Sorting Is Work. Discovering Is Shopping. — Weekly Retail Tidbits #263
Sorting Is Work. Discovering Is Shopping.
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
— Hans Hofmann, Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)
My husband and I got to babysit our four-month-old grandson, Henry, this week. I got down on his mat with him — the one full of safe, fun things placed appropriately within reach and spread apart just enough. We played, squeezing the colorful balls that crunched or rattled or chimed. It was fun to discover what each thing kind of secretly held until we examined it with greater curiosity.
Henry was happy. It would be hard for him not to be. I was right there trying to guess whatever he wanted or needed, cooing and gooing with him like the in-love grandmother I am. He was taking it all in. Familiar environment, familiar face, but still plenty to discover. He was comfortable, secure, open for fun, with curiosity driving our time together.
I also walked through several shops this week. Some were incredibly organized. Nice and full, easy to understand what the displays were saying — they had been done with care. Everything seemed to have an intentional place.
Others were simply full. An effort had been made to put similar things together, but the customer had to do more of the work to make sense of what was there. (I don’t think these shops have Weekly Retail Tidbits readers. 😉)
The distinction?
When customers have to sort, they’re working. When they get to discover, they’re shopping.
Your store is to your customers what Henry’s mat is to Henry.
When things are placed just right, easy to reach and explore, without too much other stuff pulling at her, it is more fun. That is what makes putting Henry on the mat easy. If he were frustrated every time, he would stop welcoming the mat.
Your customer does the same thing at your door. She is simply quiet about it.
And this matters when we’re buying, too.
I have never worked with a retailer whose goal was to be just like their neighbor. Being different doesn’t mean everything has to be unfamiliar. There is a reason trends become trends. We see things other people are wearing, buying, and advertising. Whether we realize it or not, that familiarity affects us.
The trick is not to ignore what is familiar but to decide which parts belong in your store. Stay stocked in your best sellers — the things that pay your overhead and give your customers something they can count on finding every time. That familiarity creates comfort. When customers aren’t working so hard to figure things out, their brains are free to happily follow their own natural curiosity and discover what is new, too.
Familiarity isn’t the enemy of originality. It gives originality a place to land.
Try one of these this week:
- Sit in a chair by your front door for five minutes and look at the store the way a customer sees it first. What is competing for attention?
- Pick your three best sellers. Are they easy to see, easy to reach, and stocked deep enough that a customer isn’t taking your last one?
- Choose one table or shelf and take something off it. Then step back.
Familiar enough to feel easy. New enough to be worth exploring.
xoxo,
❤️ AmyFay
Technology Tip
A Word Only Your People Know
Henry trusts a familiar face. We all do — we hear a voice we know and we relax.
A few seconds of audio is enough to copy anyone’s voice, and most of us have more than a few seconds out there. If someone calls your store sounding exactly like you, there is no longer a way to tell from the sound alone.
The version that costs money isn’t dramatic. It’s a call to whoever pays your bills about changing where a payment goes, or to a vendor about an order — in a voice everybody in the room recognizes.
Pick a word you’d never use in normal conversation. Tell the people who could act on a phone call from you: whoever handles the money, whoever can change an order, and your family. If a call comes without the word, it isn’t you.
It takes one text message, and it still works when the voice is perfect — one familiar thing nobody can copy.
Retail by the Numbers
Transactions at small retailers were up 2.2% in July. Clothing, accessories, shoes and jewelry were up 2.8%. More people are buying.
3 Tango Tidbits
Familiar, With Something to Find
Lenny + Eva — the Bestseller Starter Set
Lenny + Eva’s Bestseller Starter Set — three pieces holding their top performers: Faith over Fear, the Storytellers necklaces, the hoops, the gilded stretch bracelets. Everything has a slot, so it looks intentional the day you set it up and it still looks intentional in March. And an empty slot isn’t a hole in your display — it’s a best seller you haven’t reordered yet. Jewelry needs space to feel elegant, and this gives it space.
Meghan Browne Style — tortoise
Two tortoise pieces from Meghan Browne: the Val earrings and the Garner stretch bracelet. Tortoise is about as familiar as a pattern gets — nobody has to think about it — and it sits easily beside everything else people pull out in the fall. Both are water-resistant, so a customer isn’t taking it off at the sink. A pop of interest on an outfit that still feels like her.
LINNEA — the limited-edition Grand Candle in Cashmere
LINNEA’s limited-edition Grand Candle, 28 ounces, in Cashmere — chamomile, amber woods and patchouli. Cashmere is their number one scent brand-wide, so the fragrance is the familiar part. What’s new is the vessel: mouth-blown alabaster glass with gold-detailed packaging, and when the candle is finished it becomes a vase. The picture above does not do the gorgeous vessel justice, just saying. The comfort of a scent she already knows, in something she gets to discover.
Featured on Instagram
Click through to this video —
Morgan showing what’s new for fall from erin gray:
“Design is the silent ambassador of your brand.”
— Paul Rand
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Have fun creating a store where your customer feels at home and still finds something new. xoxo, |
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June Market Fun
With our star eyes on, because Tango is exploding with great stuff! 🌟
| Shop Tango here → |
The Tango Showroom is open 10 to 4, Monday through Friday, at AmericasMart in Atlanta, Georgia. Come see us! 🌟
AmyFay Chandler
She reads all of this so you don’t have to. Based in Knoxville, TN, AmyFay is a wholesale sales rep for the brands she represents across Tennessee and Kentucky, and she oversees the D2C side for Sweet Tree Jewelry and Caroline B Cook — two of those brands — making sure brick-and-mortar retailers always come first. She writes Weekly Retail Tidbits (now in its 263rd issue) because she’s living the same questions her retail customers are living, and figures things out alongside them. Her whole project: helping independent retailers stay human while the rest of the industry tries to automate them away.
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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