Tag Archive for: coronavirus

Cindy’s Newsletter for Gift Shop Managers | July 15, 2020 💮

CINDY’S NEWSLETTER

for

Gift Shop Managers

Cindy’s Newsletter provides its readership of over 3,000 gift shop professionals “actionable content” to help optimize their shop operation, grow revenue, and connect with one another. HOW TO COMMENT Click the comment tags throughout the newsletter to comment or email them to cindy@cindyjonesassociates.com


JULY 15, 2020


👇🏼 CLICK TO COMMENT 👇🏼

CORONAVIRUS DISCUSSION 😷

Has your gift shop reopened?!

What’s your best experience since reopening?

What’s working? What isn’t?

We strive to provide a place here where managers can come together, gain a sense of community, and exchange valuable insights from one another through this time. Thank you to everyone who’s commented and shared over the last few months. As the saying goes, “We’ve got this!”


REOPENING POLL

Is your gift shop open, closed, or some variant?

Shops that have reopened

Many of our readers are watching to see if other gift shops have reopened and how they are going about it. Here are a few from across the country. If one of these is your gift shop, please comment and let us know how it’s going?!

Elkhart General and Memorial Hospital, Elkhart, IN
To support the CDC recommendations and the visitor restrictions put in place at the hospitals, the gift shops at Elkhart General and Memorial Hospital are open Monday, Wednesday & Friday from 10 AM – 2 PM.

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Cincinnati, OH
Our Gift Shops are now open at Liberty and Burnet Campus. We are taking precautions to provide a safe environment for visitors and staff. Some restrictions are in place including reduced occupancy, distancing stickers and a minimum age requirement of 18 years for shoppers. Starting June 15, 2020, the Gift Shop will resume deliveries to inpatient rooms. Please call the stores to find out more about delivery schedules and restrictions. Shop Hours: Liberty Campus 8:30am – 4pm M-F. Burnet Campus – M-F 9am – 5pm

Russell Medical, Alexander City, AL Re-Opened to Hospital Staff Only
Visitors are still not allowed inside the hospital due to the coronavirus pandemic. Because Russell Medical (81 beds) cannot utilize volunteers at this time, the staff is running the Auxiliary Gift Shop, which will reopen with a new name and fresh inventory July 6. “We’re bringing in local vendors and artists for new products and opportunities,” Jackson said.  The auxiliary gift shop is hosting a 60% off sale next week and will reopen after the Fourth of July under hospital management. “A lot of the staff works 7 (a.m.) to 7 (p.m.) and don’t get to shop downtown,” Jackson said. “The employees are (the gift shop’s) main revenue.” Inventory will be from local downtown merchants. “We want to provide products for our employees and drive them to their downtown shops,” Jackson said. “Once the auxiliary is allowed back, they’ll take over running the gift shop again.” SOURCE: The Outlook

Northwest Community Hospital, Chicago, IL
Our Gift shop is reopening on Monday, June 1st with revised hours. Store hours will be 9:00 am–5:00 pm on weekdays, closed on Saturday and Sunday.

University of Vermont Health Network-CVPH Medical Center, Plattsburgh, NY
After a three-month hiatus due to COVID-19, the gift shop inside the University of Vermont Health Network-CVPH Medical Center has reopened. While visitors are not yet permitted inside, families and friends can now purchase items online and have them delivered directly to patients, staff, and hospital rooms. Customers can place orders online and over the phone seven days a week by calling 518-562-7992. Open M-F, 9am – 5pm and weekends 11am-3pm. SOURCE: The Sun

Rutland Regional Medical Center, Rutland City, VT
RRMC Gift Shop Re-Opens May 18, 2020. The RRMC Gift Shop is now open from 12:30-4:30pm, Monday-Friday. There is a limit of five customers in the Gift Shop and Pharmacy at any time. SOURCE: RRMC

Reading Hospital, West Reading, PA Closed Indefinitely
Reading Hospital will no longer operate their gift shops and are closing indefinitely. Myself and the entire staff have been let go. My last day is June 30. I am now unemployed and will be looking for another job. I really feel I have been successful the 8 years I have managed the shops. Sadly Covid-19 has hit finances hard. The hospital may use Lori’s or another 3rd party gift shop company in the future. – Eric Wininger, Gift Shops Manager

Eric has been a long-time reader and active contributor to this newsletter and the hospital gift shop community as a whole. We are grateful for all his insight and comments over the years. We wish him all the best in his job search! – Cindy Jones 


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VIDEO: Reopening Your Store

By Cathy Donovan Wagner  / May 21, 2020

Here is an excellent video by Cathy Donovan Wagner from RETAILMavens talking about what you need to know for reopening your store after COVID-19. Download Reopening Your Store by RetailMavens to follow along. 

Source: RetailMAVENS


THIS MONTH’S POLL

Is it in bad taste to sell COVID-19 novelty items?Obviously, nothing tacky, insensitive, or inappropriate. But a light-hearted t-shirt, mugs, teddy bears with face masks. Or, would it put off the doctors and nurses who see the tragedy of coronavirus, first hand, everyday.

We decided to leave this poll for another month! Please comment. What do you think about COVID-19 novelty products? Are there any you like?


👇🏼 CLICK TO COMMENT 👇🏼

Q. What is your buyer policy for purchasing merchandise?

I hope everyone is doing well during this difficult time! I am currently updating our very out-of-date gift shop policies and am hoping to get a little help from those of you that have policies in place.

I would love to see how your buyer policy for purchasing merchandise is written? Thanks in advance for your help! I hope you and your families are staying safe and healthy! – Jenny Inglett, Retail Coordinator, Volunteer Services, Gift Shop and Corner Stork Café, Yuma Regional Medical Center, Yuma, AZ.



The influence of team cohesiveness

by Cindy Jones, Editor and Publisher 💮

As managers and leaders, we make proposals and decisions that we hope others will support. While the majority of the group may support a proposal, there might be others who disagree. But, according to this research, they will cave in to agree with you about 40% of the time. 

So what does this mean to your shop? 
If we don’t celebrate diverse opinions, we may actually be leading our shop down a path of failure. New managers and volunteers may ask, “Why are you doing it this way?” Asking this question can be valuable in helping us break the trance of always doing things the same way. Our willingness to explore a multitude of points of view will be important in moving forward and attracting a balance of “today’s volunteers” and the “traditional volunteers.” 

Your shop may already be victim of this phenomenon. Many shops are struggling because they need more volunteers. They blame potential younger volunteers for not wanting to get involved. When, instead, it’s sometimes because they see a rigid environment where the existing volunteers are unwilling to explore new ways of doing things (i.e., “That’s not how we do it here.”) Younger volunteers may show up, but because they don’t find value, they move on to alternative areas.

As a manager and leader, you can use this social conformity research to help build the momentum so your shop can and will achieve something great together.  For example, you can take ownership of the belief that your shop will raise more money than ever before by doubling its sales.  Then, name the goal because that is what gets people excited! As everyone jumps on board and adds their force to the message, you’ll be able to bring 40% more of your volunteers along to endorse the belief of this exciting potential. 

With a critical mass believing in the potential, you’ll find people taking action to make it happen. 

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💮 CALENDAR 💮

GIFT MARKETS

Updated July 15. Always confirm show dates with the market directly before making travel plans. Dates change frequently and often. Jul 21-23, 2020
Dallas Apparel & Accessories + Gift & Home Open House **select showrooms by appt 🔗
ON HOLD
Jul 23–26, 2020
TransWorld’s Jewelry, Fashion & Accessories Show (now Summer). Chicago 🔗
SEE VIRTUAL SHOW: jfashow.com/buyers-resource-guide.html
CANCELLED
Aug 8-12, 2020
NY NOW (Summer). New York 🔗
CANCELLED Aug 9-12, 2020
Toronto Gift + Home Market (Fall) 🔗
RESCHEDULED for Aug 13-18, 2020
Atlanta Gift & Home Furnishings Market (Summer) 🔗 Jul 14–20, 2020
RESCHEDULED for Aug 18-24, 2020
Seattle Gift Show (Summer/Fall) 🔗 Jul 21-25, 2020
RESCHEDULED for
Aug 19-25, 2020
Dallas Total Home & Gift Market (Summer) 🔗
RESCHEDULED for Aug 20-24, 2020
LA Mart (Summer). Los Angeles 🔗 Jul 9-13, 2020
Aug 25-28, 2020
Dallas Apparel & Accessories Market (Summer) + KidsWorld Market + Western Market 🔗
Aug 28-30, 2020
Rocky Mountain Gift Show. Denver 🔗
RESCHEDULED for Aug 30 – Sep 3, 2020
Las Vegas Market (Summer) 🔗 Jul 26-30, 2020
Sep 23-25, 2020
Dallas Total Home & Gift Market (Fall) 🔗
Oct 4–6, 2020
LA Mart (Fall). Los Angeles 🔗
Oct 5–6, 2020
Seattle Gift Show (Fall) 🔗
Oct 17-21, 2020
High Point Market (Fall). Highpoint, NC 🔗
Oct 18-20, 2020
NY NOW (Fall). New York 🔗
Oct 20-23, 2020
Dallas Apparel & Accessories Market 🔗
Oct 22-25, 2020
TransWorld’s Spring Jewelry, Fashion & Accessories Show (Fall) Rosemont, IL 🔗

For a more complete list, including small and regional shows, visit: Smart Retailer TradeShow Calendar

STATE AUXILIARY CONFERENCES

CANCELLED
Aug 22-25 2020
52nd Annual AHVRP Conference & Exposition. Denver, CO 🔗
Nov 4-6, 2020
Missouri Hospital Assoc (MHA) Annual Convention & Trade Show. Osage Beach, MO 🔗 
RESCHEDULED for
Nov 4-6, 2020

Michigan Healthcare Volunteer Resource Professionals (MHVRP) Spring Conference. Shelbyville, MI🔗

 


Sales Forecasting

by Cindy Jones, Editor and Publisher 💮

Sound financial management is based on facts, not feelings. You can’t manage numbers you don’t have and you can’t make good decisions with bad numbers. When you have good numbers, you will be able to plan, organize and control business activities. 

Through good financial management, you can trim expenses, eliminate waste, and increase your profits. When you misspend one dollar, you’ve already wasted two: the dollar you spent wrongly and the dollar you could have spent well.

To know how much to buy, you’ll need to know what you can sell.  Accurate sales forecasting will result in accurate buying.  Accurate buying will result in high profitability.  

Sales forecasting is creating a plan (i.e., a budget). Using historical sales data and existing economic conditions, estimate monthly sales for each category.  Prepare a twelve-month sales projection for each category. You now have an annual category and total sales forecast. Proper merchandise management isn’t rocket science, but it does require time and discipline.

It’s just like a dinner party. The first thing you need to know is how many people you’re going to feed. Then you can develop the budget, plan the menu, create the shopping list and lay out the seating. Can you imagine doing any of this without first knowing how may guests you are having?  Of course not!

How many hospital gift shop managers  – volunteer or paid – across the country buy merchandise and make other critical retail decisions without having made a sales forecast? Can you imagine the National Archers Association holding an event and forgetting to hang the targets?

Sales forecasting helps everyone stay focused. It provides a goal to work towards throughout the year. Sales forecasting can serve as a motivator by energizing everyone to strive to increase sales and grow! 


Action In Retail Free Seminar

July 22, 2020 9:30 – 5:30 PM EST

Connect with industry leaders offering real-time, expert insight into the current unprecedented retail landscape.

ACTION IN RETAIL will feature operational support, for both online and offline retailers, through interactive tools, educational panels, on-demand content and chat forums, as well as showcasing retail technology and services.

www.actioninretail.com


Seven reasons team meetings are a waste of time

by Cathy Donovan Wagner / July 15, 2020

Just last week, I had a retailer tell me that staff meetings were a waste of time. I was shocked. I have heard many excuses why retailers don’t do them – but never heard anyone say that they weren’t worth doing at all.

I asked why they thought so… and all the reasons were spewed out! Some were valid and some weren’t.

The biggest problem was in the perspective that they had about the people that worked for them. Notice that they called it a ‘staff meeting.’ I never had a staff. Ever. I always had a team and had ‘team meetings.’ The difference between those two words is huge and requires a separate post just about that. Trust me when I say that you want a team!!

There were seven key reasons that make even team meetings a waste of time. I don’t want you to make any of these mistakes – so I will outline them now for you.

1. Meetings that last longer than an hour. The brain can only absorb what the butt can withstand. And that is usually just about an hour of sitting! Keeping meetings short and sweet is crucial.

2. Feeding your team during the meeting. I never provided food – only drinks. This is a business meeting, folks! This is not a party. I want everyone focused on the content not on licking their fingers. If you feel you must feed them, then do it afterwards only.

3. Wasting everyone’s time by not having an agenda. You are paying for the team to show up and you owe it to them to be as productive as possible. That ONLY happens by having an agenda. Then you MUST act like the boss (team leader) and keep everyone on track.

4. Wasting meeting time by not using a “Parking Lot.” Tell your team that you are going to follow the agenda. Be proactive and introduce the concept of a “Parking Lot.” When someone brings up an issue that isn’t on the agenda, tell them that it will be put into the “Parking Lot.” It is a holding place where you “park” topics that will be addressed later. Write the topic down so that it isn’t forgotten about. Be sure to look the person in the eye and tell them that you will get back to them within 48 hours to tell them when you will be able to meet with them to discuss their concern.

5. Trying to cover too much information and being disrespectful by running over the allotted time. It is a common mistake. You will find that when you run regular team meetings you will know how much content is needed to fill an hour. Because you are holding them regularly, you know you can cover the information next time.

6. Allowing the team meeting to become a group whining session. Put your foot down and tell your team that this isn’t allowed. You care about them. You respect their time and attention. You want to know what their concerns are and put them into the “Parking Lot.” The purpose of a team meeting is to share information and do skill building that will result in growth. It is a “No Whining” zone. I believe that your store should be a “No Whining” zone. When my kids used to whine, I would say that I couldn’t hear them. I did the same thing with my team! It wasn’t a problem for long.

7. Ignoring the fact your team members are salespeople (and, sometimes volunteer salespeople). They are responsible for sales. Without exception every team meeting should include time dedicated to improving their skills. It is your responsibility as their leader to give them tools to help them do their job better! One good way of accomplishing this is to ask each team member to take one meeting and role play a common objection that they get from customers. It gets everyone involved and addresses the actual situations that they face.

A few other basic facts about team meetings that help make them easy: Make it clear during the hiring process that attendance at team meetings is nonnegotiable. Make it easy for them to attend by listing out the team meetings for the year in advance – or at least 4 months out. You want to reduce any objections.

Finally, tell new hires that they wouldn’t want to miss the meetings because they are fun!

Team meeting are an essential way to share information, build selling skills, and strengthen bonds. If you need any help, don’t hesitate to email her at cathy@retailmavens.com

Cathy Donovan-Wagner is the Founder and President of RETAILMavens. With over 29 years of experience in retail as both an owner and a consultant, Cathy has the unique position of having worked on both sides of the counter. She has seen firsthand the tremendous benefits that the paying attention to your numbers makes. It is what helped her to grow to 3 stores grossing in excess of 2.5 million dollars. As The Retail Maven, Cathy helps retailers develop action plans that increase sales, improve cash flow and create success…and love their life! 

 

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The ideal manager is a person who is service-oriented, cheerful, self-motivated, open to new ideas, energetic, organized, responsible and forward thinking. They are risk-takers, good at training, visionaries, delegators, sensitive, supportive and patient. They are pro-active, change agents, bridge builders, financial wizards, Mother Teresas and they possess a keen sense of humor!


Virtual Showrooms

We featured a list of virtual gift shows and online marketplaces in the May 15, 2020 issue. Here are some virtual showrooms we recently learned of. 

MELROSE360˙ Virtual Showroom

Melrose International announced the premier of its virtual MELROSE360˙ Showrooms, which offers a new way to shop this market season. Customers will be able to shop by collections, walk the entire showroom, make wish lists and even place orders. The Home & Holiday showroom is available now and the 2021 Home & Garden showroom will be available in mid-August.

Sullivans Virtual Market

Sullivans, a designer and marketer of home décor products, permanent botanicals, and giftware, revealed a new way to shop this market season through its new virtual marketplace. Sullivans is excited to present its showroom, virtually. It features seven new themes and over 750 new spring and everyday products, including on-trend containers, wall décor, textiles, florals and botanicals, and more.


WEBINAR: Digital Marketing for Hospital Gift Shops

Does Your Gift Shop Have a Digital Presence?
Digital Marketing for Hospital Gift Shops
Recorded July 9, 2020

Hosted by i3 Verticals POS

Join industry leaders to discuss best practices for your gift shop’s digital efforts. Learn ways to implement a gift shop website, e-commerce stores, and how to create a social media presence. We’ll be covering topics like:
– Ways to drive more sales in today’s digital age
– Best practices for social media
– Questions to ask when building a website
– eCommerce pitfalls and how to avoid them


JUNE 2020 NEWSLETTER: ISSUE #606
Here are last month’s articles, polls and discussions.

