On Tue, 15 Apr 1997, Joanne Kluessendorf wrote:

 Seizing every opportunity to educate, we tried to buy from
:| vendors who provided accurate background info about their product for the
:| customer on hang-tags or hand-outs and/or who donated a portion of their
:| profits to an environmental, wildlife, or humanitarian charity.  I found
:| the Museum Store Association directory an excellent source of dependable
:| vendors.   I made certain that my staff (primarily undergraduate students)
:| knew something about the merchandise so they could answer customer's
:| questions intelligently and many of them taught themselves more on their
:| own time.  The shop was considered an educational resource by teachers in
:| the community (to whom we gave a small discount and provided special orders
:| at times for their classrooms).

Can I clone you and send you out to some of our larger, retail
accounts, Joanne? :)

We intentionally kept our prices
:| reasonable so that university students and school children could afford
:| many items.  Our profits were turned back into the museum to provide funds
:| specifically for educational programs and to employ students.   Although,
:| as part of a university, we were perhaps more cognizant of the educational
:| potential of our shop, I believe that education should be the goal of all
:| museum shops. Because we can't compete with the prices many retailers can
:| provide, setting museum shops apart from the rest of the retail world is
:| also a smart move economically.  Customers will come to us despite higher
:| prices if the merchandise offers them something extra for their money-and
:| education does sell well.

One of those great, old sayings in business is "If you are arguing
price, you've already lost the argument."  One of the biggest
challenges in any sales environment is constantly striving to sell
value rather than haggle pricing.  The value that you added to the
merchandise in the store through staff education and (I would bet)
customer service made it fun and enjoyable for people to shop in
your store.  That will keep and get you customers over price any
day.

If you want to see the antithesis of this attitude, go shop at a
Best Buy.  Make sure you have plenty of time to wait for sales
"help" to talk to you, though.

Rich Johnson
Director of Marketing
Cotton Expressions, Ltd.