Doggie Bags

From the title of this column, “Doggie Bags,” you might think you are about to read about a great meal I had in a restaurant and the leftovers I took home. No, that’s not it. I’ll save that for another column.

In retail, no matter how savvy a buyer you are, there’s always something that wasn’t as popular with your customers as you thought it would be. You loved it, couldn’t wait to display it, and it remained on display—way too long. In other words, let’s face it, it was a dog.

Now there’s another category that’s a step up from dogs, and it’s the remainder group. The onsies, twosies of hand creams or coffee mugs, etc., that, along with the dogs, you really can’t continue to waste space on, and you really hate to put all this stuff on sale because you will have to do deep discounts to get rid of it.

Enter the idea of “doggie bags.” Now, to be honest, I have taken this idea from Cinda Baxter of Minneapolis. Cinda had a very successful stationery store, which she recently closed to pursue other opportunities. Cinda is the founder of www.retailspeaks.com, a protected website and chat room exclusively for independent retailers. I recommend you check it out.

Anyway, Cinda recently gave a talk at the Chicago Gift and Home Show entitled “20 Tips in 20 Minutes,” and this was one of her tips.

You gather your odds and ends of merchandise and put them in bags. Calculate the original retail prices. You want to have bags that have $15 to $20 worth of merchandise in them, and then staple them shut.

You then have a grab bag sale (you probably don’t want to call them doggie bags at this point), promising customers that for $10 they will get at least $15 worth of merchandise, or for $15 they will get at least $20 worth of merchandise, but they can’t look inside, and there are no refunds or exchanges (you are trying to get rid of this stuff, remember).

Cinda says it was a big hit in her store. People couldn’t believe what they were getting at such a discounted price. And the merchandise was being sold at more than she would have gotten if she had had to put it on sale. Definitely a win-win situation.
Cinda also suggested that some things like small notepads and pencils with your shop name on them are very inexpensive to put into the grab bags, or even into regular purchase as a little extra something, but they get a very positive response.

Let’s face it. You probably didn’t buy “junk” to begin with, you just miscalculated how successful you would be with these products.

Remember that one woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure, so you are really doing something nice for your customers.

John Saxtan, Editor-in-Chief

Giftware News eWeekly April 17, 2008

Dydacomp Names Healy to CEO Post
Dydacomp, an order management and e-commerce solutions provider for large and small merchants, announced that John V. Healy will be joining the company as their new Chief Executive Officer. Healy most recently served as President and CEO of PRIMIS Marketing Group, a data services and technology company focused on assisting small to medium sized direct marketers in growing their business through more efficient prospecting.

It was also announced that Healy will join the Dydacomp Board as well, succeeding founder David Kopp who is retiring as CEO. Kopp commented on the hiring of Healy, "With the growth in the number of e-commerce clients and the fact that nearly 10% of our new business comes from outside the United States, we are especially pleased to add John's online and global market experience to direct and expand the company's reach and potential." Kopp will continue to be an active member of Dydacomp's Board.

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