Not many shoppers in your store on Mondays? Think about offering some lessons. Photo by Becky McCray.
Every retail store in a small town has slow days, times when you know you just won’t have many customers.
One of your fellow readers wrote in with this tip for slow days in retail stores:
I run a clothes shop in a small town in Oviedo in the north of Spain. I never have clients on Mondays so I decided to teach English to some of my clients. I charge just 5 euros for an hour. That makes them a compromise to come over, and sometimes they buy more because they see the others buying. Hope this idea works for you all.
Pat
You could adapt this to any kind of lessons that you lead yourself. The lessons could be related to what you sell, like wine appreciation classes for wine shops, or unrelated, like language lessons at the clothing store.
You don’t even have to be the one giving the lessons. Look around for smart folks in town who would like to teach something but don’t have their own space. Cooperation with other entrepreneurs is one of our secret super powers.
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Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
Excellent Idea for any downtown USA business. We have collaborators right here in our town. Of 40K residents. Between these businesses and our own Main Street Community program we’re finally back to being busy 5 to 6 nights a week.
I’m glad you mentioned working together. That’s our secret upper power as small town businesses.