  • Will the pandemic change how retailers buy?
  • This month’s poll: Is it in bad taste to sell COVID-19 novelty items?
  • Last month’s poll: What is the annual cost of your POS system?
  • Introducing Facebook Shops
  • Job openings
  • Part II: Why write your own purchase orders?
  • Your shop’s mission
  • Direct Ship Programs
  • How is the coronavirus affecting your gift shop?
  • Tradeshow Calendar
  • Selling behind a mask: connecting while social distancing
  • Looking for a new manager or clerk?
  • Buying post coronavirus. How?
gift shop display

DISCUSSION


BUYING POST CORONAVIRUS

Q. Our budget has been cut due to the Coronavirus. We are having troubles getting product and vendors don’t seem to be working with us on pricing.  What vendors are offering good discounts?  – Shop Manager, AZ 6/10/20


HOW IS THE CORONAVIRUS AFFECTING YOUR GIFT SHOP?

How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your gift shop. Has your gift shop closed or reduced hours? What about volunteers? Are you sanitizing product? If your hospital does close the gift shop will they deploy you to another department? Are you able to work from home?

We are not open yet. I think the hardest part was that I went in got all the Easter out, did a deep clean, got all Of Mother’s Day out and displayed and we still aren’t open. I have ordered nothing in 2 months. I can’t order until there is money coming in again. I have a store room full of summer apparel that I will put out since the spring apparel is still hanging there. So sad!! – Vickie Bailey 5/22/20

It really is sad, Vickie! What a shame! Sending warm wishes to all you managers that are facing this same dilemma. – Cindy

Our Governor is slowly reopening the state of Arkansas and our CEO Allowed us to reopen with limited traffic and reduced hours week before last in time for Mother’s day. We have a sanitizing station at the door for people to sanitize upon entry and masks are required. Our employees have been very excited to have a bit of normalcy again and its reducing some stress. No volunteers back yet so my supervisor and I are trading off shifts. We are open 10-3 Monday through Friday. I had set up a private employees only Facebook group while we were closed so I could still sell things to the employees that way and we have found they love live videos of new merch so we are continuing posting in that group as well.  – Shea Parazine 5/18/20

Thank you for sharing, Shea. Glad to hear you have opened, even with limited hours. Also, thanks for sharing that you set up a private Facebook group using live videos of your products. Please share the link if it goes public. – Cindy

All our Volunteers LOA but myself and my wife continued to keep the gift shop open for the employees.  – James Padgett 5/18/20

So glad to hear your shop is open. What hospital are you with? – Cindy

We are closed but open to email & phone orders so that employees can get any type of item. We’ve been selling a lot of pop and candy but also cards & gifts. – Jenny Turner 4/15/20

We were told to close our Shop on March 16th until further notice (Rochester General Hospital, Rochester, NY) – 337 Beds. Our Association decided to donate all perishable snacks, bagged candy and even our Gourmet Chocolates to the Hospital Staff and it was distributed by their Senior Leaders. – Anne Trocano/Linda Leary

We donated all our Easter candy and any candy/snacks which will expire by June, to our staff as a Thank You for their hard work. – Anonymous

We did the same! – Anonymous

We have had to shutter our doors as of March 18. After our closing, as the manager, I decided I would call each employee or volunteer on the day they would have worked as a way to stay in contact with everyone. Some of the paid staff (myself included) have been placed in the labor pool, and do other jobs throughout the hospital, but I still make the effort each week to call and check on everyone to discuss how absolutely bored they are, do they have enough toilet paper, the puzzle they are working on, or just how much their spouse is driving them nuts! I have to say it has been beneficial to both them and me. We are bonded through our common goal, The Gift Shop, and our lives are just not the same without it.
We all anxiously await the day we can reunite and “do our job again”  – David Munger

David, this is wonderful! Thank you for sharing! – Cindy Jones

We are now taking phone orders with delivery to our patients, in-town delivery, pickup, and mail out! Business has been very slow, but I felt like I had to try something…  -Jamie Lee Hernandez

We closed the shop on March 6. We donated flowers in stock to patients and staff. Fortunately, we had not decorated for Easter yet and had little expressly Easter inventory as we don’t do very well with it. I have plenty of general inventory for Spring and Summer when we do reopen but have been leery about ordering ahead of that as I just don’t know what things will look like. In the meantime, our auxiliary has decided to donate a substantial amount of money to the hospital to be used as they see fit rather than asking for ideas and then choosing projects or equipment to fund. This seemed like the expedient as well as the more critical response to the needs of the hospital at this point but we hope to still be able to fund the scholarships we usually award to hospital employees. I made and sent Easter cards to all my volunteers and try to stay in touch with them, as many are struggling with their own or spouse’s health issues, independent of the virus. – Sandra Oldfield

I am at Northside Hospital in Atlanta. Both of our gift shops are still open. The Get Well shop in open 8 am to 8 pm M-F and 11-3 Sat and Sun, and our Baby Shop is open, but for reduced hours. We are mainly selling staff t-shirts and tons of snacks. Fortunately we have an e-commerce site and it is doing well, especially for baby gifts and flowers because no one is allowed to visit. Obviously revenues are way down, but we are still making enough to cover employee salaries and the cost of goods we are selling. The staff is very grateful that we are here, as it provides a bit of normalcy in an otherwise unthinkable situation. We have added numerous safety measures, such as a large plexiglass shield across the counter, masks, and hand sanitizer everywhere. Fortunately all of our Easter candy sold, and the rest of our Easter and spring merchandise will just be put away for next year. Since few people saw it, it will seem new to everyone. I hope you are all well and surviving this ultra-trying time! – Shauna Cox

Our shop is closed and has been since about March 16. The volunteers were all “paused” a week or so earlier and I opened a few hours for a couple days and then we were asked to close completely for a while. In a hospital, the gift shop is respite for our staff. No family members have been allowed in the building for a while now, so only staff, but they are our main customer anyway. The staff really miss the shop being open. Especially with all the stress right now, they would really love to be able to wander through the shop just to get their minds off their job for a little while. I’m hoping we will get the green light to open again soon.
I know of some hospital shops opening for a couple hours a day and only two customers at a time in the shop. Some are allowing “window shopping” and then pay via payroll deduct and what they choose is put outside the shop for them…they don’t actually get to come in the shop.
I’m really anxious to hear more from other hospital gift shops to see what they are doing and how they are doing it. The i3POS webinar yesterday had some interesting points. We all need to learn from each other and share ideas as much as we can during these difficult times. – Vesta Smith

When the time comes, consider having a ‘soft opening’ with limited hours and only allowing 10-15 shoppers in at a time. And, they must practice social distancing. Keep a box of rubber gloves and wipes at the front door and cashier counter. Good luck! – Cindy Jones

I have changed my shop into a mini mart. We have made our shop as an Essential business for our employees who are covering the Covid units. We open at 7 a.m. and close at 9p.m. I receive deliveries of food, toilet paper. I have partnered with Costco for deliveries, I moved and boxed all of our seasonal gift items. This has been a huge success. I did this with 3 of my shops. – Anonymous

As of today (3/16), our gift is closed indefinitely. We are sad. – Melodie Christal

As of 3/10 our gift shop was closed indefinitely due to the virus. Nothing we can do!! – Nan Healy

Our gift shop has been closed down, and we have no idea for how long. – Nancy Klein

All of our volunteers have been placed on LOA. I am opening the shop 10-2 M-F and paid staff 11-4 and 1-5 on weekends. I am responsible for all vending services as well so I am spending the rest of each day ordering, stocking, etc. We feel this is probably short term as we expect to be closed at some point. Sales are only on snacks, drinks, and candy so sales are definitely lower. – Anonymous

I am operating our gift shop on a limited schedule, as I am the only paid staff member and our volunteers are also on LOA. Planning to sanitize while I’m up there. Hot spots daily (if not multiple times per day). Going to see how traffic is this week and determine if I need to stay open next week as well. We have strict visitor limitations in place, expecting mainly employee traffic. – Anonymous

Our Gift shop is also closed. Volunteers are on LOA and as manager I am the only employee in Gift Shop. I am taking this time to do stock work and assist at Information Desk as needed. I plan to donate and deliver candy and popcorn to our hardworking clinical staff. – Anonymous

Our volunteers has been asked to stay home for their safety. That leaves me with 3 paid employees. We have a pharmacy in our gift shop so we cannot close, so, we have changed our hours to match the pharmacy. So, we are closing earlier Monday through Saturday and now are closed on Sunday until this passes. Stay safe everyone. – Kim DeBord

As of Saturday our Gift shop is closed. We have Easter and Spring clothes to sell – Sandy Eiffert

Members of the community should not come to the hospital unless there is a medical reason for the visit. This includes coming to the hospital solely to eat in the cafeteria or shop in the gift shop. – Janet Long, Public Relations Manager at Morris Hospital, IL

Our gift shop is closed until further notice. – Anonymous

Our shop is closed to walk in traffic. We have posted on the door and hospital site we will accept orders email, fax and by phone. They can come to the door and pick up. Only credit card and payroll payments. We will continue to accept phone orders for patient gifts. We have redone our windows to better view our products. We hope this is just for a couple weeks. Good Luck everyone. – Mary Claire

We are open but only with limited hours. All volunteers have been mandated to stay home. It is just me the manger and my assistant. Yes, we are sanitizing product and our store and our self’s and we are required to do so every hour! Yes they are saying they will deploy us to another department, we will not be able to work from home. The hospital is not allowing any visitors. Sales have been just for candy and snacks and only employees. – Colleen

We have reduced our hours to M-F 9-5 and Saturday 12-4. We don’t have any Covid-19 positive tests in our County yet. I’m sure as soon as we do, we’ll be shut down. Volunteers, at this point are able to determine for themselves if they wish to come in. – Anonymous

Our two hospital gift shops are closed indefinitely since Monday, 3/16. We only had two volunteers under the age of 60 and myself, a paid manager that would have been eligible to work. I will take this time to clean and organize our office/pricing area. I will clean and reset both shops and set up new displays. I will refresh any worn out display pieces such as repainting the racks from our fresh flower case that once the flowers were removed looked quite shabby, and not in the chic way!. I can work from home if needed, pricing smaller items, writing up future orders with catalogs or ordering online by holding the orders etc. This is a totally helpless feeling, I anxiously await our reopening! Stay healthy! – Jamie Lee Hernandez

Dignity Health Central Coast limits their hospital visitations due to flu and COVID-19 concerns All hospital gift shops are closed until further notice. Washington Health System is suspending some services, including closing the gift shop.  – Cindy Jones

Has your gift shop closed or reduced hours? Has you volunteer department closed? If so, are you as a gift shop manager able to work from home? If your hospital does close the gift shop will they deploy you to another department? Thanks! – Colleen DeSimone, Gift Shop Coordinator,Orange Regional Medical Center Gift Shop

We have been closed for over a week now as we’re staffed entirely by volunteers who are not allowed at the hospital. All visitors except end of life situations or parents of young patients are banned. We distributed the flowers, our only perishable item, to patients who would enjoy them before closing our doors. Our health fair, regional auxiliary meeting and volunteer appreciation lunch are all cancelled and we have no idea when we will re-open. Our hospital is a small rural one with 19 beds. – Sandra Oldfield

We have been closed since Monday. The President felt that if someone who was infected came in contact with multiple items it would be very difficult to disinfect everything they touched. I sent out a mass email to all employees and let them know that if they wanted to buy anything I can get it together and just charge their badge and meet them at the back door. No need to step foot into the shop. It’s working out really well. – Anonymous

What is everyone doing about all of their spring merchandise, just taking a loss?  I am in the process of removing all the Easter merchandise, plush, etc. and storing them for next year. I plan to keep the spring items in the shop. BTW, we have been closed since March 10th. All volunteers on LOA. As the only paid employee among our volunteers I am performing all tasks that our volunteers were doing, mail, surveys, front desk, etc. Stay well everyone. – Sarah F

We are still open, with only two paid employees disinfecting everything we can. We are only selling drinks, food and candy also. – Anonymous

Our gift shop closed officially 3/17 after all the volunteers called off. I am the only paid employee and am currently working from home because I have a sinus infection and am not allowed back into the hospital until I am 100%. Once I am 100% I will be allowed back into the hospital to work on various projects in the hospital and help in other areas where there are shortages. I feel helpless being at home and know that under any other situation I would have already been back to work with the tail end of an infection. Stay safe everyone. – Anonymous

We have a paid staff person in our gift shop so between her and a few die-hard volunteers, it has been open with reduced hours. Our volunteer services is not paused except for the teen program. We will keep it open as long as we can for our staff. We have been told that all staff are essential and no one will be staff reduced at this time, we will be deployed to help elsewhere. – Nichole

Are any of you doing delivery service to hospital employees in various departments and to patient floors? If so, how is that working? – Cindy Jones, Editor

So we have been closed since 3/13. Volunteers are on LOA. I am still here because we do flowers. The shop is closed. I have tried to let employees know that we have gifts if they need them. Very sad. No traffic on our main street. Stay Healthy! – Anonymous

We had to close the Gift Shop per our Executive Team Leaders on March 24. I’m wondering what everyone else, that has had to close, is doing with your Easter product, especially Easter candy? My thought is to hold it over until next year since I hadn’t had it out long enough to sell much of it. I’m pretty sure we won’t be open before Easter at this point. We plan to move to a new location in August and will have limited storage at the new location. – Vickie Bailey, Bozeman Health Deaconess Hospital. 90 beds


QUALITY ITEMS FOR $15

Q. I work for a large hospital system that has a patient/guest service recovery program where our hospital employees can access an item for guests/patients. In an effort to remain compliant with the $15 Federal OIG (Office of Inspector General) limit recommendation for ‘patient gifting’ we would like to stock items that meet that price point and still remain “giftable”. What are other shops buying and stocking that are under this $15 limit while retaining a perception of quality?

With hospital gift shop’s being such a large part of the retail market, you would think that vendors know the federal regulations that we must adhere to and come up with some suggested items in their lines. At the Atlanta market last month, not one rep was familiar with this, (it began in 2017 with the Affordable Care Act), which I found surprising! – Michaela Kanoski, Volunteer & Guest Services Manager, CHI Health Creighton University Medical Center-Bergan Mercy. 380 beds. 3/2/20

(OIG is the governmental agency that regulates and enforces the monetary value of things received by Medicate and state Medicaid patients.)


WHY MAINTAIN INVENTORY AND FINANCIALS ‘AT RETAIL’?

Q. I need to explain to our gift shop committee why our physical inventory reports should always be shown at the retail price rather than “at cost.” Can you give me a short and simple answer. Thanks much!! – Darielle H. 3/14/20

FROM CINDY

Advantages of the Retail Method of Inventory Valuation
The money your customer pays at point of purchase is the retail price. The retail sales figures are the retail value of the inventory. The retail price has the profit built into it and profit occurs when an item is sold (at retail)

    1. Maintaining inventory figures ‘at retail’ forces the you, the retailer, to ‘think retail’.
    2. Financial statements ‘at retail’ are essential to good financial planning. Frequent calculations at both cost and retail information allows the retailer to adjust quickly to changing conditions
    3. Physical inventories taken at retail prices eliminate the costly, time-consuming job of decoding cost prices. Recording physical inventory at retail prices greatly simplifies the process and encourages a more frequent physical count of inventory.
    4. The retail method facilitates planning and control of a department or category. Sales, purchases, inventories, and price-change information are recorded by department or category and can be used to evaluate each department’’s performance.
    5. By providing a ‘book’ or Point of Sale figure for what your inventory should be on hand, the retail method allows the retailer to determine shortages each time a physical inventory is taken.

The ‘retail method’ requires continuous recording of all transactions which change the unit status of the inventory. A running total must be kept by continuously recording all merchandise data. A Point of Sale system will automatically accomplish that for you!  3/15/20


CHANGE DISPLAYS

Q. Because we have many of the same customers everyday, how often should we change our displays? How often do you rotate merchandise to other locations?

FROM CINDY

To keep displays from growing stale, change them every 2-3 weeks. Strategic and successful displays connect with your customer in micro moments. Go above and beyond for your customers, anticipate their needs, infuse your merchandise story and empower your staff to go the extra mile.

Good displays should sell product! Signage will help sell product.

Display seasonal merchandise and smaller high margin items at the front of your store.
Prices should be displayed in a small size.
Make sure you have back-stock of items displayed. 4/15/20


SHOP YOUR OWN SHOP

Q. Have you shopped your own shop recently? The other night I was on my way out, purse in hand, when a friend walked into the store to browse.  I walked back in and “shopped” with her through her eyes. If you are like me, all I can see when surveying the floor is what needs to be done, what is missing, what needs dusting, etc. But shopping as the customer was a pleasant surprise. I enjoyed admiring and looking at things as much as she did and it was really fun!  It was a lesson to me  – after a harried day behind the scenes, I actually left feeling very good. I realized the pleasant experience that our shop offers to hospital guests and employees. I am going to walk out and come back in wearing a consumer hat more often!  – A shop manager. 228 beds. 3/10/20


CURTAIL DEEP-DISCOUNT CUSTOMERS

Q. I assist the director of volunteer services in managing three hospital gift shops. Our largest shop at our biggest campus does quite well. We have a shop at a sister hospital that we buy for and are waiting to see how the first year went. We also have a small shop at our long-term care and rehab facility. We struggle with staffing (all volunteer) as it’s a smaller shop and is on the opposite side of town from where many of the volunteers live. Most of the customers at that location also like to “wait things out” when it comes to buying product. They will not buy it until it is deeply discounted and then complain when the merchandise isn’t changed often. We are at a loss as to what to do with this particular shop. Does anyone have any suggestions? – Shea Parazine, Volunteer Services Specialist, The Shops at Unity Health, White County Medical Center, Searcy, AR. 193 beds. 3/11/20

FROM CINDY
Sounds like hospital employees have been trained to wait for markdowns so they can get it cheaper. I suggest you don’t reduce markdowns so soon, and see who out-waits who! Of course, the danger of waiting too long is that the shop may get stuck with too much aging merchandise. That is the “just in case”  philosophy.

