Starting a consignment shop sounds like a lot of fun, especially if you love clothes or furniture, or whatever it is that you plan to sell.
It can be a great way to make a living at a hobby you love (like a consignment shop for photographers, for example), but there are a lot of management skills required, and a lot of other personal traits you’ll need. Here are some traits of successful consignment store owners.
1) Discipline. Its great to be your own boss, but there are trade-offs. You will be the one who has to fire people, for example, and that is not fun. You will be the one who has to make sure the accounting books are right, that the security lights really are coming on at night, that the landlord is not cheating you, and more.
There are a thousand little details that you’ll have to attend to every day, and you probably won’t feel like dealing with them. So you have to have the discipline to let go of the work you’d like to do, and do the work that has to be done. You’ll also have to have the discipline to not accept consignments you like, but you know won’t sell.
2) Thrift. Can you squeeze a dollar until it screams? Are you as tight as the bark on a tree? You may have to be. Consignment can be a lean business, especially as you are starting out. You may actually have to take a side job part-time to be able to keep your store going. And you may have to think of dozens of ways to get things done (like dressing store windows, like marketing, even like having store help) that require no money.
Consignment store owners that stay in business know every dollar they do not spend is actually a dollar they have just earned (thank you, Benjamin Franklin). Those of us who pay taxes also know that every dollar you do not spend is actually the equivalent of that dollar plus whatever your tax bracket percentage is, plus whatever it would have cost you to earn that dollar. You need to adopt that outlook fast.
3) Attention to Detail. Are you… um… a flake? Hopefully not, because the thousands of little details to managing a consignment inventory are not suited to flakiness. Even if you do get a great software system up, and you follow it religously, there are still going to be dozens of exceptional situations that you’ll need to remember.
That said, some “flakes” get by just fine — they know they can’t remember things, so they acquire the discipline to set up systems that overcompensate for their forgetfullness. To paraphrase Einstein on this concept, “why remember anything you can look up in a book?” All the personal mamagement systems available today, combined with a great PDA, may be able to make you a management star even if you weren’t born as one. But you are going to have to work to get there.
4) Good with people. Consignment store owners should be extroverts. The only possible exception is if you plan to do the bulk of your business online, but even then you will need to be talking to quite a few people. If you have a store, you must be outgoing and kind enough to be nice to customers even when they are being stupid and inconvenient (and unprofitable, and when you’re tired and need to be doing something else).
A lot of the success of your store depends on how much people like you, so if you are really good with people, you will have a major advantage from the start. For those of us who are not good with people, get yourself a copy of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.
5) An eye for merchandise that sells. This can be acquired with experience, but some people are just born with it. They know what sells, when most of us would just skip over the item at a garage sale.
Frequently these merchandise gurus are also gifted salespeople, though not always (what a great partnership for a store — one who can pick it, and one who can sell it). If that sounds like you, your consignment store may already be set up for greatness.
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