Gardner Store Starts Staying-In-Business Sale
Business owner gives reins to outside consultant
After 21 years in business, Patti Bergstrom-Brooks, the owner of a Gardner children's clothing store known as The Velvet Goose, decided it was time for something new.
She said the store has been consistently profitable, but she wants to stay ahead of the economic downturn she sees approaching. So she hired Bruce Raezer, a consultant with Denver-based G.A. Wright Marketing Inc., to hold a liquidation sale, clearing out her inventory so she can retool her offerings.
Patti Bergstrom-Brooks, owner of Gardner children's clothing store The Velvet Goose, and Bruce Raezer, a consultant with Denver-based G.A. Wright Marketing Inc.Outside Influence
For seven weeks, from late February to mid-April, Raezer is essentially taking over the store, sending mailings, running daily promotions and determining how much to discount different products each week.
"Today he will tell me what we're doing tomorrow," Bergstrom-Brooks said.
The approach is an unusual one, some local experts say. Outside companies typically run sales for stores that are going out of business, not those that are doing fine. But they say Bergstrom-Brooks may have hit on a good idea that could solve some problems retailers commonly face.
Too much inventory that isn't moving fast enough can be a serious problem for retail stores, said John Rainey, a senior business advisor and financial specialist at the Clark University Small Business Development Center. It ties up cash, takes up space, and, in some cases, goes out of style.
Rainey said he sometimes advises the center's clients to sell merchandise that isn't moving to auction companies or discount stores like Building 19. He said most outside consultants that he sees running big sales are actually hired by a bank when a store is in the process of going out of business. But he said he sees no reason why the approach couldn't work in The Velvet Goose's case, too.
Raezer, a sort of itinerant marketer who runs sales all over the country, staying in cheap motels to minimize his expenses, said he organizes sales for both stores that are going out of business and those that just want to get rid of excess product.
From the perspective of the consultant, there isn't much difference between the two situations. Either way, he covers the store's windows with huge day-glow signs announcing the sale, picks up an array of electronics from a local Best Buy to serve as prizes for the promotion and sends out flyers to both the store's regular customers and a data-mined list of area residents.
Marketing 101
Bergstrom-Brooks said she doesn't care if people who see the big window signs think at first that she's going out of business. And she said Raezer's techniques have been effective in drawing customers. Over the first few days of the sale, she said, she's had 10 to 20 times the usual number of shoppers.
She said she expects the sale to turn a profit even after she pays for Raezer's help, but beyond immediate benefits she also hopes to learn something from his methods. She said she thinks of the seven-week promotion as an intensive marketing course that she can take without leaving her store. Store owners often look to consultants for all sorts of help, from web design to marketing advice.
"This is just kind of the extreme, where you have somebody come and live on site for seven weeks," she said.
What The Velvet Goose is doing is essentially the same thing that chain stores commonly do for big sales, said Mike Lanava, business resource manager at the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce. The difference, he said, is that while big chains have corporate marketing departments to organize the events and provide expertise, small local stores have to either figure it out themselves or hire a consultant. Bergstrom-Brooks said she sees using someone from the outside as the obvious choice.
"I'm smart enough to know that there are experts in my field that can help me with my business," she said.
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