Sales days only 3 times a week?

[seo888]

Hi Guys,

I have pretty much got what my new business will look like but just wondering about opening hours.

My business will be high quality second hand kids clothes and kids items.

I know Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays are the busiest 3 days of the week. I am thinking of opening our shop only on these days, I know this sounds strange but here are the reasons why:

1. On the quieter days we can source stock.
2. Keep staff costs down on quieter days.
3. Enable us to have fresh inventory stock on each sales day.
4. Keep our customers excited by having fresh stock.
5. Keeping Tuesdays and Wednesdays for taking in consignment stock.
6. Allocating Mondays for sales, marketing, social networking.
7 Sundays for the family.
8. We will only need a smaller shop which will keep costs down.
9. Will not need such a good location which keeps rent and business rates down.

I know most people will think the more days you open, then the more likely you will make more money. However, I do not believe this is true every time. Keeping the stock fresh will keep the customers excited. It will make the sales days much busier but should also increase sales enough to cover the days we are not open. We plan to have fresh stock every day we open, our shop will only be small so the space is very valuable.

We want to build a network of customers who consign items to us and hopefully buy our items too. It will be something more like a "Mom's club" where they not only make money, get bargains on kids clothes but they also can come for a bit socialising with other mothers.

I know we will need to make good money on our sales days but I also plan to have house parties where the Moms host the parties. I want to make the buying and selling part enjoyable by creating a social network of mothers but not online! (although we will be using the internet a lot).

Does anyone have any constructive feedback?

 

[deniser]

I have a couple of comments:

1. Having owned a childrenswear shop myself in the past, Fridays were always the quietest days of the week as those were perceived as the supermarket shopping days so I'm not sure Friday would be one of the days I would open

2. It depends on your location of course but beware competition from the charity sector who are opening more and more specialist shops, children's goods being one of those fast growing areas. We have two charity secondhand children's shops near us both of whom are very fully stocked and also get donations of new goods from department store end of lines. They get free stock and free staff so difficult to compete with.

3. You will have nice stock when you first open but it will be difficult to keep it going as not many people buy good quality childrenswear anymore. There is an abundance of high street stuff that doesn't last enough washes to be resaleable and as independent childrenswear shops have all but disappeared, there may not be enough quality secondhand stuff coming through. It depends entirely on your area though - in London you will be fine.

 

[seo888]

I have a couple of comments:

1. Having owned a childrenswear shop myself in the past, Fridays were always the quietest days of the week as those were perceived as the supermarket shopping days so I'm not sure Friday would be one of the days I would open

2. It depends on your location of course but beware competition from the charity sector who are opening more and more specialist shops, children's goods being one of those fast growing areas. We have two charity secondhand children's shops near us both of whom are very fully stocked and also get donations of new goods from department store end of lines. They get free stock and free staff so difficult to compete with.

3. You will have nice stock when you first open but it will be difficult to keep it going as not many people buy good quality childrenswear anymore. There is an abundance of high street stuff that doesn't last enough washes to be resaleable and as independent childrenswear shops have all but disappeared, there may not be enough quality secondhand stuff coming through. It depends entirely on your area though - in London you will be fine.

Hi Deniser,

Thanks for the great feedback.

1. Good point about Fridays being supermarket days. I was actually thinking of Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at first so maybe better?

2. I actually relish competition, however I think as second hand items are normally just one off sales then people who shop in these places will shop all of the shops not only one. I actually think been near charity shops would help the business as people come to the same area regularly. I have also noticed many charity shops are overpriced. I think in these economic times people would rather be getting money for their stuff than donating it for free.

3. Sourcing the stock will not be easy and this is why I will need a few days a week to find stock from consignments, ebay, craigs list, flea markets, department sales, wholesalers etc. Some of the stock will be new as well. This will be very important as the freshness of the stock will keep our customers more interested.

My wife used to run a ladies clothes shop in Cambodia (where we currently live), she used to do really well but it was in a small shopping mall and once the fad of the new shopping mall wore off then the footfall dropped. The profit was great on a lot of items. I never had much to do with the business though as she wanted to do it on her own but it really interested me as the gross profit on some of the stock was really good.

I have plenty of experience in retail, and running my own business so I have a good start.

Any more constructive feedback?

 

[arcon5]

Why don't you open 6 days, find out what days are the busiest then change your opening days?

It seems odd to me though that a shop would only be open 3 days of the week. If I was shopping for childrens clothes and one was only open 3 days then I wouldn't worry about getting the day right, moreover think of the alternatives.

