the ramblings of a chronic over thinker

shopping and retail, oh my!

i like a 75% off sale myself…

i woke up this morning to an email from a supplier titled ‘spring something or the other’. the point of the email was to remind me, as the business owner, that i should be looking at ordering and stocking up for spring so i’m 'ready’. spring?! for real? it’s not even christmas people!

retail is a huge portion of my business and now that EVERYTHING is so pricey, it’s tough to decide how to navigate the store and my retail purchasing. we have black friday coming up (we’re not even american), then boxing day and then what? new years, valentines and all the reasons that you can buy stuff? that is what is coming up next. it never ends. i feel like the retail tango is hard on me. do we really need this much stuff? gifts? personal items? is it necessary at all? we buy what we need and that’s fine, that makes sense to me. but, it’s when we buy what we don’t need, buy because of a prompt, or buy because it’s 75% off regardless of needs, that’s the troublesome part.

so you come into the shop and buy some shampoo and conditioner, in three months, you can re-up. if there’s a sale along the way, sure, stock up! but is it necessary to purchase all the time? i can’t expect all my clients to buy items every time they come to the shop can i? it is definitely a conundrum i struggle with. all the reporting says retail is one of the best strategies to make money, but is it? i have suppliers emailing me with black friday preorders and deals, just to follow up with more emails about holiday gift sets or deals. how can i buy every time i get the prompt if MY products aren’t moving off the shelf?

suppliers attempt to deliver this scarcity type concept for the month of december. they try to make us understand that if a client needs a product during the holidays and i don’t have it? shame! shame! i have to make sure that i have all the things ready for a client to come and shop/spend. it makes sense because the formula for retail includes a markup so yes, it’s an ‘easy‘ way to make some revenue. but then i worry about how much my clients spend and if they indeed really need all the things i sell? i know sales bring folks in and sales prompt folks to buy but is that okay? who is policing my clients accounts? i can’t convince someone to NOT buy something if they think they need it even though i believe they don’t. …i mean, retail therapy is one of my fave types of therapy….

these are cool, i like the handles

all of this to say, be smart with your spending. buy only what you need and if you have time, go through your product cupboard and see what you have that you use and what you have that you don’t use. take stock before you purchase and don’t be easily prompted by my sales and marketing tactics to buy my stuff, or do!😉😉

✌🏾-p