Don't half bake your retail ops 🧁

Not long ago, I patronized a child-operated bake sale. Technically, she was a teen, but as anyone who knows me can attest, if someone too young to drive is selling creations at a table in public, I’m buying. Now this particular bake sale was a fundraiser, not an emerging small business, but I’m flexible. 
 

When I saw the email announcement on Thursday of said bake sale on Sunday, I planned ahead to get cash and show up on time. I am an easy and enthusiastic customer.

So on the big day, I approached the bake sale table. It was positioned front and center in a lobby swarming with children and parents – truly top notch real estate. But right from the jump, I was paralyzed with anxiety and disappointment. Every cardinal rule of good retailing had been broken.

🕰 The flyer said the bake sale began at 9:30am, but the seller didn’t even arrive to set up her table until 9:30am. 

When you have posted retail hours, you honor them. That means you and/or your staff need to arrive BEFORE opening time so you can open the door from the inside. We’ve all shown up somewhere that Google said was going to be open, only to find a locked door. Infuriating.

The same thing goes for closing, obviously. If you close at 5:30, that means you’re open until 5:29:59. Nothing is more off-putting than dagger eyes from an associate trying to telepathically hustle you out the door.

🏷️ There were four types of baked goods available, but none were identified or priced with clear signage. What flavor of cupcake is this? How much does it cost?

Consumers are generally pretty lazy (sorry, but it’s true), so the retailer's job is to lubricate the sale however possible. Everything that’s for sale should be clearly identifiable with all the information someone needs to make a purchase decision. Oh, cute sweater but no price tag? Pass. I don't want it enough to ask the salesperson.   

🥡 Operationally, the table was awkwardly underequipped.

Baker gal had a printed Venmo code and an envelope of dollar bills for change, but NO TONGS. I ordered a few items, and after looking around confusedly (realizing she wasn’t wearing gloves and didn’t have utensils), she used a napkin to pick up my items…the same way you’d pick up something from the floor. And what happened when I proceeded to order four items in total? (I told you, I’m an enthusiastic customer.) Were there Ziploc bags? No. Were there little cello bags? No. Was there even plastic wrap? Yes, but only if you count the wrap that came off the trays of baked goods that I had to reuse.

There’s a whole lot of STUFF that retailers need to facilitate transactions, and missing the professional tools to serve or sell to customers with respect and care really can sour an otherwise fine experience.

Last but worst of all (and then I’ll stop railing against someone who wasn’t even born until the second Obama administration)...

🧁 The cupcakes were bad.

Like really bad. They looked like normal bake-at-home-from-a-box cupcakes with funfetti icing, and having grown up on shelf-stable icing with all the delicious poisons and hormone disrupters, I was looking forward to this tiny package of diabetes. So I very nearly cried when I took one bite and discovered that the cake itself was flavorless and way, way too dense.

Now I’m not judging people’s baking skills. What I am judging harshly is the decision to serve these objectively bad cupcakes. Without a doubt, this girl and her family tasted these cupcakes, knew they were bad, and decided to sell them anyway. Unforgivable.

Everyone makes mistakes, and they happen all the time when you’re in retail. Sometimes you have no idea anything is off until a customer tells you. That feels awful. But what’s completely unacceptable is knowing full well that something is not to standard, not something you’re proud of…but whatever, you serve it anyway. Mortal retail sin.
 

👉 Here’s my point. The best real estate can’t help you if you don’t get the retailing right.
 

Being prepared, equipped, on time, and focused on quality are table stakes. Consumers have a lot of choices, and running a bush-league operation is okay (I guess) if you’re running a middle school bake sale. But if you’re planning on running a grown-up business that needs repeat business and a great reputation, you’ve got to get the fundamentals right damn near close to every time. 

These fundamentals are not obvious -- particularly if you’ve never run a retail business before. It is totally possible to find a space, sign a lease, build it out and open for business without realizing or making a plan for your business operations. When you’ve sunk thousands of dollars into a buildout, you can’t afford to learn through trial and error. You can always bake a new batch of cupcakes, but Google Reviews stick.

That’s exactly why we talk about these things and plan for them in Dream Space. Yes, you need to have a great space and a great deal, but you also need to hit the ground running with the right staffing, trained with a thoughtful set of SOPs and a buildout that facilitates all of it.

The Dream Space Accelerator is designed to prepare new retailers for the simple fact that a great brick and mortar business is not 50% real estate and 50% operations. It’s 100% realestoperations. It’s all one big, entangled thing that you’ve got to get totally right from the get go.