It was the middle of July, hot as Haiti’s, and off my family went to our annual sidewalk sale.  We arrived just after 10:30 AM and didn’t get home until 3:30 PM.  Living only five minutes from downtown, you can well imagine the mood we were all in when we arrived home.  Loaded down with bags, slightly dehydrated and oh, yes, irritable.  Well that was until Sunday, when the bags that we threw down Saturday afternoon, were gathered up and sorted through.  Oh what finds, what fun, oh, did we really buy that?!

This time of year is synonymous with sidewalk sales, which seem to be in every small town across the country.   What I love about our sale is everyone in town is there and it is a very social event.  As store owners, it is a great opportunity to chat with customers and observe what kind of products they are buying, because even at sale prices, if your customers weren’t interested in this product, they wouldn’t buy it no matter what the cost.  If you find that the product wasn’t moving until you put it on sale, but then you sold out quickly, maybe it just means you should be looking for a manufacturer that allows you a little more wiggle room on the price.   http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/shopping_ellen_warren/2007/07/sidewalk-sales.html

As I indicated above with all the bags, I also spent far more than I had planned.  There were just so many things to buy, and with the whole family there, we tend to feed off of each other and convince each other that we actually needed things that we didn’t!   It’s all about the ‘shopping’ experience. 

All in all, our town’s sidewalk sale, which is an annual affair, is one of the biggest days of the year for the retailers.  Yes, it provides an opportunity to ‘clean out the basement’ so to speak, but it also allows for some merchandise to be only slightly marked down, thus still allowing for a healthy profit.  And with the heat index soaring, consumers were finding relief inside the air-conditioned stores, where smart retailers mixed full priced merchandise with the sale merchandise. 

Sidewalk sales, also allow you as a retailer to get in front of people who have never been in your store before.  Perhaps your store window display hasn’t drawn them in, or your product mix on display appeared out of their price range.  Whatever the reason, being in an ‘open air’ market place,  you and your employees now have an opportunity to brand yourself, make that first impression and meet a ‘new’ customer.

July has ended and sidewalk sales maybe a thing of the past for this year, but perhaps there is a way to partner with a few of your local stores later in the year to promote a similar experience for the consumer or maybe there is something that you can promote in your own store.  Possibly in the dead of winter, have your own sidewalk sale with product from the holiday season and preseason merchandise for the summer…

I know there are many other ideas out there!  We all look forward to hearing what you have done to elicit that shopping frenzy that I felt!