changed over to just doing clear cello bags with colored tissue, ribbon, foil stickers with our logo, and branded Gifts that Change the World cards with a brief Fair Trade explanation. Not one customer complained about not having a wrapped box. It’s free – and I have found that most customers are just so happy to have anything offered at all!