Sale Organizer Advice

Competition. Some people l-o-v-e to compete – the roar of the crowd, the coach on the sideline, the game face, the sweat and tears, and of course the victory. Some people h-a-t-e to compete – they prefer the sidelines with the crowd, the cheering, and the concessions. But believe it or not, one thing you don’t need to spend time worrying about when it comes to your seasonal consignment sale is competition!

With 80-100 sales within 30 minutes of my sale’s location, I’ve changed my mindset about “competition” – I let these other sales benefit me in 3 ways:

• Educate
• Motivate
• Alliances

Education

The education factor works like this – the more sales there are, the more people there are working together to educate families about seasonal consignment sales, the better the odds are that they will find your sale. In addition, you can work together to cross-promote (cross promoting means less time and money advertising / educating).

National consignment sale listing sites such as ConsignmentMommies are working diligently to educate families about the benefits of seasonal consignment sales, and they do this to benefit you. With 1200+ sales and growing, chances are, you aren’t the only sale in town… and if you are, you won’t be for long.

Motivation

The motivation factor will force you to constantly improve your sale. If you want continued success and business growth, you simply can’t continue to do “business as usual.” Each season, I now have to bring my A-Game, each and every time; I think of new ways to improve my sale and encourage more people to get involved with my event. If I didn’t have “competition,” it would be too easy for me to rest on my laurels.

Alliances

Alliances are important because having an ally will help you become aware of problem consignors, bad check writers, even thieves. While having a network of “national” friends is great, they can’t tell you about Betty BadCheckWriter. By having alliances, I also have sales I can refer my customers to – in return they have a vested interest to refer their customers to me.

And let’s face it, you can’t be everything to everyone. You can’t be the BIGGEST sale, the HIGH END MARKET sale, and the MOST FRIENDLY sale. You just can’t. My sale is capped at 350 consignors and I have a waiting list of 250 consignors. They need somewhere to sell – my location won’t fit them all. So I build alliances with other sale organizers. When we work together, our sales will grow as more shoppers and consignors discover the wonderful world of seasonal consignment sales.

Jenifer Gifford is a seasonal sale organizer for Once Around the Block Kids in Nashville, TN. She has hosted 23 sales in the Nashville area, including organizing benefit sales for local non-profits. Jenifer is the author of Consignamania™ - How To Start Your Own Seasonal Consignment Business manual. She also mentors and coaches new and existing sale organizers around the world.