As retailers, we never want to disappoint the customer. We can’t bear to hear a customer say they couldn’t find what they were looking for in our shop. On the other hand, we can’t carry everything in very limited floor space. Unfortunately, some shops carry huge inventories just in case that one customer comes in. That’s called ‘just in case’ thinking and buying and it simply doesn’t work! What happens if that one customer never comes in? You now have merchandise that feels old and stale….and may never sell. 3/15/20

We arranged our back room/office, for a small dressing room area. We hung a shower curtain on a tension pole rod, and they can also shut the door. It works great. – Sandy Eiffert. 2/15/20

We offer my office to our customers ~ they close and lock the door, and are happy to make sure it fits first! We also offer our nearest rest room…..this of course takes a lot of trust in your customers~~but~~ we’ve never had an item walk out yet! And the customers are very happy that we do trust them enough to offer this to them. Sometimes this trust makes the sale!! – Anonymous. 1/20/20

We have our restrooms across the hall, I offer for them to go try it on..so far no issues. I get worries but as I said not issues with that yet. Those who don’t we have an exchange policy that I let them know and ask that they keep tags and receipt. – Leslie Hollingsworth. 1/20/20

Regarding the question concerning no dressing room: we have a full length mirror on both sides of our back room area door. For sweaters, ponchos, etc. the one on the gift shop side works just fine. If someone needs to try on a top, we allow them to step into the back room to try it on and just wait outside. We have had no problems with this process. Occasionally someone will want to try on in a more private place (aka: bathroom). In these instances they will generally leave with us their car keys, or coat, etc. so we are comfortable with this. We can also see the bathroom entrance from our shop, so that helps us keep an eye out. For hospital staff, this is never a worry! – Nancy Johnsen. 1/16/20

We have a back room for receiving and office. We checked into a actual fitting room when we remodeled and it has to be ADA compliant. I did not feel it was a good trade off to give up the square footage in the shop for the fitting room, so had had a hospital curtain added to the back room. It works just fine when needed. There is a large mirror on one wall also. – Mary Robinson. 1/16/20




© Cindy Jones Associates, 2020. COPYRIGHT PROTECTED. Redistribution, copying, reselling, re-renting, or republishing is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. Cindy’s Newsletter may not to be forwarded, redistributed, reproduced, reprinted, or posted online without prior permission from Cindy Jones Associates. Subscribers may share one issue with a fellow manager. Thereafter, the manager may subscribe here to receive future issues.

Cindy’s Newsletter for Gift Shop Managers | June 15, 2020 💮

CINDY’S NEWSLETTER

for

Gift Shop Managers

Cindy’s Newsletter provides its readership of over 3,000 gift shop professionals “actionable content” to help optimize their shop operation, grow revenue, and connect with one another. LEAVE A COMMENT: Click the coral colored comment tags throughout the newsletter to comment or send them to cindy@cindyjonesassociates.com


JUNE 15, 2020

CARTI Cancer Center Gift Shop, Little Rock, AR
CARTI Cancer Center Gift Shop, Little Rock, AR

👇🏼CLICK TO COMMENT 👇🏼

CORONAVIRUS DISCUSSION 😷

Cindy Jones Assoc strives to provide a place here where managers can come together, gain a sense of community, and exchange valuable insights from one another through this time. Thank you to everyone who’s commented and shared over the last few months. As the saying goes, “We’ve got this!”

What’s been your experience since reopening?
What’s working? What should other managers beware of?

What vendors are offering the best discounts right now?
What is the reaction of medical staff coming into your shop?

Is your gift shop open, closed, or some variant?

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Will the pandemic change how retailers buy?

Once they re-open, around half of retailers expect to require inventory within the first four weeks, with all respondents indicating that they plan to buy within 18 weeks of re-opening. Sixty four percent of retailers expect sourcing to focus on core and best-selling products from vendors with whom they have a pre-existing relationship. Vendor selection will be also influenced by incentives (extended terms, free freight and discounts) as well as immediacy of product availability.

SOURCE: Earnshaw’s Magazine


THIS MONTH’S POLL

Is it in bad taste to sell COVID-19 novelty items?Obviously, nothing tacky, insensitive, or inappropriate. But a light-hearted t-shirt, mugs, teddy bears with face masks. Or, would it put off the doctors and nurses who see the tragedy of coronavirus, first hand, everyday.

LAST MONTH’S POLL

What is the annual cost of your POS system?

POS Cost


👇🏼CLICK TO COMMENT 👇🏼

Introducing Facebook Shops

Facebook Shops make it easy for businesses to set up a single online store for customers to access on both Facebook and Instagram. Creating a Facebook Shop is free and simple. Businesses can choose the products they want to feature from their catalog and then customize the look and feel of their shop with a cover image and accent colors that showcase their brand. This means any seller, no matter their size or budget, can bring their business online and connect with customers wherever and whenever it’s convenient for them.

And just like when customer’s are in a physical store and need to ask for help, in Facebook Shops they’ll be able to message the shop to ask questions, get support, track deliveries and more. 

Do you think Facebook Shops would work for your gift shop? Let us know.


Job Openings

Manager Gift Shop & Volunteer Program
Hackensack Meridian Health, Edison, NJ

Gift Shop Sales Associate
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA

Gift Shop Associate
Northwell Health, New York, NY

Gift Shop Assistant Manager
FirstHealth of the Carolinas, Pinehurst

Gift Shop Manager
Sheppard Pratt Health System, Baltimore, MD

Gift Shop Associate
Wyndham Destinations, Las Vegas, NV

Gift Shop Manager
Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH

Gift Shop/Volunteer Services Coordinator
Integris Health, Enid, OK

Gift Shop Sales Associate
Aultman Hospital, Canton, OH

Gift Shop Manager
JAARS, Waxhaw, NC

Manager – Gift Shop
Houston Methodist, Atascocita, TX

Gift Shop Coordinator
Lake District Hospital, Chicago, IL


PART II: Why write your own purchase orders?

by Cindy Jones, Editor and Publisher 💮

Last month we learned about the benefits of writing your own purchase orders, vital components, and the purchasing power that stems from having your own purchase orders. We continue with more helpful insights on writing and executing your own purchase orders. 

Terms & Conditions
While you may not be able to take advantage of all your ‘Terms & Conditions’, vendors will never refuse to take your order because of that. Be sure to know their “Terms & Conditions”. Make sure that the ‘Terms & Conditions’ on your Order Form are better than what you’ll see on your vendor’s order forms.

Make an extra copy of the order, one for ‘Receiving & Marking’ and one for the buyer to keep at their desk for quick and easy reference. Receiving and Marking will now have a familiar order form and will see clearly what is written, therefore, fewer mistakes. Since the order is already retailed, it can quickly and efficiently be deducted from your OTB.

Tired of Back Orders?
Be sure your purchase order includes your buying policy, especially as it relates to back orders. If you have a shop customized order form, you may want to add the following to it:

“Please honor cancellation dates. Notify us immediately if you are unable to complete the order by the specified date. Please ship complete. Shipper is responsible for freight charges on shipments with a wholesale merchandise value of less than $100.”

Of course, if you really don’t mind bits and pieces of your order straggling in, then you shouldn’t have to pay the shipping on each item shipped separately. After all, it isn’t your shop’s fault that they can’t ship the entire order all together. Just don’t pay it!

Mark up for Profit
Hospital gift shops today cannot make a profit on an initial overall 2.5 times mark on. After mark downs, the gross margin is reduced.

A profitable shop must have a greater gross margin than expenses. To accomplish this, shops must take a higher mark up from the beginning, purchase enough desirable off price merchandise or have less markdown to create a profit.

Buyers should take an average initial mark up of 3 times cost. You will not achieve this with every vendor, however, it is achievable.

Keep in mind, a mark down is the most important tool you have to move a mistake out the door. (Buying mistakes happen even with the best buyers.) Buying a bad style, color, size, quantity, wrong timing, or bad fit, will always happen. Don’t fret, recognize mistakes early and mark down immediately!

Inventory Turnover Ratio
The measurement of turns is an important retail calculation. Your total inventory should turn over at least 4 times annually.

Annual Turns 🎯
Sales (for period)  / Average Inventory (for same period)

Unfortunately a vast majority of shops’ turns are too low as evidenced by shop storage rooms bulging with unsold and tired looking merchandise.
High turns mean you are using your inventory dollars efficiently, your stock looks fresh, and you probably need less storage space. On the other hand, rapid turnover can put a strain on staff who need to unpack, price and process more purchase orders and receiving documents, and deal with all the activity associated with frequent deliveries.

Your shop’s square footage is also a factor affecting turns. A shop that is too big for the hospital’s customer traffic potential may have a slower turn rate because it requires excess inventory to keep the shop looking full and inviting.

Your inventory (at retail) should be approximately 20% of total sales. However, it is important to keep inventory as low as possible while still increasing sales. This means buying merchandise that will sell fast. Lower inventories can be maintained by turning the inventory fast.

Read  PART I: Why Write Your Own Purchase Orders?  in last month’s issue.


💮 CALENDAR 💮

GIFT MARKETS

Updated June 15. Always confirm show dates with the market directly before making travel plans. Dates change frequently and often. Jun 23-26, 2020
Dallas Apparel & Accessories Market + KidsWorld Market + Gift & Home Open House **select showrooms only 🔗
Jul 9-13, 2020 RESCHEDULED for Aug 20-24, 2020
LA Mart (Summer). Los Angeles 🔗
Jul 14–20, 2020 RESCHEDULED for Aug 13-18, 2020
Atlanta Gift & Home Furnishings Market (Summer) 🔗
Jul 21-23, 2020
Dallas Apparel & Accessories + Gift & Home Open House **select showrooms by appt 🔗
Jul 21-25, 2020 RESCHEDULED for Aug 18-24, 2020
Seattle Gift Show (Summer/Fall) 🔗
RESCHEDULED for
Jul 23–26, 2020
TransWorld’s Jewelry, Fashion & Accessories Show (now Summer). Chicago 🔗
Jul 26-30, 2020 RESCHEDULED for Aug 30 – Sep 3, 2020
Las Vegas Market (Summer) 🔗
CANCELLED
Aug 8-12, 2020
NY NOW (Summer). New York 🔗
CANCELLED Aug 9-12, 2020
Toronto Gift + Home Market (Fall) 🔗
RESCHEDULED for
Aug 19-25, 2020
Dallas Total Home & Gift Market (Summer) 🔗
Aug 25-28, 2020
Dallas Apparel & Accessories Market (Summer) + KidsWorld Market + Western Market 🔗
Aug 28-30, 2020
Rocky Mountain Gift Show. Denver 🔗
Sep 23-25, 2020
Dallas Total Home & Gift Market (Fall) 🔗
Oct 4–6, 2020
LA Mart (Fall). Los Angeles 🔗
Oct 5–6, 2020
Seattle Gift Show (Fall) 🔗
Oct 17-21, 2020
High Point Market (Fall). Highpoint, NC 🔗
Oct 18-20, 2020
NY NOW (Fall). New York 🔗
Oct 20-23, 2020
Dallas Apparel & Accessories Market 🔗
Oct 22-25, 2020
TransWorld’s Spring Jewelry, Fashion & Accessories Show (Fall) Rosemont, IL 🔗

STATE AUXILIARY CONFERENCES

CANCELLED
Aug 22-25 2020
52nd Annual AHVRP Conference & Exposition. Denver, CO 🔗
Nov 4-6, 2020
Missouri Hospital Assoc (MHA) Annual Convention & Trade Show. Osage Beach, MO 🔗 
RESCHEDULED for
Nov 4-6, 2020

Michigan Healthcare Volunteer Resource Professionals (MHVRP) Spring Conference. Shelbyville, MI🔗

 


Your shop’s mission

by Cindy Jones, Editor and Publisher 💮

A hospital gift shop is primarily an extension of the hospital and is an important source of income for the hospital. It is, therefore, the responsibility of the hospital administration and the hospital gift shop manager to collaborate on a policy that will reflect their community of interest and purpose.

The use of the term “hospital gift shop” has specific meaning and carries with it important obligations to the public to ensure quality merchandise and service excellence and to foster a climate of integrity within the hospital.

Management and Personnel
Since public perception of the hospital gift shop is closely tied to the hospital, it is the responsibility of gift shop personnel to be fully aware of the source, quality and worth of all items sold. All hospital gift shop personnel, whether paid or volunteer, are representatives of the hospital.

It is unethical for hospital gift shop personnel to use their hospital gift shop affiliation for personal profit or to engage in any activity that may compromise the integrity of the institution or undermine the confidence of the hospital gift shop staff and the public.

Diversity and the Hospital Gift Shop
A hospital gift shop enjoys a unique opportunity to serve a diverse clientele. For that reason, the shop is obligated to treat everyone with the highest level of respect and to offer products that are safe and of the highest quality.

Post your mission statement where it is visible to visitors and employees. Or post a sign that says, “Thank you for your patronage. Every purchase you make supports patient care at the hospital.” Some gift shops print their mission on shopping bags to remind customers of their mission.


Direct Ship Programs

GiftBEAT has compiled a comprehensive list of the vendors offering direct-ship programs for store owners, along with the program details and web links, on one convenient page. The Direct-Ship Vendor list is a free resource with over 50 different vendors and counting.


Selling behind a mask: Connecting while social distancing

by Liz Cicowski, President, Learning Means Business, Inc. / Jun 16, 2020

How will you and your staff connect with your customers behind a mask? This may present several challenges, whether you’re open right now or reopening soon. Liz Cichowski, of Retail Customer Experience, writes about two very different shopping experiences at retail stores where employees were wearing face masks. She writes: 

“Going back to the two stores I visited, in both stores every employee was wearing a mask in proper fashion. That what’s changed since the CDC guidelines came out. Here’s the difference: In the one store I visited, I was sincerely greeted by every employee I encountered. They looked up from cleaning and stocking to say hello. I could tell they were happy to see me because they were smiling with their eyes. I returned the favor by asking them how they were doing, whether they were comfortable wearing a mask all day, etc. It felt good to connect! We were all happier as a result.

In the other store, I was ignored. This did not feel good. I don’t think the employees felt good either. Most humans are social beings, and we thrive on social connections. If you want YOUR customers to shop with and buy from you, your employees need to make human connections. This is true even when someone has ordered online and is simply doing curbside or in-store pickup.

Masks and social distancing are what’s changed as a result of COVID-19. What remains the same: Genuine connections are still required to create sales and to capture market share from your competition. The question is:How do you connect socially from behind a mask?

Tips for selling behind a mask

Here are some tips for engaging with customers from behind a mask, whether an employee is selling from six feet away, a cashier is ringing sales and selling loyalty programs, or someone is running curbside pickup and stocking shelves. Regardless of any technology you may have implemented (e.g., BOPIS or buy online-pick up in store, scheduling in-store appointments online, etc.), I believe these guidelines still apply.

  • Greet every customer with a genuine smile. In most cultures, a smile means you’re happy to see someone. When people can’t see your mouth, your eyes reveal a genuine smile. Look up from what you’re doing, smile, say “Hi!” or “Thanks for coming in!” and BE HAPPY TO SEE YOUR CUSTOMERS. They are the only reason your store is open. Period.
  • Speak clearly. There is now a door greeter at my local grocery store. I call this new role “the mask police.” One greeter, Tanner, greets me with a HUGE grin and a friendly “Hello. Welcome!” And I can understand everything Tanner says to me. The other greeters frown, and I can’t understand a word they say. I don’t like being greeted by the other greeters. But I LOVE being greeted by Tanner. I want to meet Tanner’s parents and congratulate them! The bottom line: It is EXTREMELY frustrating when customers can’t hear you. When customers CAN hear you, they are much happier.
  • Ask questions to check for understanding. A lot of customers may be too embarrassed (or in too much of a rush) to tell you they didn’t understand. Ask questions like, “Does this match up with what you were looking for?” “You said XYZ was important to you, I think this is great. What do you think?” “Hey, I know it may be hard to hear me from inside this mask. Am I missing anything?” Said with a smile, these kinds of questions WILL be appreciated.
  • Use body language to connect. Eye contact, people! Not staring, but making eye contact when speaking. Nod your head to indicate you’re listening. Don’t cross your arms, and relax your shoulders. If you are social distancing, you can still be social with your body language.

Consider incorporating these tips into any training or communication you have around requiring employees to wear face coverings. Make sure your managers help employees practice and are out on the sales floor, recognizing employees for a job well done. People tend to do what they get recognized for. And make sure people are recognized as often as possible. That way, when someone misses an opportunity to engage with a customer, they’ll be more receptive to a little corrective coaching.”

