thanks for visiting my blog....i want this to be about my favorite subject. ..independant stores.. ..the philosophy, the inventory, display issues, , the styles, the many many challenges and problems that are in fromt of us every day.... we, dh and i, have had our store for 29 years ..we have survived and have had to change directions a few times......but we are still here... ....i hope this blog can be about all the things we face as independant store keepers...
.we wholesale to other stores..
.if you ever get to indiana i hope you will come see us.... our store leans towards the casual cottage look along with good antiques and romantic country..... in other words very modern and ecletic.. we are 100 mi north of indianapolis about50 mi west of ft. wayne about 45 mi south of south bend...
green oak antiques 4166 e 300 s rochester indiana 574 223 5702
SHIPPING we dont ship but go here abf freight.... http://www.upack.com/www.abf.com they can bring an empty trailer to our store and we pack it and they deliver it to you....this should work if you were buying 15 to 30 pieces..... im not sure this would work for 1 or 2 pieces.... we can hold things for you....but we cant arrange shipping... if you can manage more than 14 ft of trailer space you could get a better price from them....i think its called volume shipping....
#THE 80 /20 RULE.########...... ..i never went to business school.i was a lit major....but im so glad someone told me about the 80/20 rule.....the way i understand it is that 80% of your good things comes from the top 20% of your thing....and visa versa......i use it to rate so many things...i make a list by value....from the best to the worst....i do it in inventory, colors, geography of the store, customer groups, companies, etc etc....it shows you right away what your best thing is.....and if you need to cut back it shows you what your weakest thing is..... ####JONS RULE#### my son jon has a theory that some of the hardest people to deal with turn out to be the best connections....this has been true a lot of times for us....like my import supplier, he has wonderful authentic primitives from all over the world and when i get to him i buy a lot!!! but he makes me pay just what a regular buyer would pay..so unfair!!..he doesnt have a catalog, hes very unreliable, if i ask him to bring something to our meeting place or anything specific i dont even expect it to happen.....but hes great to deal with, has the coolest stuff sometimes, and hardly any competition .. ##UNDER PROMISE OVER DELIVER..####### this is about my favorite business rule...and i really believe in it....i figure people are used to great fast service, like from ll bean....well i cant give that so i never offer anything close...at our place we say no all the time to customer requests...no credit, no lay aways, NO delivery, no special colors, no custom work of any kind....it works out great..and lets us usually handle the workload at a level we can accomplish..we are basically a cash and carry operation.... i will hardly promise to call someone if i get something they want....i was always a terrible procrastinator and this rule has helped me a lot....and thankfully our customers are great with it....
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