A TREAT for parents and children!
Using Hallowe'en to build year-round business
Decorating for Hallowe'en
Adding to your costume department
Did you know?
How about a Hallowe'en costume sign, Kate?

What better time to hand out our Out Out Darned Spot customer service brochure. After all, that's kind of what Lady Macbeth said, in Shakespeare's play that opens with three witches and the famous "bubble bubble toil and trouble..."

Patty Hulce of The Wandering Wardrobe, Springville UT, uses some seasonal "mannequins" (or are they bonequins?) for a display window. See more of Patty's shop, and many others, on our Shop Photos Pages.

Give both kids and parents a REAL Treat

Seize the Shoppertunity:

Using Hallowe'en to build year-round business

If there is one time of the year when you can convert non-resale shoppers into loyal customers, Hallowe'en is it!

All sorts of people are looking for costumes in October, and for that, they will venture away from their usual mall-Big Box-national chain store shopping route. If you let them know you have the makings of costumes by advertising and window display and signage, and if your selection is presented well, you have a chance to impress these costume-shoppers with the remainder of your shop.

Don't miss this "shoppertunity" to showcase your "serious" selection of goods. You want the costume-hunters to see as much as possible of the rest of your shop, so make sure displays are spiffy, stylish, and well-accessorized. 

Your costume racks should NOT be in your front-of-the-floor swing shop area. Put it somewhere where folks can get silly (trying on moustaches, swinging that plastic ax), and also, of course, beyond your best merchandise, so browsers will get a "free tour."

And don't miss the chance, either, to pick up some fresh suppliers. Use your How to Consign or How to Sell to Us brochure as a bag-stuffer and make sure the take-one baskets around the shop are kept full as well.

Costume shopping is so important to introducing new shoppers to the resale world, that you should keep an eye out all year for costume possibilities, storing them away and making up disguises as you go. It's a fun, low-pressure way to show potential suppliers and shoppers that your store is a shoppertunity for them year 'round! 

Decorating for Hallowe'en should be no trouble at all IF:

* You decorate with saleable items as much as possible. Forget the little printed pictures. Go with items people will want to BUY from you, and SELL them. Check out the dollar stores: great masks, accessories, and so on. If someone wants to buy it, tell them they're $2 each. You'll double your money, have more to sell, and not have to store all that decor for 12 months 'til next Hallowe'en. 

* You might prefer to decorate your shop in a harvest theme. After all, I've never yet known a customer to be offended by pumpkins, bittersweet, and corn shocks. Besides, a harvest theme is suitable until you get your holiday decorations up.

Adding to your costume department

The more you have, the more you'll sell. The more you sell, the more you make... more friends and new, loyal customers. If you haven't spent all year collecting costumes, there's still time. Here's how:

Alert your suppliers. What for? Bits and pieces, rather than "costumes". We need: leotards, capes, boas, flashy jewelry, anything you think will make a good costume part. Leopardskin capris? Funny hats? Gauzy harem pants? Here's your chance to bring in those really strange things you didn't think we'd accept... but get them in now! could be your message, phone recording, mailer, handout...

Get over to the dollar store to enhance your costume racks. Adding a handful of cellophane leis to a swimsuit top and tropical sarong skirt makes a hula dancer. Handfuls of the cheapest beads, flung on top of a peasant blouse, embroidered vest, and floral skirts screams "gypsy!". Heck, even if you just have a few ugly rubber masks you can sell for $2, means one more satisfied shopper... who will remember your shop a lot better than if he or she didn't find anything to buy!

All of our clothes are GREAT... 
and some are even  FRIGHTFUL!

You didn't throw away all those tired, washed-out size 22 rejected dresses all year, did you? Men love to go in drag. Bop over to the thrift shop for some blonde wigs and tacky purses and, if you can, some pumps in the largest possible sizes.

The fun is in the details. Anyone can wear a sateen bridesmaid dress to be a princess. Your shop will have the magic wands, the tiaras, the "diamond" necklaces that make the outfit. If you hurry, you may have time to order some wholesale... if not, get them locally and stock them... even if you have to sell for cost. It's customer service you're after!

Did you know.. 
Hallowe'en is spelt with an apostrophe because it's short for Hallow(ed) Even(ing)? Thus Hallowe'en. Of course no one except Polter Geist, our knowledgeable friend from The Picker Who Perished, really CARES... 

Don't know what YOU can be for Halloween, and still manage to work comfortably? (A a better idea than the year I was a chocolate moose complete with antlers, reindeer slippers, and brown tunic with candy-bar wrappers pinned to it...or the year I was a stuffed eggplant in a purple bloomer outfit stuffed with dry-cleaner bags...you have NO idea how hot those bags can be...)

Mother Goose! White tube sock, black button eyes, felt triangle for a beak equals the goose neck... Dress up in "old lady" clothes off the charity rack, stuff a white pillowcase with drycleaner bags for a body (draw wings on it if you're creative, otherwise let 'em use their imagination), sew the sock on the pillowcase so you can slip your arm in and out, and Bob's your Uncle (which BTW would be another cool costume that no one would guess... dress like an old uncle, do a few bouncy moves once in a while....)