Liz Cichowski, a senior instructional designer, retail industry expert, at Learning Means Business Inc., offers up tips for helping retail associates engage with customers in the current era of face mask protection. She also shares a real life example of how attention to engagement can be the difference in a customer returning to the store.

RetailCustomerExperience.com is a web portal devoted to helping retailers differentiate on experience, rather than on price. It is founded on the understanding that retail today is fundamentally different than any other time in its history, and staying competitive requires a new, holistic understanding of customers and how they want to shop.

SOURCE: Retail Customer Experience w/permission



Looking for a new manager or clerk?

by Cindy Jones, Editor and Publisher 💮

Hiring the best team can mean the difference between your shop’s success or failure. Developing the skills to recognize, hire and retain good staff is essential. Whether you’re a seasoned recruiter or just starting to hon your HR skills, you’ll benefit from these hiring insights. 

Appearance is important because your employees interface with customers, but keep an open mind until you have a chance to see what candidates reveal during the interview.

Hire for attitude. Train for skills.

You’ll have problems with someone you hire who has a poor attitude, no matter how much experience and skills he or she has. If you hire someone with a great attitude, who’s willing to learn, and is energetic and enthusiastic (none of which is tied to age, by the way), you can teach that individual what he or she needs to know to be successful in your business.

Develop a list of questions in advance that will help you during the interview to determine a candidate’s attitude. Use behavior based, non-hypothetical questions that are written in the past tense, such as “Can you give me an example of a time in your last job when you were criticized by your supervisor. What happened?” The past is a reliable predictor of the future – the more recent the past, the more reliable the information is. You also get a more realistic response because you’re asking the candidate to give a real example. Other questions are:

“How do you keep yourself emotionally ‘up,’ even when you get discouraged?” (This speaks to attitude)
“Tell me about the last time you lost your cool with a customer.” (This helps you avoid those who are “loose cannons”)
“On a scale of 1 to 10, on average where’s your energy level?
“Give me three examples of what you are working on to improve about yourself.”

Don’t talk too much during an interview. Don’t spend the first 30 minutes telling the candidate all about the business before they start asking interview questions. That’s a mistake because you’ve given that candidate everything he or she needs to know to tell you exactly what you want to hear. That’s why some candidates appear to shine in an interview, but tarnish quickly after coming on board – you didn’t get a true reading of their attitude, behaviors and skills.

Use an agenda to tell the candidate that you’re going to spend a few minutes with him or her, asking questions from a list of prepared questions. Let the individual know that the questions are the same or similar to what you’ve asked other candidates for the position.

There are no “perfect 10” candidates. Determine a candidate’s weaknesses in the interview, which is even more important than their strengths.

Explain that when you’re done asking questions you’ll invite the candidate to ask you questions, too. Don’t tell candidates upfront that you’re going to spend an hour with them and then tour the store. If an interview goes well, a “few minutes” might turn into an hour, and that’s fine. But if you’re thinking “What a dud” five minutes into an interview, this gives you a graceful way to get out of the interview.

Check references. They are very easy to get. Put that responsibility on candidates, by telling them you need a minimum number of work-related references (you should determine that number). When calling for references, ask the same questions you asked the candidate during the interview. You want to find out how that person operated in a business environment. Small business owners will probably tell you anything you want to know about a candidate. Larger companies may have rules about references. If so, put the onus back on the candidate. Tell him or her, “I really want to hire you, but I need more than a verification that you worked at XYZ Company. I need to talk to people who knew you when you worked there.”

Happy hiring!

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MAY 2020 NEWSLETTER: ISSUE #605
We don’t want you to miss a thing. Check out last month’s articles and features.

  • 7-Eleven opens hospital pop-up store
  • Checklist: No-Contact Shop Operations
  • POLL: What is the annual cost of your POS system?
  • Vendor Request: Please help us get paid
  • Virtual gift shows and online digital marketplaces
  • Operation Open Doors: a roadmap to reopening
  • Hospital employees make up 60-75% of a gift shop’s customer base
  • Direct Ship Programs
  • PART I: Why Write Your Own Purchase Orders?
  • Dallas Market Center reopens to buyers
  • Coronavirus discussion
  • COVID-19 Webinars

DISCUSSION


BUYING POST CORONAVIRUS

Q. Our budget has been cut due to the Coronavirus. We are having troubles getting product and vendors don’t seem to be working with us on pricing.  What vendors are offering good discounts?  – Shop Manager, AZ 6/10/20


COVID-19 THEMED PRODUCTS

Q. Is it in bad taste to sell COVID-19 novelty items? Obviously, nothing tacky. But, I’ve seen a few clever t-shirts, mugs, teddy bears with face masks. Our customers – the doctors and nurses on the front line  – see the tragedy of this illness everyday. Maybe not so humorous to them and don’t want to be reminded of it when they walk in our shop. Or, maybe not? – Lea 5/29/20


HOW IS THE CORONAVIRUS AFFECTING YOUR GIFT SHOP?

How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your gift shop. Has your gift shop closed or reduced hours? What about volunteers? Are you sanitizing product? If your hospital does close the gift shop will they deploy you to another department? Are you able to work from home?

We are not open yet. I think the hardest part was that I went in got all the Easter out, did a deep clean, got all Of Mother’s Day out and displayed and we still aren’t open. I have ordered nothing in 2 months. I can’t order until there is money coming in again. I have a store room full of summer apparel that I will put out since the spring apparel is still hanging there. So sad!! – Vickie Bailey 5/22/20

It really is sad, Vickie! What a shame! Sending warm wishes to all you managers that are facing this same dilemma. – Cindy

Our Governor is slowly reopening the state of Arkansas and our CEO Allowed us to reopen with limited traffic and reduced hours week before last in time for Mother’s day. We have a sanitizing station at the door for people to sanitize upon entry and masks are required. Our employees have been very excited to have a bit of normalcy again and its reducing some stress. No volunteers back yet so my supervisor and I are trading off shifts. We are open 10-3 Monday through Friday. I had set up a private employees only Facebook group while we were closed so I could still sell things to the employees that way and we have found they love live videos of new merch so we are continuing posting in that group as well.  – Shea Parazine 5/18/20

Thank you for sharing, Shea. Glad to hear you have opened, even with limited hours. Also, thanks for sharing that you set up a private Facebook group using live videos of your products. Please share the link if it goes public. – Cindy

All our Volunteers LOA but myself and my wife continued to keep the gift shop open for the employees.  – James Padgett 5/18/20

So glad to hear your shop is open. What hospital are you with? – Cindy

We are closed but open to email & phone orders so that employees can get any type of item. We’ve been selling a lot of pop and candy but also cards & gifts. – Jenny Turner 4/15/20

We were told to close our Shop on March 16th until further notice (Rochester General Hospital, Rochester, NY) – 337 Beds. Our Association decided to donate all perishable snacks, bagged candy and even our Gourmet Chocolates to the Hospital Staff and it was distributed by their Senior Leaders. – Anne Trocano/Linda Leary

We donated all our Easter candy and any candy/snacks which will expire by June, to our staff as a Thank You for their hard work. – Anonymous

We did the same! – Anonymous

We have had to shutter our doors as of March 18. After our closing, as the manager, I decided I would call each employee or volunteer on the day they would have worked as a way to stay in contact with everyone. Some of the paid staff (myself included) have been placed in the labor pool, and do other jobs throughout the hospital, but I still make the effort each week to call and check on everyone to discuss how absolutely bored they are, do they have enough toilet paper, the puzzle they are working on, or just how much their spouse is driving them nuts! I have to say it has been beneficial to both them and me. We are bonded through our common goal, The Gift Shop, and our lives are just not the same without it.
We all anxiously await the day we can reunite and “do our job again”  – David Munger

David, this is wonderful! Thank you for sharing! – Cindy Jones

We are now taking phone orders with delivery to our patients, in-town delivery, pickup, and mail out! Business has been very slow, but I felt like I had to try something…  -Jamie Lee Hernandez

We closed the shop on March 6. We donated flowers in stock to patients and staff. Fortunately, we had not decorated for Easter yet and had little expressly Easter inventory as we don’t do very well with it. I have plenty of general inventory for Spring and Summer when we do reopen but have been leery about ordering ahead of that as I just don’t know what things will look like. In the meantime, our auxiliary has decided to donate a substantial amount of money to the hospital to be used as they see fit rather than asking for ideas and then choosing projects or equipment to fund. This seemed like the expedient as well as the more critical response to the needs of the hospital at this point but we hope to still be able to fund the scholarships we usually award to hospital employees. I made and sent Easter cards to all my volunteers and try to stay in touch with them, as many are struggling with their own or spouse’s health issues, independent of the virus. – Sandra Oldfield

I am at Northside Hospital in Atlanta. Both of our gift shops are still open. The Get Well shop in open 8 am to 8 pm M-F and 11-3 Sat and Sun, and our Baby Shop is open, but for reduced hours. We are mainly selling staff t-shirts and tons of snacks. Fortunately we have an e-commerce site and it is doing well, especially for baby gifts and flowers because no one is allowed to visit. Obviously revenues are way down, but we are still making enough to cover employee salaries and the cost of goods we are selling. The staff is very grateful that we are here, as it provides a bit of normalcy in an otherwise unthinkable situation. We have added numerous safety measures, such as a large plexiglass shield across the counter, masks, and hand sanitizer everywhere. Fortunately all of our Easter candy sold, and the rest of our Easter and spring merchandise will just be put away for next year. Since few people saw it, it will seem new to everyone. I hope you are all well and surviving this ultra-trying time! – Shauna Cox

Our shop is closed and has been since about March 16. The volunteers were all “paused” a week or so earlier and I opened a few hours for a couple days and then we were asked to close completely for a while. In a hospital, the gift shop is respite for our staff. No family members have been allowed in the building for a while now, so only staff, but they are our main customer anyway. The staff really miss the shop being open. Especially with all the stress right now, they would really love to be able to wander through the shop just to get their minds off their job for a little while. I’m hoping we will get the green light to open again soon.
I know of some hospital shops opening for a couple hours a day and only two customers at a time in the shop. Some are allowing “window shopping” and then pay via payroll deduct and what they choose is put outside the shop for them…they don’t actually get to come in the shop.
I’m really anxious to hear more from other hospital gift shops to see what they are doing and how they are doing it. The i3POS webinar yesterday had some interesting points. We all need to learn from each other and share ideas as much as we can during these difficult times. – Vesta Smith

When the time comes, consider having a ‘soft opening’ with limited hours and only allowing 10-15 shoppers in at a time. And, they must practice social distancing. Keep a box of rubber gloves and wipes at the front door and cashier counter. Good luck! – Cindy Jones

I have changed my shop into a mini mart. We have made our shop as an Essential business for our employees who are covering the Covid units. We open at 7 a.m. and close at 9p.m. I receive deliveries of food, toilet paper. I have partnered with Costco for deliveries, I moved and boxed all of our seasonal gift items. This has been a huge success. I did this with 3 of my shops. – Anonymous

As of today (3/16), our gift is closed indefinitely. We are sad. – Melodie Christal

As of 3/10 our gift shop was closed indefinitely due to the virus. Nothing we can do!! – Nan Healy

Our gift shop has been closed down, and we have no idea for how long. – Nancy Klein

All of our volunteers have been placed on LOA. I am opening the shop 10-2 M-F and paid staff 11-4 and 1-5 on weekends. I am responsible for all vending services as well so I am spending the rest of each day ordering, stocking, etc. We feel this is probably short term as we expect to be closed at some point. Sales are only on snacks, drinks, and candy so sales are definitely lower. – Anonymous

I am operating our gift shop on a limited schedule, as I am the only paid staff member and our volunteers are also on LOA. Planning to sanitize while I’m up there. Hot spots daily (if not multiple times per day). Going to see how traffic is this week and determine if I need to stay open next week as well. We have strict visitor limitations in place, expecting mainly employee traffic. – Anonymous

Our Gift shop is also closed. Volunteers are on LOA and as manager I am the only employee in Gift Shop. I am taking this time to do stock work and assist at Information Desk as needed. I plan to donate and deliver candy and popcorn to our hardworking clinical staff. – Anonymous

Our volunteers has been asked to stay home for their safety. That leaves me with 3 paid employees. We have a pharmacy in our gift shop so we cannot close, so, we have changed our hours to match the pharmacy. So, we are closing earlier Monday through Saturday and now are closed on Sunday until this passes. Stay safe everyone. – Kim DeBord

As of Saturday our Gift shop is closed. We have Easter and Spring clothes to sell – Sandy Eiffert

Members of the community should not come to the hospital unless there is a medical reason for the visit. This includes coming to the hospital solely to eat in the cafeteria or shop in the gift shop. – Janet Long, Public Relations Manager at Morris Hospital, IL

Our gift shop is closed until further notice. – Anonymous

Our shop is closed to walk in traffic. We have posted on the door and hospital site we will accept orders email, fax and by phone. They can come to the door and pick up. Only credit card and payroll payments. We will continue to accept phone orders for patient gifts. We have redone our windows to better view our products. We hope this is just for a couple weeks. Good Luck everyone. – Mary Claire

We are open but only with limited hours. All volunteers have been mandated to stay home. It is just me the manger and my assistant. Yes, we are sanitizing product and our store and our self’s and we are required to do so every hour! Yes they are saying they will deploy us to another department, we will not be able to work from home. The hospital is not allowing any visitors. Sales have been just for candy and snacks and only employees. – Colleen

We have reduced our hours to M-F 9-5 and Saturday 12-4. We don’t have any Covid-19 positive tests in our County yet. I’m sure as soon as we do, we’ll be shut down. Volunteers, at this point are able to determine for themselves if they wish to come in. – Anonymous

Our two hospital gift shops are closed indefinitely since Monday, 3/16. We only had two volunteers under the age of 60 and myself, a paid manager that would have been eligible to work. I will take this time to clean and organize our office/pricing area. I will clean and reset both shops and set up new displays. I will refresh any worn out display pieces such as repainting the racks from our fresh flower case that once the flowers were removed looked quite shabby, and not in the chic way!. I can work from home if needed, pricing smaller items, writing up future orders with catalogs or ordering online by holding the orders etc. This is a totally helpless feeling, I anxiously await our reopening! Stay healthy! – Jamie Lee Hernandez

Dignity Health Central Coast limits their hospital visitations due to flu and COVID-19 concerns All hospital gift shops are closed until further notice. Washington Health System is suspending some services, including closing the gift shop.  – Cindy Jones

Has your gift shop closed or reduced hours? Has you volunteer department closed? If so, are you as a gift shop manager able to work from home? If your hospital does close the gift shop will they deploy you to another department? Thanks! – Colleen DeSimone, Gift Shop Coordinator,Orange Regional Medical Center Gift Shop

We have been closed for over a week now as we’re staffed entirely by volunteers who are not allowed at the hospital. All visitors except end of life situations or parents of young patients are banned. We distributed the flowers, our only perishable item, to patients who would enjoy them before closing our doors. Our health fair, regional auxiliary meeting and volunteer appreciation lunch are all cancelled and we have no idea when we will re-open. Our hospital is a small rural one with 19 beds. – Sandra Oldfield

We have been closed since Monday. The President felt that if someone who was infected came in contact with multiple items it would be very difficult to disinfect everything they touched. I sent out a mass email to all employees and let them know that if they wanted to buy anything I can get it together and just charge their badge and meet them at the back door. No need to step foot into the shop. It’s working out really well. – Anonymous

What is everyone doing about all of their spring merchandise, just taking a loss?  I am in the process of removing all the Easter merchandise, plush, etc. and storing them for next year. I plan to keep the spring items in the shop. BTW, we have been closed since March 10th. All volunteers on LOA. As the only paid employee among our volunteers I am performing all tasks that our volunteers were doing, mail, surveys, front desk, etc. Stay well everyone. – Sarah F

We are still open, with only two paid employees disinfecting everything we can. We are only selling drinks, food and candy also. – Anonymous

Our gift shop closed officially 3/17 after all the volunteers called off. I am the only paid employee and am currently working from home because I have a sinus infection and am not allowed back into the hospital until I am 100%. Once I am 100% I will be allowed back into the hospital to work on various projects in the hospital and help in other areas where there are shortages. I feel helpless being at home and know that under any other situation I would have already been back to work with the tail end of an infection. Stay safe everyone. – Anonymous

We have a paid staff person in our gift shop so between her and a few die-hard volunteers, it has been open with reduced hours. Our volunteer services is not paused except for the teen program. We will keep it open as long as we can for our staff. We have been told that all staff are essential and no one will be staff reduced at this time, we will be deployed to help elsewhere. – Nichole

Are any of you doing delivery service to hospital employees in various departments and to patient floors? If so, how is that working? – Cindy Jones, Editor

So we have been closed since 3/13. Volunteers are on LOA. I am still here because we do flowers. The shop is closed. I have tried to let employees know that we have gifts if they need them. Very sad. No traffic on our main street. Stay Healthy! – Anonymous

We had to close the Gift Shop per our Executive Team Leaders on March 24. I’m wondering what everyone else, that has had to close, is doing with your Easter product, especially Easter candy? My thought is to hold it over until next year since I hadn’t had it out long enough to sell much of it. I’m pretty sure we won’t be open before Easter at this point. We plan to move to a new location in August and will have limited storage at the new location. – Vickie Bailey, Bozeman Health Deaconess Hospital. 90 beds


QUALITY ITEMS FOR $15

Q. I work for a large hospital system that has a patient/guest service recovery program where our hospital employees can access an item for guests/patients. In an effort to remain compliant with the $15 Federal OIG (Office of Inspector General) limit recommendation for ‘patient gifting’ we would like to stock items that meet that price point and still remain “giftable”. What are other shops buying and stocking that are under this $15 limit while retaining a perception of quality?

