Don’t Mess With the Egg Casserole — Weekly Retail Tidbits #257

Don’t Mess With the Egg Casserole

Our family Christmas tradition is brunch at our house on Christmas morning. The whole crew comes — my parents, my siblings, nieces and nephews, in-laws now too, and all three of my sons. Aunt AmyFay does not disappoint. I always make too much food. As the mother of three boys, food has always been one of our biggest budget line items — lol.

But one Christmas, I decided to change the favorite, most consistent item on my menu. The egg casserole. I decided to make it a vegetable egg casserole. It was so pretty. It was healthier. It was different. I was tired of the same basic sausage, cheese, and egg soufflé casserole.

To this day, I will never forget the look on my second son’s face. Don’t get me wrong — my boys love vegetables. That was not the problem. The problem was that I didn’t have the favorite dish, the one they wanted most on Christmas morning, sitting down at our table.

I was tired of it. I wanted a prettier dish. I wanted a healthier dish. I wanted something different. And I completely disappointed the very people I wanted to please.

Needless to say, our Christmas brunch egg casserole will not change in my lifetime. I will always prepare too much of it. And I will never again have to look in my son’s eyes and see disappointment over an egg casserole.

Here’s why I’m telling you this. That’s your customer, walking through your door. Your bestseller is their favorite dish — the thing they came in to buy, the one they reach for first. And here’s the part that’s so easy to miss: when the bestseller starts to feel old, we’re the ones who are tired of it. The cook. The buyer. Never the customer. They still want their favorite, every single time.

And the worst possible morning to be out of the favorite is the morning the table is fullest. Nearly a fifth of a store’s entire year lands in November and December — and for gift shops it can run higher still. Of the ten busiest shopping days of the whole season, six fall in the stretch right before Christmas, and the Saturday before Christmas trails only Black Friday. An empty spot where your bestseller belongs, that third week of December, is running out of egg casserole on Christmas morning.

I learned this firsthand. When I was a retailer, closer to 40% of my sales came in the fourth quarter — and December alone was my biggest month of the year. I didn’t understand that my first few years in business. Had I understood it, and stocked for it, my numbers would have been even better than they were.

So as the cook — or the buyer — it’s fun to do different. It’s fun to change things. It’s fun to try. And there’s a place for that, for sure. But the place is the side dishes. Introduce them slowly. Test them. Let them earn a spot. Keep your main dishes constant — and order them deep enough to carry you clear through the busiest weekend of your year.

Then watch their faces when they find exactly what they wanted. That look is your sales report — it just gets there before the numbers do.

xoxo,
❤️ AmyFay

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Technology Tip

When everyone can buy the same everything, how do you compete?

I hit my AI limits this weekend on the highest brain power available to me. It was frustrating — I had to buy more to keep going. But I did, because working with the smart AI is a bazillion times easier than the less capable one.

It made me think about us, too. We go to school, we study, and we hope to get paid for the brainwork we learned how to do. But top model intelligence is so good now across all the big companies that everyone who wants that access has it — and once everyone has the access, the access isn’t the game anymore.

Same with your store. Every store can carry most of the same lines everyone buys, so the stuff on your shelves isn’t the game either. What sets you apart is more cerebral than that — the experience only you give, the thing no one else does quite like you. That’s the moat, and it’s the one thing all that easy access still can’t copy.

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3 Tango Spotlights

Full of color, right on time

And when you’re ready to let something new earn its spot on the floor, make it something with color. Three lines are bringing it right now — pieces that land for fall and carry all the way through the holidays:

Whispering Willow — three fabrics too pretty to pass up

Stone

Fern

Secret Forest

Julia hand-sews every neck wrap and fills it with organic lavender and flax — real handmade, and the one people love to gift. It comes in three fabrics: Stone, Fern, and the Secret Forest print, each prettier than the last.

Cobblestone Living — the new fall color is wine

A deep Italian wine just landed in the Remi collared shirt and the Esma knit top — the rare shade you can put out now and sell straight through the holidays. One size fits most, so you set one gorgeous color on the floor and let it sell all season, no size run to chase.

Lenny + Eva — a burst of color on the gemstone wall

Real semi-precious stones — amazonite green, blush sunstone, milky moonstone, pale blue lace agate — stacked shade on shade until the whole display glows. They’re made to stack, so a shopper falls for one color and comes back for the next, an easy gift that keeps the bracelet wall working all year.

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Stay cool out there — and whatever you do, don’t mess with the egg casserole. 😉 xoxo, ❤️ AmyFay

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June Market Fun

With our star eyes on — because Tango is exploding with great stuff! 🌟

❤️ Treasures — Winchester, TN

❤️ The Good Tree — Franklin, TN

Shop Tango here →

The Tango Showroom is open 10 to 4, Monday through Friday, at the Atlanta mart. Come see us! 🌟

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