Source: Entrepreneur
By: Coeli Carr
Photo Credit: cbslocal.com
When small-shop retailer Tabitha Geise decided to participate in Black Friday in 2011, she wasn’t sure whether there would be a payoff. Co-owner of The Purple Platypus, a brick-and-mortar children’s specialty-toy store in Lewisburg, Penn., Geise ran her “sale” – 15 percent off one’s total purchase – only between 6 and 10 a.m., during which time she scrutinized customer behavior to assess shopping patterns. Geise had her eureka moment.
“I noticed how the Black Friday customers who came in during those hours shopped,” she says. “They didn’t browse, they knew exactly where the items they wanted were on the shelves, and they paid quickly.”
Revenues during that four-hour span were surprisingly substantial and, the following year, Geise doubled her revenues in those early-morning hours. This year she plans to do it again, and now uses full signage in her store windows highlighting the event. Her mantra? “I stick with my regular merchandise, and don’t bring in new products to offer just for that one day,” she says. “Typically my Black Friday customers gravitate to what they know I stock.”
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