With hospital gift shop’s being such a large part of the retail market, you would think that vendors know the federal regulations that we must adhere to and come up with some suggested items in their lines. At the Atlanta market last month, not one rep was familiar with this, (it began in 2017 with the Affordable Care Act), which I found surprising! – Michaela Kanoski, Volunteer & Guest Services Manager, CHI Health Creighton University Medical Center-Bergan Mercy. 380 beds. 3/2/20

(OIG is the governmental agency that regulates and enforces the monetary value of things received by Medicate and state Medicaid patients.)


WHY MAINTAIN INVENTORY AND FINANCIALS ‘AT RETAIL’?

Q. I need to explain to our gift shop committee why our physical inventory reports should always be shown at the retail price rather than “at cost.” Can you give me a short and simple answer. Thanks much!! – Darielle H. 3/14/20

FROM CINDY

Advantages of the Retail Method of Inventory Valuation
The money your customer pays at point of purchase is the retail price. The retail sales figures are the retail value of the inventory. The retail price has the profit built into it and profit occurs when an item is sold (at retail)

    1. Maintaining inventory figures ‘at retail’ forces the you, the retailer, to ‘think retail’.
    2. Financial statements ‘at retail’ are essential to good financial planning. Frequent calculations at both cost and retail information allows the retailer to adjust quickly to changing conditions
    3. Physical inventories taken at retail prices eliminate the costly, time-consuming job of decoding cost prices. Recording physical inventory at retail prices greatly simplifies the process and encourages a more frequent physical count of inventory.
    4. The retail method facilitates planning and control of a department or category. Sales, purchases, inventories, and price-change information are recorded by department or category and can be used to evaluate each department’’s performance.
    5. By providing a ‘book’ or Point of Sale figure for what your inventory should be on hand, the retail method allows the retailer to determine shortages each time a physical inventory is taken.

The ‘retail method’ requires continuous recording of all transactions which change the unit status of the inventory. A running total must be kept by continuously recording all merchandise data. A Point of Sale system will automatically accomplish that for you!  3/15/20


CHANGE DISPLAYS

Q. Because we have many of the same customers everyday, how often should we change our displays? How often do you rotate merchandise to other locations?

FROM CINDY

To keep displays from growing stale, change them every 2-3 weeks. Strategic and successful displays connect with your customer in micro moments. Go above and beyond for your customers, anticipate their needs, infuse your merchandise story and empower your staff to go the extra mile.

Good displays should sell product! Signage will help sell product.

Display seasonal merchandise and smaller high margin items at the front of your store.
Prices should be displayed in a small size.
Make sure you have back-stock of items displayed. 4/15/20


SHOP YOUR OWN SHOP

Q. Have you shopped your own shop recently? The other night I was on my way out, purse in hand, when a friend walked into the store to browse.  I walked back in and “shopped” with her through her eyes. If you are like me, all I can see when surveying the floor is what needs to be done, what is missing, what needs dusting, etc. But shopping as the customer was a pleasant surprise. I enjoyed admiring and looking at things as much as she did and it was really fun!  It was a lesson to me  – after a harried day behind the scenes, I actually left feeling very good. I realized the pleasant experience that our shop offers to hospital guests and employees. I am going to walk out and come back in wearing a consumer hat more often!  – A shop manager. 228 beds. 3/10/20


CURTAIL DEEP-DISCOUNT CUSTOMERS

Q. I assist the director of volunteer services in managing three hospital gift shops. Our largest shop at our biggest campus does quite well. We have a shop at a sister hospital that we buy for and are waiting to see how the first year went. We also have a small shop at our long-term care and rehab facility. We struggle with staffing (all volunteer) as it’s a smaller shop and is on the opposite side of town from where many of the volunteers live. Most of the customers at that location also like to “wait things out” when it comes to buying product. They will not buy it until it is deeply discounted and then complain when the merchandise isn’t changed often. We are at a loss as to what to do with this particular shop. Does anyone have any suggestions? – Shea Parazine, Volunteer Services Specialist, The Shops at Unity Health, White County Medical Center, Searcy, AR. 193 beds. 3/11/20

FROM CINDY
Sounds like hospital employees have been trained to wait for markdowns so they can get it cheaper. I suggest you don’t reduce markdowns so soon, and see who out-waits who! Of course, the danger of waiting too long is that the shop may get stuck with too much aging merchandise. That is the “just in case”  philosophy.

As retailers, we never want to disappoint the customer. We can’t bear to hear a customer say they couldn’t find what they were looking for in our shop. On the other hand, we can’t carry everything in very limited floor space. Unfortunately, some shops carry huge inventories just in case that one customer comes in. That’s called ‘just in case’ thinking and buying and it simply doesn’t work! What happens if that one customer never comes in? You now have merchandise that feels old and stale….and may never sell. 3/15/20

We arranged our back room/office, for a small dressing room area. We hung a shower curtain on a tension pole rod, and they can also shut the door. It works great. – Sandy Eiffert. 2/15/20

We offer my office to our customers ~ they close and lock the door, and are happy to make sure it fits first! We also offer our nearest rest room…..this of course takes a lot of trust in your customers~~but~~ we’ve never had an item walk out yet! And the customers are very happy that we do trust them enough to offer this to them. Sometimes this trust makes the sale!! – Anonymous. 1/20/20

We have our restrooms across the hall, I offer for them to go try it on..so far no issues. I get worries but as I said not issues with that yet. Those who don’t we have an exchange policy that I let them know and ask that they keep tags and receipt. – Leslie Hollingsworth. 1/20/20

Regarding the question concerning no dressing room: we have a full length mirror on both sides of our back room area door. For sweaters, ponchos, etc. the one on the gift shop side works just fine. If someone needs to try on a top, we allow them to step into the back room to try it on and just wait outside. We have had no problems with this process. Occasionally someone will want to try on in a more private place (aka: bathroom). In these instances they will generally leave with us their car keys, or coat, etc. so we are comfortable with this. We can also see the bathroom entrance from our shop, so that helps us keep an eye out. For hospital staff, this is never a worry! – Nancy Johnsen. 1/16/20

We have a back room for receiving and office. We checked into a actual fitting room when we remodeled and it has to be ADA compliant. I did not feel it was a good trade off to give up the square footage in the shop for the fitting room, so had had a hospital curtain added to the back room. It works just fine when needed. There is a large mirror on one wall also. – Mary Robinson. 1/16/20


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© Cindy Jones Associates, 2020. COPYRIGHT PROTECTED. Redistribution, copying, reselling, re-renting, or republishing is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. Cindy’s Newsletter may not to be forwarded, redistributed, reproduced, reprinted, or posted online without prior permission from Cindy Jones Associates. Subscribers may share one issue with a fellow manager. Thereafter, the manager may subscribe here to receive future issues.

Cindy’s Newsletter for Gift Shop Managers | April 15, 2020 💮

CINDY’S NEWSLETTER

for

Gift Shop Managers

Cindy’s Newsletter provides its readership of over 3,000 gift shop professionals “actionable content” to help optimize their shop operation, grow revenue, and connect with one another. LEAVE A COMMENT: Click the colored comment tags throughout the newsletter or email Cindy at cindy@cindyjonesassociates.com


APRIL 15, 2020

CLICK TO COMMENT 👇🏻

CORONAVIRUS DISCUSSION 😷

We recognize the unprecedented situation hospital gift shops are in right now, with some having already closed, others still open, or seeing reduced hours. All are trying to balance the unique circumstances inherent by your location in a medical facilities. We work to provide a place where managers can come together, gain a sense of community, and exchange valuable insights from one another through this time.

Click the orange comment button here to share with the community :

How will you handle seasonal inventory that you were unable to sell?
What strategies will you use to drive sales when your shop reopens?
Is your shop serving a different function during this time?
When do you plan to start buying and placing orders again?
Are you working in another department while your shop is closed?
Are you working from home?
What is your greatest concern right now?

We had over 30 comments last month regarding the Coronavirus pandemic and how it is impacting your gift shops. Thank you to everyone who commented and shared their experience!

Join Cindy and a group of panelists, tomorrow, April 16, for a special COVID-19 Webinar for Hospital Gift Shop Managers! Click to listen.

**Once the page opens, click the image at the top to view the webinar.


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Where to start? Returning to your gift shop after the coronavirus

by Cindy Jones, Publisher and Editor 💮

So much has changed in such a short time. I have been self-isolating since March 10. I hope you have also! I think that after we overcome this pandemic, the world of retailing may not be the same. I don’t know what it will look like, but I think the way we offer retail services in our hospitals will be different.

Today, I invite you to hit the comment button and share your struggles  – and triumphs! – during the coronavirus pandemic. We’re in this together.  

Below is the valuable feedback readers shared in last month’s discussion on the impact coronavirus is having on your gift shops.

SHOP HOURS OR CLOSINGS
The majority of paid gift shop managers were instructed to close their shop indefinitely and stay home. Most hospitals are not allowing visitors. 

We had to close the Gift Shop per our Executive Team Leaders on March 24. I’m wondering what everyone else, that has had to close, is doing with your Easter product, especially Easter candy? My thought is to hold it over until next year since I hadn’t had it out long enough to sell much of it. I’m pretty sure we won’t be open before Easter at this point. We plan to move to a new location in August and will have limited storage at the new location. Vickie Bailey, Bozeman Health Deaconess Hospital. 90 beds. April 1, 2020

But, a few managers reported that they are still reporting to work as usual and the shop is open. Others have been told to reduce their gift shop hours. A small number reported that they are working from home. It appears that most volunteer shop managers and volunteer clerks were put on LOA status (Leave of Absence). Those that continue to work full-time are busy sanitizing and cleaning all areas of their shops, pricing and displaying merchandise, and writing orders.

I am in the process of removing all the Easter merchandise, plush, etc. and storing them for next year. I plan to keep the spring items in the shop. BTW, we have been closed since March 10th. All volunteers on LOA. As the only paid employee among our volunteers I am performing all tasks that our volunteers were doing, mail, surveys, front desk, etc. Stay well everyone. – Sarah F. March 30, 2020

Some shops are providing limited services (for hospital employees only) using email, phone or pickup orders. A few shops have even allowed a limited number of hospital employees into their shops for a short period of time.

Our hospital gift shops have been closed indefinitely . . .I am in the office working for today . . .How do, what does this look like when we get called back? The shop is stocked full of Easter merchandise and treats . . .Save it or try to sell it? – Brenda Deneau. March 18, 2020

I’m sure some are feeling a bit helpless, lost, and not sure where to start!

The emerging COVID-19 crisis made March a rough month financially for hospitals around the country. While revenues decreased, expenses did not. Procedures that help generate income for the hospital, like surgery and imaging, have declined significantly. Some are looking at 20-40% drop in overall revenue.

Healthcare systems are trying to avoid layoffs and furloughs. In one hospital, an operating room nurse is now running the hospitals’ gift shops, which are usually operated by volunteers.

So, where do you start when you return? Here’s a checklist for how to get your shop back up and running.

  • Your primary focus is on the safety of your customers and hospital employees.
  • Clean counters and doors inside and out and wipe off the credit and debit card machines.
  • Have gloves and wipes for those at the counters and at registers.
  • You need to have cleaning and sanitizing schedules in place, 24-7.
  • You may have to shorten your shop hours in order to clean as thoroughly as possible at night.
  • Remember to have everyone maintain ‘social distancing’.

What about all those boxes of unpacked merchandise in your stockroom? They need to be checked in, priced, and displayed in the shop?

You will most likely need to pack Easter merchandise away for next year (except Easter candy). Check it in, price it, submit the invoice for payment and repack it for Easter 2021. Place a “List of the Contents” sheet on top of the box. Then, at the time of your physical inventory, all you have to do is record the totals taped to the box.

Go directly to your files and open your ‘On Order’ sheet. Do you still want it? If not, cancel it!

Make up Lost Sales
It will be a challenge to make up for sales lost during the coronavirus shutdown. You will need to adjust your projected 2020 sales goals. Once your shop is up and running, take a hard look at your existing inventory and mark it down if needed. In this new economy it will have to work doubly hard to get sold. It is time to focus on new and innovative ways to generate sales.

While you were cleaning your shop top to bottom, you probably came across old, outdated merchandise that needs to go on sale. What do you do with it? Work to weed out those losers!

Sticker Sale
Mark down items using medical theme stickers (or, alternatively, colored dots):
    Band-Aid = 20% off
    Doctors Bag = 30% off
    Medicine = 40% off
Put red stickers on just a few items that are ‘free with a purchase’.  

Buying Product

As strange as it may seem, this is the time to begin buying Fall, Halloween and Christmas merchandise for 2021. It’s likely that vendors will be lowering their minimums following the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Several gift markets have been cancelled or rescheduled for summer. View our Gift Market Calendar for cancellations and new dates. Check back regularly for changes. 

Finally, we salute the healthcare workers – our valued customers and friends –  facing the frontline everyday. You are our heroes and cherished now, more than ever.  Thank you!


COVID-19 WEBINAR FOR
HOSPITAL GIFT SHOP MANAGERS

Thursday, April 16, 11am EST
Hosted by i3 Verticals

Tomorrow, April 16, i3 Verticals will be hosting a special live COVID-19 webinar to help hospital gift shop managers navigate through these unprecedented times.

The hospital gift shop community is unlike any other group. We all have the same goal in mind and it’s all about making a difference. We want to leverage this tight-knit community to help every hospital gift shop succeed.

A group of industry leaders will answer questions on managing hospital gift shops through the Coronavirus pandemic in this one-hour virtual conference. Panelists include:

  • Cindy Jones – Founder of Cindy Jones Associates and creator of Cindy’s Newsletter for Gift Shop Managers. Cindy has over 35 years of hospital gift shop experience.
  • Andee Williamson – Sales Consulting Engineer at NCR. Andee has been working with retailers for over 20 years.
  • Eric Wininger – Gift Shop Manager at Reading Hospital.
  • Annha Britt – Gift Shop Manager at New Hanover Regional Medical Center
  • Lynda Waldron – Gift Shop Manager at Henry Ford Allegiance Health

The conference will cover topics like:

  • What do I do with all my unsellable Easter merchandise?
  • What are some things I can do to help keep my volunteers engaged?
  • Should I do something special when the shop is able to reopen?

Please contact Alec Overly at aoverly@i3verticals.com with any questions or topics you’d like to cover.

In case you miss it, we hope to post a recording of the webinar on Cindy Jones Associates’ website. Stay tuned for the link!

COVID-19 Webinar for
Hospital Gift Shop Managers

Thursday, April 16, 11am EST


CALENDAR

GIFT MARKETS

May 1, 2020 12:00-2:30pm
*Noted: A Virtual Event. 🔗
CANCELLED
May 7-10, 2020
TransWorld’s Spring Jewelry, Fashion & Accessories Show (Spring). Rosemont
May 11-29
High Point Pop-Up VIRTUAL Market @ Catalog Connexion Product Flipbook. Coming soon online 🔗
CANCELLED
May 13–15, 2020
International Fashion Jewelry & Accessory Show (Spring). Orlando
RESCHEDULED for
Jun 2-5, 2020
Dallas Apparel & Accessories Market. Dallas 🔗
RESCHEDULED for
Jun 10-13, 2020
Atlanta Apparel Market (Spring). Atlanta 🔗
Jun 12-14, 2020
High Point Market (Spring). High Point. 🔗
Jun 24-30, 2020
Dallas Total Home & Gift Market (Summer). Dallas 🔗
Jul 9-13, 2020
LA Mart (Summer). Los Angeles 🔗
Jul 14–20, 2020
Atlanta Gift & Home Furnishings Market (Summer). Atlanta 🔗
Jul 21-25, 2020
Seattle Gift Show (Summer). Seattle 🔗
RESCHEDULED for
Jul 23–26, 2020
TransWorld’s Jewelry, Fashion & Accessories Show (now Summer). Chicago 🔗
Jul 26-30, 2020
Las Vegas Market (Summer). Las Vegas 🔗
Aug 8-12, 2020
NY NOW (Summer). New York 🔗
Aug 9-12, 2020
Toronto Gift + Home Market (Fall) Toronto 🔗
Aug 25-28, 2020
Dallas Apparel & Accessories Market (Summer). Dallas 🔗
Aug 28-30, 2020
Rocky Mountain Gift Show. Denver 🔗
Sep 23-25, 2020
Dallas Total Home & Gift Market (Fall). Dallas 🔗
Oct 4–6, 2020
LA Mart (Fall). Los Angeles 🔗
Oct 5–6, 2020
Seattle Gift Show (Fall). Seattle 🔗
Oct 17-21, 2020
High Point Market (Fall). Highpoint. 🔗

STATE AUXILIARY CONFERENCES

CANCELLED
Mar 22-24, 2020
 
Society for Healthcare Volunteer Leaders (SHVL) Education Conference. New Orleans, LA 🔗  
Apr 28–May 1, 2020 
Hospital Gift Shop Manager’s Assoc of the Carolinas. Myrtle Beach, FL. Contact acfarris@lexhealth.org 
CANCELLED
May 7-8, 2020

Ohio Healthcare Volunteer Management Assoc (OHVMA) Spring Conference 2020. Toledo, OH 🔗
May 14-15, 2020
Minnesota Health Care Gift Shop Assoc. (MHCGSA) Onamia, MN 🔗 
CANCELLED
May 19-
21, 2020
New England Assoc Directors of Healthcare Volunteer Services (NEADHVS). Woodstock, VT 🔗 
CANCELLED
Jun 3-4, 2020
New York State Assoc of Volunteer Services Administrators (NYSAVSA) Professional Development Conference. Albany, NY 🔗
CANCELLED
Jun 11-12, 2020

Wisconsin Assoc of Directors of Volunteer Services (WADVS) Annual Conference. Pewaukee, WI 🔗 
Aug 22-25 2020
52nd Annual AHVRP Conference & Exposition. Denver, CO. 🔗
Nov 4-6, 2020
Missouri Hospital Assoc Annual Convention & Trade Show. Osage Beach, MO 🔗 
RESCHEDULED for
Nov 4-6, 2020

Michigan Healthcare Volunteer Resource Professionals (MHVRP) Spring Conference. Shelbyville, MI

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

Preparing your POS and resuming sales after the coronavirus

by Alex Overly, i3Verticals

If your gift shop was closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, there are a few steps that you should take to start business back up on the right foot. 

