More Great Advice For Quilt Shop Owners From Customers Part II

Last week, in part one of this three part series, I summarized consumer suggestions for retailers to help them improve in these areas: general etiquette, customer service, product offerings and employee strategy . Today, I will continue on with more topics and next week I will wrap it all up. Here goes.

FABRIC CUTTING:

• Make sure to cut all fabric straight and with the grain.
• Cut panels as accurately as possible.
• Consider giving a little bit of extra fabric with each cut. You don’t want customers getting home and finding that they are short by a small amount.
• Keep the cutting table clear of clutter and food.
• Please don’t be on the phone while people are waiting to have their fabric cut.

SHOP APPEAL:

• Keep the shop at a moderate temperature.

• Don’t make customers search or dig. They are not in the construction business……well, they kind of are, but the construction of quilts and hard hat construction are two totally different things.
• A clean shop is an easy shop to get through and doesn’t add stress. Our brains want to see neat and organized.
• Find a niche and serve it well.
• Make sure the aisles are easy to move through. Consider that some people may have walkers, crutches or wheelchairs.

• Kick the pets to the curb. I am always harsh on this one because I hate to hear about people losing customers due to the fact that the shop has a pet. I am a pet person, but there is no place for a pet in the shop. Pets should be in pet shops.
• Regardless of whether you think all of your customers love your pet, that isn’t always the case. You need to realize that the person who stopped shopping at your shop because of the pet didn’t tell you before they left that the pet was the reason. They plain and simply just left, never to return. Don’t be in denial. People have allergies. People are scared. People don’t want pet hair or urine on their fabric. I know I wrote about this long ago in another blog, but this one is so important to me and I can’t say it enough.
• After I wrote about the pet situation, I heard many excuses and denials from shop owners about how their dog isn’t an issue at their shop. If people don’t want to change for the better, that is up to them, but then they can’t complain if business suffers or things aren’t going as well as they think it should. This one is bigger than people want to believe.
• You should eliminate any thing that will serve as an excuse for your customers to not come back again. Pets, rude service and a disorganized shop are just a few of those reasons. You need to get these things rectified asap.
• Try to have a work area where customers can lay fabrics out.
• Be known for something that you will be remembered by.
• Don’t pack the bolts so tightly on the shelf that they can’t be removed.
• Keep the shop neat and organized by color, by theme, etc., whatever it takes to make it as easy as possible to understand the organization of your shop and how to navigate through it.
• This last one gets a little tricky, but a lot of the respondents asked that shops cater to working and non-working quilters alike. Many of the working folk felt that they were being skunked because many shops didn’t have the hours to cater to them too. This is definitely something to think about because if you could potentially cater to both categories of people, your business will greatly benefit from those two differing revenue streams. One idea on this front was to be open one night during the week. Spread the word and test it out, but if you are going to try it, make sure to go for it fully and not with a half baked effort. A half baked effort will lead to an automatic failure and no one wants to set themselves up for that.

GENERAL IDEAS:

• Have you ever thought of giving every new customer that walks in to your shop a little tour?
• Consider a weekend for mother/daughter, father/son or grandparent/grandchild beginner classes.
• Promote. Advertise. Market.
• Track customer purchases and let the customer know when something new is in that they would typically buy.
• Send a birthday, anniversary or holiday card or email.
• Run clubs.
• Try affinity programs.
• Create a wait-list for new collections. This will create excitement and anticipation.
• Offer a complimentary block or quilt pattern every so often.
• Ask customers if they would like to display their quilts in your shop.
• Consider photographing projects made by customers and sharing them on your social media pages.
• Make customers feel special and loved. Don’t let them be just a number.

CLASSES/HOURS/DAYS OPEN:

• Bring teachers in from out of town for different level quilters.
• As mentioned above, make some classes available for working folks too and not just retirees or non-workers.
• Try to open one day on the weekend at a minimum if not both days of the weekend.
• Have open sews and either do it for free or charge a nominal fee. You would be surprised how this could help generate business and new customers.
• Have stash buster classes.
• Don’t single out people in classes and embarrass them for any reason.

That’s all for this week. Next week, I will wrap this series up. I hope shop owners are finding this helpful.