On the days you are sourcing stock, why not do it at the shop and be open? if its quiet then you can get work done whilst taking a small amount of revenue also... best of both worlds.

 

[maria102]

Is the rent particularly low? It seems like a wasted opportunity to close more than half of the week in a retail unit when you are paying for a full one?

 

[Gavin Harris]

I know Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays are the busiest 3 days of the week. I am thinking of opening our shop only on these days

Surely Sunday must be considered? Especially as the weekdays are when the kids are at school. Most town centres seem to be as busy on a Sunday as a Saturday now.

Keeping the stock fresh will keep the customers excited.

What makes you say this? Will customers really be "excited" by it, or do you like the idea of them being "excited" by it?

TK Maxx regularly change their stock yet I don't see many getting "excited" by it. They either have what I'm looking for when I go in there, or they don't. I don't make a regular visit just to see what "new stock" they have.

 

[warnie]

Hi Guys,

I have pretty much got what my new business will look like but just wondering about opening hours.

My business will be high quality second hand kids clothes and kids items.

I know Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays are the busiest 3 days of the week. I am thinking of opening our shop only on these days, I know this sounds strange but here are the reasons why:

1. On the quieter days we can source stock.
2. Keep staff costs down on quieter days.
3. Enable us to have fresh inventory stock on each sales day.
4. Keep our customers excited by having fresh stock.
5. Keeping Tuesdays and Wednesdays for taking in consignment stock.
6. Allocating Mondays for sales, marketing, social networking.
7 Sundays for the family.
8. We will only need a smaller shop which will keep costs down.
9. Will not need such a good location which keeps rent and business rates down.

I know most people will think the more days you open, then the more likely you will make more money. However, I do not believe this is true every time. Keeping the stock fresh will keep the customers excited. It will make the sales days much busier but should also increase sales enough to cover the days we are not open. We plan to have fresh stock every day we open, our shop will only be small so the space is very valuable.

We want to build a network of customers who consign items to us and hopefully buy our items too. It will be something more like a "Mom's club" where they not only make money, get bargains on kids clothes but they also can come for a bit socialising with other mothers.

I know we will need to make good money on our sales days but I also plan to have house parties where the Moms host the parties. I want to make the buying and selling part enjoyable by creating a social network of mothers but not online! (although we will be using the internet a lot).

Does anyone have any constructive feedback?

These are the exact days I would like to open

unfortunatley my overheads dictate otherwise

Good idea though I might try it. Spend 4 days of the week sourcing stock and getting the shop ready, then 3 days selling my stock hoping to be busy enough to cover the days I've spent sourcing stock to keep my costs down... I'll phone the landlord and the council in the morning to see if they can reduce my rent and rates for the 4 days I'm "doing other things".

The harsh reality is that you will probably have to open for 6 days to start with, then add sundays to that when you realise your not covering your overheads because you've had to pay someone to mind your shop whilst you go out and get your "fresh" stock......

 

[maria102]

The 'actual' harsh reality is that you have to do a lot of the sourcing of stock and everything else out of trading hours, it's not a 9-5 job.

 

[JohnLocke1]

We want to build a network of customers who consign items to us and hopefully buy our items too. It will be something more like a "Mom's club" where they not only make money, get bargains on kids clothes but they also can come for a bit socialising with other mothers.

I know Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays are the busiest 3 days of the week. I am thinking of opening our shop only on these days

I won't cover what others said, but heartily agree.

But on the points above, when do you think mothers with school kids do their socialising?

 

[deniser]

In my experience, non working mums of school age children will only shop when the children are at school as most of them think shopping with children in tow is a nightmare.

Full time working mums will shop with the kids on Saturdays but prefer to shop online.

If it were me I would open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, not before 10am but stay beyond school closing as mums are out and about at that time, say until 5pm?

Without wanting to sound pessimistic, this isn't ever really going to be a viable business, but more of a hobby.

 

[KateCB]

In guess it depends on the location - if you are near the market palce, then opening on Market days is always a good plan.....lots of footfall. If you are in a village away from large supermarkets and the marketpalce itself, then opening on NON market days is good - no marketplace to compete with.

Opening 3 days a week seems to be a trend now - our local bakery shop (who are also a massive bakery company) used to open 5.5 days a week; now they open on Wednesday (Non market day) Thursday (Non market day) and Saturday from 11am until sold out or 5pm whichever comes sooner.