First, clean your checkout station. Reach out to your POS vendor for the best methods for cleaning.

Once you have cleaned, power cycle your POS station. If it was off during the shutdown, start the station. If it was left on, it’s probably a good idea to restart it. Once your station is powered on, log into your Point of Sale system and verify that all peripheral devices work, like your receipt printer, cash drawer, and credit card terminal. Test a credit card and cash transaction, making sure that the drawer pops open, the credit card processes, and receipts print. This will ensure that you are aware of any potential problems before opening your doors.

Also, start fresh for your first day back. Make sure you didn’t leave a drawer session open. Consider running through your end of day process to ensure that you have a clean slate and no open transactions.

Now, you are ready to open your doors, but you may also consider running a promotion to draw people back into your store.

Operating and Sales Reports

When you come back to your store after some time off, it’s a good idea to reacquaint yourself with some important inventory and sales numbers. Here are a couple questions and what kind of reports to run in order to get the current and right information.

  1. Do I have too much stock?
    • Run an inventory report broken down by category or department
    • Run a sales report broken down by category for this time last year
    • Compare these reports to see if you have too much of a certain kind of item (e.g. Easter merchandise)
  2. Do I have to little stock?
    • Run an inventory report broken down by category or department
    • Run a sales report broken down by category for this time last year
    • Compare these reports to see if you have too little of a certain kind of item (e.g. perishables – keep in mind some food/drink items may have expired during the shutdown)
  3. How much do I need to make up to ‘meet or beat’ to last year’s sales?
    • Run a sales report for the year to date (January 2020 – Today)
    • Run a sales report for last year to date (January 2019 – April 2019)
    • Compare the results to see how much you are behind
  4. How is my profitability?
    • Run a sales report for the year to date (January 2020 – Today)
    • Run a sales report for last year to date (January 2019 – April 2019)
    • Compare the results to see your profit this year compared to last year.

Alec Overly is a National Account Executive, i3 POS at i3 Verticals. aoverly@i3Verticals.com 734-259-3679 | 734-674-3504


SPONSOR

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by Fantasia Greetings

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a four-inch engraved mylar balloon and a
silk rosebud complete with a gift card.

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GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

Setup for Success: Reopening your gift shop after COVID-19

by Anne M. Obarski

Never did the business world ever predict such a global disruption as the one we are all experiencing now! I am sure that no matter what the size or location of your hospital, there is a high level of disruption in it, and will be for the foreseeable future. 

As you look at your gift shop, whether shuttered or partially open, remember that you have and always will, provide a service to the people and employees who walk through the doors of your hospital.  We are all waiting to hear some glimmer of hope and prediction of a time when slowly and carefully, we are able to connect with our customers in a new way. 

The shops who will survive this disruption are actively working on the future look of their businesses and aren’t dwelling in somber silence and fear.

As a gift shop manager, here are several things to address before your doors open again.

  • Stay in touch with your volunteers.  Be a strong leader and continue to keep them informed and uplifted, whether or not they are still physically in the gift shop or even if they are volunteering elsewhere in the hospital.
  • Look at every piece of merchandise in your gift shop with a critical eye.  Too much merchandise in one classification and too little in another?
  • Buyers at a recent conference were being very careful with their purchases and even discussed being proactive about holding to ship dates on orders as they watch inventory levels.
  • What are the top 3 areas in your gift shop that are the foundation of your business?  Consider those items that you never want to be out of stock on and that propel your business on a daily basis. 
  • Go back to the core of your business and make sure it is strong and solid.  The other items in your gift shop will sell when this is all behind us.
  • Stay in touch with your vendors.  They are hurting too.  Cancelled orders or no orders at all hit them just as hard.  Build on your past vendor relationships. You are not their only account and they can only do so much to get new merchandise to you, cancel future orders or take back damages. Be easy to work with, appreciative of the little things they can do and use them as a “sounding board” for what to do going forward.

Whether you have been helping in other areas of your hospital or trying to limp along in your short-staffed gift shop, your dedication is appreciated by so many people.  Your resilience and determination to look forward with new goals will help as you embrace this “disruption” in a positive way. 

Anne works with organizations and businesses who want to become contagious on purpose!  She provides strategic “contagious” ideas that will inspire your customers to refer others along the way! All as a result of their…infectious, enviable, repeatable, and remarkable, customer service. Contact her at anne@merchandiseconcepts.com or visit merchandiseconcepts.com


THIS MONTH’S POLL

Is your gift shop open, closed, or some variant?

LAST MONTH’S POLL

How many gift markets do you attend annually?

Thank you for participating!

Snoozies

SPONSOR

snoozies!® 

See our ALL NEW Spring 2020 collection of foot coverings!
Simply Pairables in children’s, women’s and men’s sizes.
More new styles, more new designs to keep your customers coming back!
Did you get our new spring catalog? View Spring 2020 Catalog!

252-650-7000
www.snoozies.com


A BIG SHOUT OUT to a well-known vendor, snoozies!®  and owner, Marshall Bank, for donating over 10,000 MASKS to multiple hospitals across country over the past month!

To date, snoozies!/Buyers Direct has donated 10,000 respirator masks to hospitals around the USA. They want to help others “Give the Gift of Protection” to medical staff, doctors, and nurses in need by facilitating additional orders. Cost: $2.00/mask (includes duty and freight) + 7% import duty.  Sold 960 masks/case, packed in 24 individual boxes containing 40 masks.  ***NOTE: The manufacturer, Homar BioTechnology, is not an approved FDA manufacturer yet, but they do appear to meet China (KN95) and EU (FFP2) standards. Contact mbank@deltaforce.net for details.


SUPPORT OUR ADVERTISERS

We hope you’ll make it a habit to read and visit our advertisers. Their funding helps keep Cindy’s Newsletter going. Let them know you are a subscriber and heard about their product through this Newsletter. You will also be introduced to services, products, and special offers!


DISCUSSION


HOW IS THE CORONAVIRUS AFFECTING YOUR GIFT SHOP?

How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your gift shop. Has your gift shop closed or reduced hours? What about volunteers? Are you sanitizing product? If your hospital does close the gift shop will they deploy you to another department? Are you able to work from home? 3/15/20

As of today (3/16), our gift is closed indefinitely. We are sad. – Melodie Christal

As of 3/10 our gift shop was closed indefinitely due to the virus. Nothing we can do!! – Nan Healy

Our gift shop has been closed down, and we have no idea for how long. – Nancy Klein

All of our volunteers have been placed on LOA. I am opening the shop 10-2 M-F and paid staff 11-4 and 1-5 on weekends. I am responsible for all vending services as well so I am spending the rest of each day ordering, stocking, etc. We feel this is probably short term as we expect to be closed at some point. Sales are only on snacks, drinks, and candy so sales are definitely lower. – Anonymous

I am operating our gift shop on a limited schedule, as I am the only paid staff member and our volunteers are also on LOA. Planning to sanitize while I’m up there. Hot spots daily (if not multiple times per day). Going to see how traffic is this week and determine if I need to stay open next week as well. We have strict visitor limitations in place, expecting mainly employee traffic. – Anonymous

Our Gift shop is also closed. Volunteers are on LOA and as manager I am the only employee in Gift Shop. I am taking this time to do stock work and assist at Information Desk as needed. I plan to donate and deliver candy and popcorn to our hardworking clinical staff. – Anonymous

Our volunteers has been asked to stay home for their safety. That leaves me with 3 paid employees. We have a pharmacy in our gift shop so we cannot close, so, we have changed our hours to match the pharmacy. So, we are closing earlier Monday through Saturday and now are closed on Sunday until this passes. Stay safe everyone. – Kim DeBord

As of Saturday our Gift shop is closed. We have Easter and Spring clothes to sell – Sandy Eiffert

Members of the community should not come to the hospital unless there is a medical reason for the visit. This includes coming to the hospital solely to eat in the cafeteria or shop in the gift shop. – Janet Long, Public Relations Manager at Morris Hospital, IL

Our gift shop is closed until further notice. – Anonymous

Our shop is closed to walk in traffic. We have posted on the door and hospital site we will accept orders email, fax and by phone. They can come to the door and pick up. Only credit card and payroll payments. We will continue to accept phone orders for patient gifts. We have redone our windows to better view our products. We hope this is just for a couple weeks. Good Luck everyone. – Mary Claire

We are open but only with limited hours. All volunteers have been mandated to stay home. It is just me the manger and my assistant. Yes, we are sanitizing product and our store and our self’s and we are required to do so every hour! Yes they are saying they will deploy us to another department, we will not be able to work from home. The hospital is not allowing any visitors. Sales have been just for candy and snacks and only employees. – Colleen

We have reduced our hours to M-F 9-5 and Saturday 12-4. We don’t have any Covid-19 positive tests in our County yet. I’m sure as soon as we do, we’ll be shut down. Volunteers, at this point are able to determine for themselves if they wish to come in. – Anonymous

Our two hospital gift shops are closed indefinitely since Monday, 3/16. We only had two volunteers under the age of 60 and myself, a paid manager that would have been eligible to work. I will take this time to clean and organize our office/pricing area. I will clean and reset both shops and set up new displays. I will refresh any worn out display pieces such as repainting the racks from our fresh flower case that once the flowers were removed looked quite shabby, and not in the chic way!. I can work from home if needed, pricing smaller items, writing up future orders with catalogs or ordering online by holding the orders etc. This is a totally helpless feeling, I anxiously await our reopening! Stay healthy! – Jamie Lee Hernandez

Dignity Health Central Coast limits their hospital visitations due to flu and COVID-19 concerns All hospital gift shops are closed until further notice. Washington Health System is suspending some services, including closing the gift shop.  – Cindy Jones

Has your gift shop closed or reduced hours? Has you volunteer department closed? If so, are you as a gift shop manager able to work from home? If your hospital does close the gift shop will they deploy you to another department? Thanks! – Colleen DeSimone, Gift Shop Coordinator,Orange Regional Medical Center Gift Shop

We have been closed for over a week now as we’re staffed entirely by volunteers who are not allowed at the hospital. All visitors except end of life situations or parents of young patients are banned. We distributed the flowers, our only perishable item, to patients who would enjoy them before closing our doors. Our health fair, regional auxiliary meeting and volunteer appreciation lunch are all cancelled and we have no idea when we will re-open. Our hospital is a small rural one with 19 beds. – Sandra Oldfield

We have been closed since Monday. The President felt that if someone who was infected came in contact with multiple items it would be very difficult to disinfect everything they touched. I sent out a mass email to all employees and let them know that if they wanted to buy anything I can get it together and just charge their badge and meet them at the back door. No need to step foot into the shop. It’s working out really well. – Anonymous

What is everyone doing about all of their spring merchandise, just taking a loss?  I am in the process of removing all the Easter merchandise, plush, etc. and storing them for next year. I plan to keep the spring items in the shop. BTW, we have been closed since March 10th. All volunteers on LOA. As the only paid employee among our volunteers I am performing all tasks that our volunteers were doing, mail, surveys, front desk, etc. Stay well everyone. – Sarah F

We are still open, with only two paid employees disinfecting everything we can. We are only selling drinks, food and candy also. – Anonymous

Our gift shop closed officially 3/17 after all the volunteers called off. I am the only paid employee and am currently working from home because I have a sinus infection and am not allowed back into the hospital until I am 100%. Once I am 100% I will be allowed back into the hospital to work on various projects in the hospital and help in other areas where there are shortages. I feel helpless being at home and know that under any other situation I would have already been back to work with the tail end of an infection. Stay safe everyone. – Anonymous

We have a paid staff person in our gift shop so between her and a few die-hard volunteers, it has been open with reduced hours. Our volunteer services is not paused except for the teen program. We will keep it open as long as we can for our staff. We have been told that all staff are essential and no one will be staff reduced at this time, we will be deployed to help elsewhere. – Nichole

Are any of you doing delivery service to hospital employees in various departments and to patient floors? If so, how is that working? – Cindy Jones, Editor

So we have been closed since 3/13. Volunteers are on LOA. I am still here because we do flowers. The shop is closed. I have tried to let employees know that we have gifts if they need them. Very sad. No traffic on our main street. Stay Healthy! – Anonymous

We had to close the Gift Shop per our Executive Team Leaders on March 24. I’m wondering what everyone else, that has had to close, is doing with your Easter product, especially Easter candy? My thought is to hold it over until next year since I hadn’t had it out long enough to sell much of it. I’m pretty sure we won’t be open before Easter at this point. We plan to move to a new location in August and will have limited storage at the new location. – Vickie Bailey, Bozeman Health Deaconess Hospital. 90 beds


$15 OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL (OIG) LIMIT

Q. I would like more information on the $15 Federal OIG recommendation. I am embarrassed to admit I knew nothing of this policy. I went to the website but I am obviously entering the wrong search criteria because I could find nothing on this subject. Can anyone help please? – Deborah Hood 3/17/20


QUALITY ITEMS FOR $15

Q. I work for a large hospital system that has a patient/guest service recovery program where our hospital employees can access an item for guests/patients. In an effort to remain compliant with the $15 Federal OIG (Office of Inspector General) limit recommendation for ‘patient gifting’ we would like to stock items that meet that price point and still remain “giftable”. What are other shops buying and stocking that are under this $15 limit while retaining a perception of quality?

With hospital gift shop’s being such a large part of the retail market, you would think that vendors know the federal regulations that we must adhere to and come up with some suggested items in their lines. At the Atlanta market last month, not one rep was familiar with this, (it began in 2017 with the Affordable Care Act), which I found surprising! – Michaela Kanoski, Volunteer & Guest Services Manager, CHI Health Creighton University Medical Center-Bergan Mercy. 380 beds. 3/2/20

(OIG is the governmental agency that regulates and enforces the monetary value of things received by Medicate and state Medicaid patients.)


WHY MAINTAIN INVENTORY AND FINANCIALS ‘AT RETAIL’?

Q. I need to explain to our gift shop committee why our physical inventory reports should always be shown at the retail price rather than “at cost.” Can you give me a short and simple answer. Thanks much!! – Darielle H. 3/14/20

FROM CINDY

Advantages of the Retail Method of Inventory Valuation
The money your customer pays at point of purchase is the retail price. The retail sales figures are the retail value of the inventory. The retail price has the profit built into it and profit occurs when an item is sold (at retail)

    1. Maintaining inventory figures ‘at retail’ forces the you, the retailer, to ‘think retail’.
    2. Financial statements ‘at retail’ are essential to good financial planning. Frequent calculations at both cost and retail information allows the retailer to adjust quickly to changing conditions
    3. Physical inventories taken at retail prices eliminate the costly, time-consuming job of decoding cost prices. Recording physical inventory at retail prices greatly simplifies the process and encourages a more frequent physical count of inventory.
    4. The retail method facilitates planning and control of a department or category. Sales, purchases, inventories, and price-change information are recorded by department or category and can be used to evaluate each department’’s performance.
    5. By providing a ‘book’ or Point of Sale figure for what your inventory should be on hand, the retail method allows the retailer to determine shortages each time a physical inventory is taken.

The ‘retail method’ requires continuous recording of all transactions which change the unit status of the inventory. A running total must be kept by continuously recording all merchandise data. A Point of Sale system will automatically accomplish that for you!  3/15/20


HOW OFTEN SHOULD WE CHANGE DISPLAYS

Q. Because we have many of the same customers everyday, how often should we change our displays? How often do you rotate merchandise to other locations?

FROM CINDY

To keep displays from growing stale, change them every 2-3 weeks. Strategic and successful displays connect with your customer in micro moments. Go above and beyond for your customers, anticipate their needs, infuse your merchandise story and empower your staff to go the extra mile.

Good displays should sell product! Signage will help sell product.

