Buying decisions have always involved an element of gambling. Will the products I’m reordering continue to sell well? Do my customers share the national passion for this year’s hot color combination? Can I count on a strong holiday season, despite all the unknown economic factors? Today there is a new gamble added to the mix:… Read More

This is an update of a popular blog post from 2010 I love learning something new from my sales reps, and was delighted to hear from one of them back in 2010 that the most popular initials for monogrammed items spelled out Mrs. Jackel. Unfortunately using M,R,S,J,A,C,K,E, and L no longer works, because while today’s most… Read More

I do miss the days of “shop till you drop” – an expression coined when consumer culture and the concept of shopping for pleasure became popular. Younger shopkeepers may not believe it, but once upon a time people (mostly women) enjoyed spending hours browsing in malls and shopping streets for items they didn’t necessarily need.  The… Read More

This is an update of a popular blog post from 2011 One of my favorite store tasks (for reasons I can’t fully explain) is pulling older invoices from all my vendor files.  I do this twice a year, removing the those from over a year ago so that only the most recent twelve months are… Read More

You may have heard of the Pareto Principle, usually known as the “80/20 rule.”  According to this tenet, 80% of a company’s sales come from roughly 20% of its customer base.  Assuming this is true, it’s essential that you keep the 20% of your customer base that is most loyal engaged by constantly refreshing your store. This… Read More

This is an update of a popular blog post from 2010. “Every product tells a story” read the sign in a display of handmade African items at the New York Gift Fair. It was a great reminder of the fact that one of our jobs as retailers is to communicate the story behind the merchandise… Read More

Welcome to the end of 2024. It’s been a bit of a bumpy ride, hasn’t it? Some stores showed the kind of increases one would hope for as the original pandemic year recedes into the past. I find it hard to believe that just four years ago this month, our store was open a total… Read More

The news is filled with talk of tariffs, and what new ones will mean to American businesses. But many of us don’t really have a clear idea of how a tariff works.  A tariff, simply put, is a tax imposed by one government on goods from another country.  Tariffs can be used to raise money,… Read More

This is an update of a popular blog post from 2009. Forget New Year’s resolutions, the Rose Bowl, or black-eyed peas as New Year’s traditions.  In our shop, New Year’s Day used to mean one thing: inventory.  It’s an all-hand-on-deck event during which we physically count everything that is still around after the holidays.  To… Read More

Hopefully you haven’t had any contact with the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) up to now. But starting at the beginning of 2024, certain types of corporations registered to do business in the U.S. – including many retail stores – are required to report the information about their “beneficial owners”… Read More