[Jewelry making - Article 00539] - Re: [Orchid] Black Friday

[Amery]

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    I managed a small jewelry boutique/ gallery for 5 years. The owner
    said that there was nothing we could do to bring traffic in on
    Thanksgiving weekend for the exact reasons Neil mentioned. He's been
    in business for 18 years! He's not really near a mall, the store is
    outside on a "walking" street with many other independents. 

    Well, with a limited budget, I took it upon myself to attempt to get
    people in. I tried everything.... discounts for that weekend only (he
    rarely does sales), post card mailings, I had each sales person
    personally call their fav customers telling them about our private
    sale. 

    One year, we had a "designer party" invitation only, with champagne
    and munchies. 

    One year I even offered a discount with purchase.... All summer,
    customers would build up points towards a gift certificate to be
    used 

    the weekend after Thanksgiving. I can't tell you how many of these
    we sent out. That year, we probably had 5% come in that weekend with
    their gift certificates. However, we had many come in in December
    playing dumb trying to use them. That was a little difficult. 

    All in all, the owner was correct. We were getting people in for the
    designer party, but nobody was buying. The gift certificate thing
    kinda backfired because it was awkward figuring out what to do in
    Dec, we didn't want to alienate anyone.... Customers didn't want to
    be called at home even with the promise of a discount. And the
    mailings really didn't help all that much. 

    I asked the opinions of many of our good, repeat customers when they
    came in to shop in Dec. Most men said they haven't even thought of
    presents at that point. And many women said they preferred to do the
    mall shopping to take advantage of the huge discounts. The largest
    response was that they would have loved to come take advantage of our
    sale/party/promotion, but were either out of town for the weekend
    with family or had family in town and didn't do any shopping at all. 

    I would love to hear what others have done and are planning on doing
    this Holiday season. 

Amery Carriere Designs
www.amerycarriere.com
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