Display seasonal merchandise and smaller high margin items at the front of your store.
Prices should be displayed in a small size.
Make sure you have back-stock of items displayed. 4/15/20


SHOP YOUR OWN SHOP

Q. Have you shopped your own shop recently? The other night I was on my way out, purse in hand, when a friend walked into the store to browse.  I walked back in and “shopped” with her through her eyes. If you are like me, all I can see when surveying the floor is what needs to be done, what is missing, what needs dusting, etc. But shopping as the customer was a pleasant surprise. I enjoyed admiring and looking at things as much as she did and it was really fun!  It was a lesson to me  – after a harried day behind the scenes, I actually left feeling very good. I realized the pleasant experience that our shop offers to hospital guests and employees. I am going to walk out and come back in wearing a consumer hat more often!  – A shop manager. 228 beds. 3/10/20


CURTAIL DEEP-DISCOUNT CUSTOMERS

Q. I assist the director of volunteer services in managing three hospital gift shops. Our largest shop at our biggest campus does quite well. We have a shop at a sister hospital that we buy for and are waiting to see how the first year went. We also have a small shop at our long-term care and rehab facility. We struggle with staffing (all volunteer) as it’s a smaller shop and is on the opposite side of town from where many of the volunteers live. Most of the customers at that location also like to “wait things out” when it comes to buying product. They will not buy it until it is deeply discounted and then complain when the merchandise isn’t changed often. We are at a loss as to what to do with this particular shop. Does anyone have any suggestions? – Shea Parazine, Volunteer Services Specialist, The Shops at Unity Health, White County Medical Center, Searcy, AR. 193 beds. 3/11/20

FROM CINDY
Sounds like hospital employees have been trained to wait for markdowns so they can get it cheaper. I suggest you don’t reduce markdowns so soon, and see who out-waits who! Of course, the danger of waiting too long is that the shop may get stuck with too much aging merchandise. That is the “just in case”  philosophy.

As retailers, we never want to disappoint the customer. We can’t bear to hear a customer say they couldn’t find what they were looking for in our shop. On the other hand, we can’t carry everything in very limited floor space. Unfortunately, some shops carry huge inventories just in case that one customer comes in. That’s called ‘just in case’ thinking and buying and it simply doesn’t work! What happens if that one customer never comes in? You now have merchandise that feels old and stale….and may never sell. 3/15/20


SPRING/SUMMER CLOTHING DISTRIBUTOR?

Q. Hi, I am a new Gift Shop Manager for a small county hospital. As spring is almost here, I need a wholesale distributor for spring/summer clothing? I am in western Maryland. Any suggestions? Thanks so much!! Love this newsletter. :) – Sarah Folio. 2/1/20

I too am a small community hospital and would love to get with someone to buy marked down items from. It you don’t mind sharing some information please email me. – Rhonda Hernandez. 2/25/20

I am also a small community hospital and the benefit of that is I can buy Simply Noelle marked down items and most of my customers don’t even notice it’s “last seasons” merchandise. Excellent quality at an excellent price. – Anonymous. 2/17/20

Mountain Mamas might be a good option for spring/summer clothing. – Teri Nixon. 2/16/20


DRESSING ROOM ALTERNATIVES?

Q. With no dressing room, how do others handle customers that want to try on clothing?  How can we sell apparel without?  – Singh. 1/3/2020

We arranged our back room/office, for a small dressing room area. We hung a shower curtain on a tension pole rod, and they can also shut the door. It works great. – Sandy Eiffert. 2/15/20

We offer my office to our customers ~ they close and lock the door, and are happy to make sure it fits first! We also offer our nearest rest room…..this of course takes a lot of trust in your customers~~but~~ we’ve never had an item walk out yet! And the customers are very happy that we do trust them enough to offer this to them. Sometimes this trust makes the sale!! – Anonymous. 1/20/20

We have our restrooms across the hall, I offer for them to go try it on..so far no issues. I get worries but as I said not issues with that yet. Those who don’t we have an exchange policy that I let them know and ask that they keep tags and receipt. – Leslie Hollingsworth. 1/20/20

Regarding the question concerning no dressing room: we have a full length mirror on both sides of our back room area door. For sweaters, ponchos, etc. the one on the gift shop side works just fine. If someone needs to try on a top, we allow them to step into the back room to try it on and just wait outside. We have had no problems with this process. Occasionally someone will want to try on in a more private place (aka: bathroom). In these instances they will generally leave with us their car keys, or coat, etc. so we are comfortable with this. We can also see the bathroom entrance from our shop, so that helps us keep an eye out. For hospital staff, this is never a worry! – Nancy Johnsen. 1/16/20

We have a back room for receiving and office. We checked into a actual fitting room when we remodeled and it has to be ADA compliant. I did not feel it was a good trade off to give up the square footage in the shop for the fitting room, so had had a hospital curtain added to the back room. It works just fine when needed. There is a large mirror on one wall also. – Mary Robinson. 1/16/20


A SUCCESSFUL TOTE SALE

Something that worked extremely well for us was a Tote Sale. I bought holiday totes from Burton & Burton for $1.66 each, priced them at $4.99 which is a 66.73% mark-up. The promotion is, buy a tote at $4.99 and anything you can get in the tote is 25% off.  And our pitch is “We can make anything fit in a tote.” We sold out of the totes in 2 days and I bought a lot of them.  I do a tote sale two times a year and my customers/employees can’t wait for it. Thank you so much and happy holidays. – Kim DeBord, Marketplace Manager, Riverside Medical Center, Kankakee, IL. 325 beds. 12/4/19

Just an FYI – if you’re buying something at a cost of $1.66 and selling it for $4.99, that is a 200% markup and a 67% gross margin….– Curt. 2/1/20

I tried this idea, and loved it. Our customers were loving it as well. Thanks for such a great idea. – Lisa Burney. 1/17/20


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© Cindy Jones Associates, 2020. COPYRIGHT PROTECTED. Redistribution, copying, reselling, re-renting, or republishing is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. Cindy’s Newsletter may not to be forwarded, redistributed, reproduced, reprinted, or posted online without prior permission from Cindy Jones Associates. Subscribers may share one issue with a fellow manager. Thereafter, the manager may subscribe here to receive future issues.

Cindy’s Newsletter for Gift Shop Managers | March 15, 2020 💮

CINDY’S NEWSLETTER

for

Gift Shop Managers

Cindy’s Newsletter provides its readership of over 3,000 gift shop professionals “actionable content” to help optimize their shop operation, grow revenue, and connect with one another. LEAVE A COMMENT: Click the colored comment tags throughout the newsletter or email Cindy at cindy@cindyjonesassociates.com


MARCH 15, 2020

CLICK TO COMMENT 👇🏼

CORONAVIRUS DISCUSSION 😷

How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your gift shop. Has your gift shop closed or reduced hours? What about volunteers? Are you sanitizing product? If your hospital does close the gift shop will they deploy you to another department? Are you able to work from home?

You will need to think creatively and work collaboratively to meet your customers’ every day needs in this new environment. And, you will need to do everything you can to make their shopping experience seamless and hassle free, even in the face of stress and anxiety. Engage, listen, learn, ask questions, and build trust. Help your team to be comfortable in uncomfortable times.


💮CALENDAR 💮

CORONAVIRUS: Check conference and market websites regularly for cancellations or schedule changes.

GIFT MARKETS

CANCELLED
Mar 22-25, 2020
ASD Market Week. Las Vegas 🔗
CANCELLED
Mar 24-27, 2020
Dallas Total Home & Gift Market + Apparel & Accessories Market (Spring). Dallas 🔗
CANCELLED
Mar 25, 2020
The Buyers Cash & Carry Midwest. Madison 🔗
CANCELLED
Mar 29-31, 2020
LA Mart (Spring). Los Angeles 🔗
POSTPONED
Apr 6–7, 2020
Seattle Gift Show (Spring). Seattle 🔗
RESCHEDULED for
Jun 14-13, 2020
Atlanta Apparel Market (Spring). Atlanta 🔗
RESCHEDULED for
Jul 23–26, 2020
TransWorld’s Jewelry, Fashion & Accessories Show (now Summer). Chicago 🔗
Jun 10-13, 2020
June Atlanta Apparel Market. Atlanta 🔗
Jul 14–20, 2020
Atlanta Summer Gift & Home Furnishings Market. Atlanta 🔗
Jul 21-25, 2020
Seattle Gift Show (Summer). Seattle 🔗
Jul 26-30, 2020
Las Vegas Market (Summer). Las Vegas 🔗
Aug 28-30, 2020
Rocky Mountain Gift Show. Denver 🔗

STATE AUXILIARY CONFERENCES

CANCELLED
Mar 22-24, 2020
 
Society for Healthcare Volunteer Leaders (SHVL) Education Conference. New Orleans, LA 🔗  
Apr 28–May 1, 2020 
Hospital Gift Shop Manager’s Assoc of the Carolinas. Myrtle Beach, FL. Contact acfarris@lexhealth.org 
May 7-8, 2020
Ohio Healthcare Volunteer Management Assoc (OHVMA) Spring Conference 2020. Toledo, OH 🔗
May 14-15, 2020
Minnesota Health Care Gift Shop Assoc. Onamia, MN 🔗 
May 13-15, 2020
Michigan Healthcare Volunteer Resource Professionals Spring Conference. Shelbyville, MI
May 19-21, 2020
New England Assoc Directors of Healthcare Volunteer Services (NEADHVS). Woodstock, VT 🔗 
Jun 3-4, 2020
New York State Assoc of Volunteer Services Administrators (NYSAVSA) Professional Development Conference. Albany, NY 🔗
Jun 11-12, 2020
Wisconsin Assoc of Directors of Volunteer Services (WADVS) Annual Conference. Pewaukee, WI 🔗 
Nov 4-6, 2020
Missouri Hospital Assoc Annual Convention & Trade Show. Osage Beach, MO 🔗 
 

Retailers share how they’re coping with COVID-19

from Gifts & Dec  / Mar 16, 2020

Recent survey findings show that, in light of the coronavirus pandemic, retailers expect to feel the pinch when it comes to sales and revenue. Understandably, the coronavirus has the whole world feeling on edge and as the Trump administration has now declared the pandemic a national emergency, concern continues to grow. Nevertheless, independent retailers are facing the crisis as best they can, even as they admit to fears of the unknown. As some bigger chains are cutting back on hours or facing severe shortages on basic essentials, many small retailers are comforting their communities now more than ever.

“The scary thing about this situation is that we don’t know when it will end.”  Carol Schroeder, Orange Tree Imports, Madison, WI.  All of our locally owned businesses, including Orange Tree Imports, are struggling to determine the best course of action. We have temporarily suspended our Cooking School class and cancelled our upcoming Ukrainian Egg Art Demonstration. We’ve removed testers from our bath and body area, and of course, we’re on board with hand washing and sanitizing.  Read more…


January retail sales grew 2.7% over last year

from museums&MORE  / Feb 18, 2020

Retail sales in January increased 0.2% seasonally adjusted over December and were up 2.7% unadjusted year-over-year, the National Retail Federation (NRF) said. The numbers exclude automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants.

“The strength of consumer spending continues to be the anchor of the current economic expansion,” said Jack Kleinhenz, chief economist with NRF. “January’s retail sales results reflect a confident consumer supported by solid wage growth and job gains. While the business sector continues to weigh significant uncertainties, consumers are providing staying power for U.S. economic growth. We are starting the year on a strong footing.

January’s results build on increases of 0.3% month-over-month and 6.3% year-over-year in December. As of January, the three-month moving average was up 3.5% over the same period a year ago, compared with 3.9% in December.

NRF’s numbers are based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which said that overall January sales – including auto dealers, gas stations and restaurants – were up 0.3% seasonally adjusted from December and up 4.4% unadjusted year-over-year.


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Spring into action now for coming holidays

March 30: National Doctor’s Day

National Doctor’s Day is a day celebrated to recognize the contributions of physicians to individual lives and communities. Show appreciation to doctors with a complimentary chocolate bar or a 20% off discount certificate! Doctors do not frequent hospital gift shops often so this might be a way to make new friends.

April 12: Easter  

Place an announcement in the hospital newsletter about your shop’s Easter merchandise. Stir up excitement – begin a raffle for a large plush Easter bunny.

Arrange with your shop’s florist to increase flower orders for Easter and Mother’s Day. Ask them to prepare some special blooming bulb plants in baskets for those two important special occasions. Order containers of cut daffodils and tulips (to sell by the stem).

April 22: Administrative Professionals Day

Arrange with your florist to have containers of pale pink and yellow carnations and ferns to sell for Administrative Professionals Day. 

April 19-25: National Healthcare Volunteer Week

One way to thank volunteers is to give them perspective about what they’re doing. Sometimes volunteers are given mundane tasks. No matter what they’re doing, let your volunteer know the larger context — not just what they’re doing, but why they’re doing it – and show that you respect them and appreciate their work.

Provide food for your volunteers as they work. Back in college, I always liked someone better when they gave me food. The same applies to volunteers. It keeps them energized and shows that you care. (Remember to mark food that is vegetarian and vegan!)

Check in with your volunteers located in the back room or storage ares regularly. If they’re looking tired, give them a break. If they’re looking bored, offer them a different task.

Take time to interact with your volunteers, not just to thank them for their work, but also to get to know them personally.

Submit feature volunteer stories to your hospital newsletter or publication. Take 15 minutes out of your schedule to interview them personally. You and the volunteer are winners here — the volunteer gets to tell their story, and you get feedback as well as some great material that you can use for volunteer recruitment.

Give your volunteers actual awards. Nominate them for awards such as “Volunteer of the Month.” You can even get creative and have multiple categories, such as “Most Inspirational,” “Most Enthusiastic,” etc.

Sometimes the best way to show you appreciate your volunteers is the old fashioned way — send them a simple handwritten thank you card. In the age of email and social media, the handwritten letter is special. Bonus points to personalize the message, such as thanking them for a specific task they did during their time volunteering.

May 6: National Nurses Day

Nurses Day is always May 6. A few days prior, offer a 30% OFF NURSES DAY SALE just for nurses. Send an email to the nursing department Chair or HR Director asking if they would email the sale to their nurses.  Get the custom designed SIGNAGE for NATIONAL NURSES DAY in the 12-Month Action Plan here

May 10: Mother’s Day

Now is the time to purchase fall women’s sportswear, baby apparel and accessories now. Begin promoting golf, baseball and other sport and team-like merchandise.


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The stockroom door

Your stockroom doors work only one way—and that way is OUT! When new merchandise arrives, check it in, price it and get it into the shop. Hopefully, it will never return to the stockroom again, because there’s no customers or cash register there!


Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital, Onancock, VA

THIS MONTH’S POLL

How many gift markets do you attend annually?

LAST MONTH’S POLL

What POS system do you use?

Other
Square (5 votes). TAM (5 votes). CLOVER (3 votes). Talech (3 votes). CBORD/Micros (3 votes). Microsoft Dynamics RMS (3 votes). Keystroke (2 votes). ComCash (2 votes). Retail Management Hero (2 votes). Catapult by ECRS (2 votes). Agilysys (2) votes. Gempay (2 vote). None. Just cash register and paper files. (2 votes). Retail Edge (1 vote). Think Smart (1 vote). PSG (1 vote). Smartvender ACCEO (1 vote). POSRocket (1 vote). Insight Retail (1 vote). POSIM (1 vote). Info Genesis (1 vote). Compete by Jonas (1 vote). Vend (1 vote). Smyth Retail Systems (1 vote)

Didn’t get a chance to submit your answer? You can still do it here. Selecting the right POS system is a big deicison, so we keep this as a running poll on our homepage. Thank you!

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Why inventory turn is so important

That’s a fair – and an important – question. Inventory turnover is a measure of the number of times your inventory is sold within a period of time, usually a year. There are a number of ways to determine your inventory turn figure, but the easiest way is to simply divide your previous year’s total retail sales by your year ending inventory at retail value.

Shops with a better turn rate achieve that rate because they closely control their inventory.

They are empathic about delivery dates so that the product arrives at the store when it needs to be there. And they are pit bulls about managing the inventory on hand and about reducing the selling price when necessary to recoup as much of their investment as possible. What’s Your Inventory Turn?

Source: Kizer & Bender’s Retail Adventures

Rich Kizer and Georganne Bender of Kizer & Bender are consumer anthropologists, consultants, designers, keynote speakers, and who have helped tens of thousands of businesses in the retail, creative, restaurant, healthcare, hospitality, collegiate, travel, beauty, funeral, tech, auto, sales, and service industries since 1990.


CLICK TO COMMENT 👇🏼

Redlands Community Hospital

What are four things you do
when you first arrive
at your gift shop each day?

Redlands Community Hospital, Redlands, CA


We’re Open! Gift Shop Hours

Recommended
Shop Hours

M – F 
8:30 AM – 8:00 PM 

Weekends
12:00 PM – 4:00 PM

**Open at 7am on paydays during Nov & Dec

How many ‘open shop hours’ per week are required to make $500 per square feet?

Shop hours are crucial to a shop’s success. Limiting shop hours limits sales and service to customers. Expanded shop hours increase sales and services. Post the shop hours at the entrance of the shop and include them in the Patient Handbook and New Employee Manual.

