When I first opened an actual store in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, I had some pretty stupid ideas on how retail worked. Some of these ideas came from my own experiences as a shopper, but more of the ideas I had were formed by my four years of online retail experience. I quickly realized that my online retail experience was akin to my first language, and as such, interfered with my learning about brick-and-mortal retail my second "language." In short, my understanding of retail overall was defined by parameters set by my online retail experience, and this "lens" was skewing my ability to acquire and speak this new foreign language of retail now upon me.
But I digress. All I really meant to say here is that when I first opened my store, Wishing Well, in 2007, I thought that rainy days would bring tons of shoppers into my store. I mean, I liked to shop on rainy days--it's wet out--so any sane person would want to engage in an indoor activity, and shopping, being an indoor activity seems like a natural fit...right?!? Wrong. No one, and I mean literally, NO ONE shops on rainy days. So, on this rainy Wednesday in 2012, I know that the only faces I'm going to see are my employee, Kathy; my UPS delivery person, Cindy; my FedEx delivery person, Matt; and my barefoot mailman (whose name I don't know).
Another really, really stupid idea I had in the beginning was that I would actually have customers. This assumption was partly due to my "online retail" language interference and partly due to a small twist on the quotation, "if you build it, they will come." See with online retail, getting customers, or, rather, browsers, is pretty darn simple. Throw a few (thousands of) dollars at Google to buy some keywords, and you've got customers entering through your front door (home page). Write a few blog posts promoting your product, align yourself with a few sites that can show your product to the right audience, and BAM!--you have even more customers. I don't mean to imply that this means I'm making millions of dollars--I'm not--not ALL of the people who find my website buy something, but enough do that I'm doing alright for myself. So with all that being said, hopefully I can be forgiven into thinking that the actual storefront with a hanging sign, an a-frame sign, and bunch of merchandise outside would serve as the "keywords" needed to get lots of customers through the door. I "built" it, so why didn't they come???? I still can't answer that one. I have spent years now watching tons of cars drive by and people walk by, and I still have no idea why I can't get more people through the door. And don't even talk to me about print advertising--that medium flat out doesn't work.
This, again, is not to say that my store is a complete failure--it's not. I do have SOME customers, but it certainly wouldn't be enough to survive if I didn't rely on the income from the internet.
On rainy days, like today, I will set up fun little displays in the store, that I imagine customers will love. I remain excited for a few hours until the frustration of not seeing any new faces, overwhelms me. I LOVE my store--it's super cute with a lot of really fun merchandise. I seriously just want more people to share it with, but, I know from experience, that isn't going to happen today. And, in case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm relying on my first language of "online" retail to market my gift shop using a blog--I figure if no one is going to actually come in to see my displays--maybe I can get people to look at pictures of them online. Enjoy!
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