Same Sky, Different Lenses — Weekly Retail Tidbits #268
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home.”
— Carl Sagan, astronomer and author, Pale Blue Dot (1994)
I watched a YouTube video about stars a few weeks ago. Now my feed is full of astronomy videos. Know that routine? Ha!
It’s taken me down some rabbit holes. And in my head, it always circles back to retail. So here we go: a little science from the stars, right back to the products on your shelves. Stay with me.
A quick refresher
Universe: everything
Galaxy: a group of stars, often billions of them
Milky Way: our galaxy
Solar System: our Sun (one star) and the planets that orbit it, tucked inside the Milky Way
Earth: one planet, orbiting one star among billions, in one galaxy among billions
Light-years can be confusing because they measure distance, not time. In one year, light travels about 5.9 trillion miles. And because light takes time to reach us, the farther out we look, the farther back in time we see. The Sun is about eight light-minutes away, so the sunlight you see right now left it about eight minutes ago.
In January, astronomers announced that the James Webb Space Telescope had confirmed the most distant galaxy ever seen. It’s called MoM-z14, and its light traveled more than 13 billion years to get here.
I know. Fascinating and mind-blowing all at once.
Three telescopes, three ways of looking
Hubble launched in 1990 and orbits about 300 miles above Earth. Hubble looks deep. It once stared for days at a patch of sky that looked empty and found thousands of galaxies.
James Webb launched Christmas Day 2021 and sits about a million miles away. Webb looks back. Its infrared vision sees galaxies as they were billions of years ago.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory sits on a mountaintop in Chile, with a camera about the size of a small car. It began a 10-year survey of the sky this summer. Rubin looks wide, and then looks again and again, watching for anything that moves, brightens, dims or changes.
Same sky. Different lenses.
Back to your shelves
As I work on orders for y’all, it struck me how many ways we need to look at store data. My AI team makes that much easier. But it still takes a human in the loop to ask the right questions and to bring the taste and knowledge of a particular store that AI doesn’t have unless we give it.
Take Meghan Browne Style. Meghan chooses her manufacturers very carefully, and she loves to design. I always say she has an amazing eye. She has already narrowed the universe to several hundred SKUs for you, and your time is money.
I just looked at a store’s Meghan Browne inventory for the first time. One number wasn’t enough. I needed all three telescopes.
Look deep. How much does the store have invested at cost? (That’s always my first measure.) What are the sales in retail dollars? Which SKUs are working?
Look back. When did each piece arrive? When did it sell? How long did it sit?
Look wide. Bracelets, necklaces or earrings: which category leads? Which colors? What does the display look like?
Then come the questions no number answers. Why is a bestseller for most of Meghan’s retailers not selling here? Is it the customer? The color mix? The spot on the floor?
That’s how we see what a line is doing and where it could grow with the right nurturing.
Name it, then place it
One more piece: labeling. When products go into a system with different names, categories or descriptions for the same thing, the picture gets blurry. Untangling it costs a human’s time or a lot of computer power.
Scientists give every star and galaxy they study a name and a place in the catalog. Are you doing the same with your products? Are you looking at your store from more than one angle?
Store data can feel as overwhelming as the universe until we give each item a place: a place on the sales floor and a place in our data. Then we can look deep, look back and look wide, and see what each item is really doing for your bottom line.
xoxo,
❤️ AmyFay
Technology Tip
What’s the Safest Way to Give Your Card Number?
Email and text are the quickest ways to send a card number, but they’re also the least safe. Once it’s typed out, it sits in inboxes, phones and backups for years, and anyone who gets into that account can find it. A phone call leaves nothing in writing. Safest of all is a secure payment link, where you type the number in yourself and no one else ever sees it.
An order waiting on a card is time lost for your store and for the manufacturer holding it. That makes it a system worth building. When a vendor calls for a card and the owner is out, who on your team can help? How will they know the caller is legit? (The safe move is to hang up and call back on a number you already have.) And who keeps up with what’s on each card? So many orders get stuck on a card that hit its limit. A limit can keep you from overspending, but it’s even better to know where you stand before you buy.
Knowing where you stand is easier than it has ever been. You can ask your favorite AI to total your open orders by ship date and see what’s about to land on each card. It only needs the amounts – never the card number.
Happy Dolly Day
Notice What Works. Then Do It on Purpose.
September 25 is Dolly Day, and I keep thinking about how smart Dolly was in her everyday decisions. She noticed what worked and what didn’t. When her curves got attention, she played them up on purpose. She called her look “a cartoon character that I created.” And when someone asked how many wigs she owned, she said, “Well, I wear one about every day, so I must have at least 365.”
No fussing with her hair every morning – just pick one and go be Dolly. So efficient! What’s working in your store that you could do more of on purpose? And what could you set up once so every day gets easier?
3 Tango Tidbits
What’s Selling Right Now
Meghan Browne Style — Ria Earrings and Hayes Bracelet
Ria and Hayes are new basics that have become must-keep-in-stock – along with River, Ryland, Lucy, Bernie, Stew and more. Need help navigating several hundred SKUs? Here for you! ✨
LINNEA — Harvest Pumpkin and the Fall Collection
LINNEA’s final pours for fall have been made! Harvest Pumpkin has been the #1 LINNEA item ordered through Tango since June, and Gather, Fog and Hay are all in the top 10. If you want some of these besties, reorder now.
Whispering Willow — Hand & Cuticle Salve
The salves are three of Whispering Willow’s top four sellers since June, led by Eucalyptus & Mint. Choose from Eucalyptus & Mint, Lavender and Lemongrass, plus the fall seasonals, Chai and Peppermint & Clove (September through December). An easy add-on by the register as the weather turns cold and dry.
“You see, but you do not observe.”
— Sherlock Holmes, in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia” (1891)
June Market Fun
With our star eyes on, because Tango is exploding with great stuff! 🌟
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| Shop Tango here → |
The Tango Showroom is open 10 to 4, Monday through Friday, at AmericasMart in Atlanta, Georgia. Come see us! 🌟
AmyFay Chandler
AmyFay Chandler started out as a teacher, then spent 15 years as an independent retailer. Along the way she bought for multiple stores, dabbled in wholesale with two lines of her own, and found her way to repping. Today she is a sales rep for the brands she represents. That view from every side of the table shapes Weekly Retail Tidbits, which she writes from Knoxville, Tennessee, to help local retailers feel connected and maybe see something they do every day in a new light.
Also from AmyFay
Two of the brands I represent run their D2C side through me, with brick-and-mortar partners prioritized at every step:
- Sweet Tree Jewelry — school-spirit polymer-clay earrings
- Caroline B Cook — children’s books (the Virtue Series, Church Kitty)
Wholesale questions? [email protected]
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