Ensure that shop hours are maintained with no interruption of service.

Hospital gift shops have a potential customer each hour of the day 365 days a year!

There is often a scarcity of volunteers to work evenings and weekends, so part-time paid employees may be needed to work those shifts.


Best practices for plush displays 🧸

Do not stack as much plush as possible into one area. Create a display, not a mound of product!

Group by color or category of character or animal. For example, group all farm animals together, all Disney together, all jungle animals together. Display musical plush in the baby department.

Lakeland Regional Health, Lakeland, FL

Internal Revenue Code

Hospital gift shops qualify as an unrelated business under Revenue Ruling: 69:267, Section 513 of the Internal Revenue Code. Five principles must be followed to help reinforce the tax-exempt character of the shop.

  1. The shop provides a service to its patrons: patients, visitors and employees.
  2. All profits are donated to the hospital.
  3. Its purpose is to provide merchandise that will improve the physical comfort and mental well-being of patients, visitors and employees.
  4. The shop keeps employees on the premise throughout the day, thus increasing the hospitals efficiency.
  5. A substantial amount of the work must be performed without compensation.

Rules of Customer Loyalty

How to maximize profitability of your existing customers?
That’s easy! Keep pleasing those treasured hospital ‘frequent buyer’ employees that love your merchandise.

How to exceed your customers’ expectations for instant gratification?

Have the right merchandise, at the right time, and at the right price.

How to overcome the increase in competition?
You don’t have retail competition in a hospital! So, just be the best retailer you can be.

How to collect valuable, actionable customer data?

Once or twice a year distribute a customer survey to hospital employees to ensure you are exceeding their expectations. Target your most loyal customers to reinforce their purchasing habits or to incentivize them to try something new.


Five ways to be a better leader

by By Nicole Leinbach Reyhle / Summer 2016

Five ways to improve managing and leading employees

There is a saying in life that the “days are busy but the years are short” and when it comes to retail, this is absolutely the truth. After all, how often have years flown by and you’ve looked back only to regret how you managed your employees or other store responsibilities you had hoped to improve?

With employees essentially your brand ambassadors, there’s no better time than now to work towards making their roles stronger and your employee management strengthen, as well. To help, consider these five tips:

Evaluate your employee scenario

Ask yourself this straightforward question — and give yourself an honest answer: Are you satisfied with the performance of your employees?

While it’s possible some employees will likely stand out among others for their positive attributes, it’s also likely many others will stand out for just the opposite of reasons. Keeping this in mind, analyze your entire staff and identify the strengths, weaknesses and windows of opportunities that you would like to improve. This first step can help lead you to the many others that will follow as you begin your journey to strengthen your employee team.

Create an evaluation checklist

When you’re analyzing your employees and their performance, it’s important to be consistent in evaluating each employee against the same criteria. Keeping this in mind, having a checklist — or evaluation form — to work off of can help you review each individual employee with the same standards and expectations as all others. Ranking skills and store responsibilities on a scale of 1 to 5 provides a good baseline, with 1 being poor performance, 2 offering below average, 3 identifying average, 4 recognized as above average and 5 being outstanding.

As you begin to create your checklist, consider including points that range from store operations to customer service to merchandising and marketing to social media. Any and all responsibilities in your store should be included, as well as other key details such as being on time to work.

Schedule one-on-one reviews

Once your checklist is completed and your evaluations have been filled out, it’s important to schedule a one-on-one review with each employee to deliver your findings. Additionally, take this opportunity to discuss their strengths and weaknesses as well as communicate store goals, expectations, employee responsibilities and more. You should allow for time that would welcome your employee to share their own thoughts, whether it’s in direct response to your review or about their employment or store concerns in general. Finally, make sure your tone if positive while also enforcing the standards you have set for your business. At the very least, these should be done annually. Ideally, however, these would be completed quarterly or bi-annually.

Deliver an all-store team meeting

Create a time that brings everyone together when the store is not open for business. During this experience, you should formally roll out store expectations — particularly if this is something you have never previously done. To help, introducing an employee manual is a great idea. For those less interested in a formal manual, consider a “ten best” list that shares the ten things your store absolutely wants to see from every employee… then post this list in a common area that employees will see it and be reminded of it every time they work (away from customers, of course). The main goal — no matter what path you choose to take here — is to create a team morale that is positive and uplifting while offering employees leadership and direction for them to follow while working in your store. Teamwork should be emphasized, as well, and any sales goals that you have in place should also be identified.

Set daily goals

When managing employees, it’s vital to offer goals that employees can easily access and understand. Saying “we want to have our best year yet” sounds great, but it doesn’t offer clear direction on how to do this. Combining this annual goal with daily goals can help you reach your expectations. Using your point of sale and other data from previous sales years, identify daily sales goals that your employees are aware of. Additionally, set other goals each day that may include merchandising a specific area, sending out customer thank you notes and managing store operations in general. Combined, these daily goals will help make for productive days and ultimately, help you reach the big picture goals you have in place for your business.

A final thought

When leading employees, be sure to consider the leadership experience that they are experiencing. Pausing to reflect on your own leadership can help you better understand some of your employee behaviors. Aim to shape your own leadership in a direction that you and your employees can both be proud of. As a result, your store, employees and yourself will benefit, helping to increase sales and create a more dynamic working environment. 

Nicole Leinbach Reyhle is the founder and publisher of Retail Minded, as well as the co-founder of the Independent Retailer Conference. She is the author of “Retail 101: The Guide to Managing and Marketing Your Retail Business” from McGraw-Hill and writes a regular column for Forbes. Visit www.retailminded.com, or follow @RetailMinded on Twitter and Facebook.com/RetailMinded.

SOURCE: museums&MORE

Are you a boss or a leader?

Are you a boss or a leader?

BOSS

Demands
Commands

Talks first
Knows how it’s done

Inspires fear
Says “I”
Uses people
Takes credit
Places the blame
Says “Go”

LEADER

Coaches
Asks
Listens first

Shows how it’s done
Generates enthusiasm
Says “We”
Develops people
Gives credit
Accepts blame
Says “Let’s Go”


DISCUSSION


WHY MAINTAIN INVENTORY AND FINANCIALS ‘AT RETAIL’?

Q. I need to explain to our gift shop committee why our physical inventory reports should always be shown at the retail price rather than “at cost.” Can you give me a short and simple answer. Thanks much!! – Darielle H. 3/14/20

FROM CINDY

Advantages of the Retail Method of Inventory Valuation
The money your customer pays at point of purchase is the retail price. The retail sales figures are the retail value of the inventory. The retail price has the profit built into it and profit occurs when an item is sold (at retail)

    1. Maintaining inventory figures ‘at retail’ forces the you, the retailer, to ‘think retail’.
    2. Financial statements ‘at retail’ are essential to good financial planning. Frequent calculations at both cost and retail information allows the retailer to adjust quickly to changing conditions
    3. Physical inventories taken at retail prices eliminate the costly, time-consuming job of decoding cost prices. Recording physical inventory at retail prices greatly simplifies the process and encourages a more frequent physical count of inventory.
    4. The retail method facilitates planning and control of a department or category. Sales, purchases, inventories, and price-change information are recorded by department or category and can be used to evaluate each department’’s performance.
    5. By providing a ‘book’ or Point of Sale figure for what your inventory should be on hand, the retail method allows the retailer to determine shortages each time a physical inventory is taken.

The ‘retail method’ requires continuous recording of all transactions which change the unit status of the inventory. A running total must be kept by continuously recording all merchandise data. A Point of Sale system will automatically accomplish that for you!


CHANGE DISPLAYS

Q. Because we have many of the same customers everyday, how often should we change our displays? How often do you rotate merchandise to other locations?


QUALITY ITEMS FOR $15

Q. I work for a large hospital system that has a patient/guest service recovery program where our hospital employees can access an item for guests/patients. In an effort to remain compliant with the $15 Federal OIG (Office of Inspector General) limit recommendation for ‘patient gifting’ we would like to stock items that meet that price point and still remain “giftable”. What are other shops buying and stocking that are under this $15 limit while retaining a perception of quality?

With hospital gift shop’s being such a large part of the retail market, you would think that vendors know the federal regulations that we must adhere to and come up with some suggested items in their lines. At the Atlanta market last month, not one rep was familiar with this, (it began in 2017 with the Affordable Care Act), which I found surprising! – Michaela Kanoski, Volunteer & Guest Services Manager, CHI Health Creighton University Medical Center-Bergan Mercy. 380 beds. 3/2/20

(OIG is the governmental agency that regulates and enforces the monetary value of things received by Medicate and state Medicaid patients.)


SHOP YOUR OWN SHOP

Q. Have you shopped your own shop recently? The other night I was on my way out, purse in hand, when a friend walked into the store to browse.  I walked back in and “shopped” with her through her eyes. If you are like me, all I can see when surveying the floor is what needs to be done, what is missing, what needs dusting, etc. But shopping as the customer was a pleasant surprise. I enjoyed admiring and looking at things as much as she did and it was really fun!  It was a lesson to me  – after a harried day behind the scenes, I actually left feeling very good. I realized the pleasant experience that our shop offers to hospital guests and employees. I am going to walk out and come back in wearing a consumer hat more often!  – A shop manager. 228 beds. 3/10/20


CURTAIL DEEP-DISCOUNT CUSTOMERS

Q. I assist the director of volunteer services in managing three hospital gift shops. Our largest shop at our biggest campus does quite well. We have a shop at a sister hospital that we buy for and are waiting to see how the first year went. We also have a small shop at our long-term care and rehab facility. We struggle with staffing (all volunteer) as it’s a smaller shop and is on the opposite side of town from where many of the volunteers live. Most of the customers at that location also like to “wait things out” when it comes to buying product. They will not buy it until it is deeply discounted and then complain when the merchandise isn’t changed often. We are at a loss as to what to do with this particular shop. Does anyone have any suggestions? – Shea Parazine, Volunteer Services Specialist, The Shops at Unity Health, White County Medical Center, Searcy, AR. 193 beds. 3/11/20

FROM CINDY
Sounds like hospital employees have been trained to wait for markdowns so they can get it cheaper. I suggest you don’t reduce markdowns so soon, and see who out-waits who! Of course, the danger of waiting too long is that the shop may get stuck with too much aging merchandise. That is the “just in case”  philosophy.

As retailers, we never want to disappoint the customer. We can’t bear to hear a customer say they couldn’t find what they were looking for in our shop. On the other hand, we can’t carry everything in very limited floor space. Unfortunately, some shops carry huge inventories just in case that one customer comes in. That’s called ‘just in case’ thinking and buying and it simply doesn’t work! What happens if that one customer never comes in? You now have merchandise that feels old and stale….and may never sell.


SPRING/SUMMER CLOTHING DISTRIBUTOR?

Q. Hi, I am a new Gift Shop Manager for a small county hospital. As spring is almost here, I need a wholesale distributor for spring/summer clothing? I am in western Maryland. Any suggestions? Thanks so much!! Love this newsletter. :) – Sarah Folio. 2/1/20

I too am a small community hospital and would love to get with someone to buy marked down items from. It you don’t mind sharing some information please email me. – Rhonda Hernandez. 2/25/20

I am also a small community hospital and the benefit of that is I can buy Simply Noelle marked down items and most of my customers don’t even notice it’s “last seasons” merchandise. Excellent quality at an excellent price. – Anonymous. 2/17/20

Mountain Mamas might be a good option for spring/summer clothing. – Teri Nixon. 2/16/20


DRESSING ROOM ALTERNATIVES?

Q. With no dressing room, how do others handle customers that want to try on clothing?  How can we sell apparel without?  – Singh. 1/3/2020

We arranged our back room/office, for a small dressing room area. We hung a shower curtain on a tension pole rod, and they can also shut the door. It works great. – Sandy Eiffert. 2/15/20

We offer my office to our customers ~ they close and lock the door, and are happy to make sure it fits first! We also offer our nearest rest room…..this of course takes a lot of trust in your customers~~but~~ we’ve never had an item walk out yet! And the customers are very happy that we do trust them enough to offer this to them. Sometimes this trust makes the sale!! – Anonymous. 1/20/20

We have our restrooms across the hall, I offer for them to go try it on..so far no issues. I get worries but as I said not issues with that yet. Those who don’t we have an exchange policy that I let them know and ask that they keep tags and receipt. – Leslie Hollingsworth. 1/20/20

Regarding the question concerning no dressing room: we have a full length mirror on both sides of our back room area door. For sweaters, ponchos, etc. the one on the gift shop side works just fine. If someone needs to try on a top, we allow them to step into the back room to try it on and just wait outside. We have had no problems with this process. Occasionally someone will want to try on in a more private place (aka: bathroom). In these instances they will generally leave with us their car keys, or coat, etc. so we are comfortable with this. We can also see the bathroom entrance from our shop, so that helps us keep an eye out. For hospital staff, this is never a worry! – Nancy Johnsen. 1/16/20

We have a back room for receiving and office. We checked into a actual fitting room when we remodeled and it has to be ADA compliant. I did not feel it was a good trade off to give up the square footage in the shop for the fitting room, so had had a hospital curtain added to the back room. It works just fine when needed. There is a large mirror on one wall also. – Mary Robinson. 1/16/20


PRICE OF STANDARD CANDY BAR

Q. What is everyone is charging for a standard candy bar? I sure don’t want our hospital employees thinking we are scamming them. – Sandy Palmer, Harrison Valley. 311 beds. 12/28/19

$1.14 no tax. Cost is about $.67 so we’re not making a large profit at all but it keeps the employee’s coming back everyday for their “fix” :) – Anonymous. 2/17/20
We charge $1.29. – Lisa Burney. 1/17/20
$1.25! Customers are seeing the same price at the grocery stores. – Karen. 1/17/20
$1.15. With tax, it is $1.25.  – Melodie Christal. 1/16/20
$1.25 includes tax. – Kathryn Main


NOVEMBER SALES DOWN?

Q. I would like to know if anyone was down in sales for November? Our sales were down about $6,000 year over year. In my area, a lot of the stores had their Christmas items on sale at 50% off the second week of November which I believe had a lot to do with it. That, the weather in my area, and a couple of internal changes were all culprits.  I was just curious if anyone else was down due to the shortened holiday season with Thanksgiving being a week later.  – Kim DeBord, Marketplace Manager, Riverside Medical Center, Kankakee, IL. 325 beds. 12/4/19

The last several years, we’ve ordered less and less Xmas ornaments and home decor. One of my crafters doesn’t even make it anymore. Instead carry some esp for kids and make sure it’s unique…. but focus more on items that will sell even after Xmas. You’ll feel less pressure. – Elaine. 2/15/20

Our November sales were significantly down also, and I think Carol has a point about Thanksgiving being later affecting that. Luckily we had a better December which made up for it and helped our overall year’s total. – Vicki Holcombe. 1/16/20

My November sales are also down but we need to keep in mind that Thanksgiving was a week later this year and Thanksgiving really does kick off the Holiday Season. I am expecting to make up the difference in December and we are off to a stronger start than last year. I think it is too soon to tell how are this year’s Holiday Season will end up. Thanks for another great newsletter! I hope everyone has a very successful Holiday Season. – Carol A Colpitts, Gift Shop Manager/Buyer, Milford Regional Medical Center, Milford, MA. 116 beds. 12/8/19


A SUCCESSFUL TOTE SALE

Something that worked extremely well for us was a Tote Sale. I bought holiday totes from Burton & Burton for $1.66 each, priced them at $4.99 which is a 66.73% mark-up. The promotion is, buy a tote at $4.99 and anything you can get in the tote is 25% off.  And our pitch is “We can make anything fit in a tote.” We sold out of the totes in 2 days and I bought a lot of them.  I do a tote sale two times a year and my customers/employees can’t wait for it. Thank you so much and happy holidays. – Kim DeBord, Marketplace Manager, Riverside Medical Center, Kankakee, IL. 325 beds. 12/4/19

Just an FYI – if you’re buying something at a cost of $1.66 and selling it for $4.99, that is a 200% markup and a 67% gross margin….– Curt. 2/1/20

I tried this idea, and loved it. Our customers were loving it as well. Thanks for such a great idea. – Lisa Burney. 1/17/20


TURBAN & GREETING CARD VENDORS

We have purchased basic turbans for chemo patients for years from Betmar and a lesser expensive style from Kelli’s. We also recently started carrying a line of greeting cards called Kimo Kards. We have received a lot of positive feed back on these from our customers. – Sandy White, Shop Manager. 12/25/19

We carry a large selection of turbans and other headwear from Hats with Heart. They are great to work with. – Anonymous. 1/15/20


PROMOTIONS


ncr pos point of sale system

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A “Volunteer Friendly” NCR Point of Sale solution
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Payroll Deduction and Inventory Management available.
Take your gift shop to the next level!
Ask for a FREE copy of our “Hospital Gift Shops:
Tips for Success” booklet.

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My Garden of Flowers: Miracles in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit


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MY GARDEN OF FLOWERS
Miracles in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

This award-winning beautifully illustrated book, My Garden of Flowers: Miracles in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, by Dr. Manjeet Kaur is perfect for the hospital gift shop!

This invaluable resource for worried families gives parents knowledge and reassurance
that their critically ill infants will typically grow to adulthood and lead normal, healthy lives.


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