October 2013 Newsletter

From our newsletter archive. Prices, specials and stock mentioned below were current when it was written and have since changed; see the shop for today’s prices or call 812-201-5900. Sections that repeat an earlier newsletter are left out.

The Countdown continues .... 2 months until Christmas!

With winter on its way and your store full of holiday shoppers think about:

1. Are you going to have a baggage check to keep customers from putting items into a shopping bag they are carrying into your store?

2. Any provisions for someone coming into your store masked for Halloween?

3. What can you do to cut down on returns of party dresses (wear once and return fashion).

Mark & Mary Fouts

Get the Scratches out of your Plexi-glass Tower & Signage.

Have a plexi tower that is getting scratched up? Have displays or signage made of plexi that look worn? Spruce up your shop with Meguiar's PlastX.

If you need to refurbish your signs or towers made of plexi glass you can use any auto product that says it is for taking the scratches out of headlights or motorcycle windshields. These type of products can be easily found at auto parts supply stores such as Napa Auto Parts, Auto Zone, Advanced Auto Parts, Oreillys Auto Parts, or Western Auto Parts (just to name a few of the national chains). We chose Meguiar's PlastX because it said it was specifically for plexiglass.

1. Shake well and Lavish on the scratched areas with a rag

2. Let dry and buff off the dried powder
3. Repeat as necessary

Scratches are greatly minimized if not completely hidden. The product fills the scratches and makes them nearly invisible. Always look at the scratches from the angle they will be displayed. For example a tower laying down shows the scratches more than if the tower is set upright in the store environment.

Stop "Wardrobing" ... the wear it once and return it problem faced by retailers especially at holidays.

As the economy improves, retailers are seeing steady increases in sales. With increasing sales comes increasing retail crime. One of the most overlooked retail crimes is "wardrobing". Wardrobing is when a customer buys an expensive item with the plan of only wearing it once and returning it.

With many stores having less restrictive return policies, approximately 60% of clothing retailers will fall victim to wardrobing. It is projected that the clothing industry will have losses of over 8 billion dollars in dishonest returns. To help our customers fight dishonest returns, Sensortags will be carrying a non-EAS tag to combat the dishonest return practice of wardrobing. This is not a tag we recommend for every garment, but a tag to put on expensive one-time wear garments such as cocktail dresses, party dresses, mother of the bride formals and prom dresses.

The wardrobing tag is used in addition to your eas tags that ring your security system. At the cash register you remove the eas tag and the wardrobing tag is left affixed to the garment to go home with the customer. The store return policy is adjusted to say if this tag is removed the item can not be returned. The customer can then take the item home, fit it, show it to a friend or a spouse and then decide to keep it and take the tag off or return it with the tag intact. The tag is placed in the front in an obvious place so that it will not be worn with the tag in place. Please call me for more details on this tag.

Happy Halloween

Don't forget we will be closed for Thanksgiving Thursday Nov 28th. We may only have a skeleton crew Nov 29th, the day after.

If your towers have been just fine and suddenly start false alarming.... ask yourself what has changed in your store. Is there a new printer, card reader, computer, TV monitor that has been installed? Sometimes these items are placed on the same breaker with the tower and can cause noise in the line causing the towers to randomly false alarm. Just unplug them and see if the towers go back to normal. If so then route the new item to an outlet that is not on the same breaker with the towers.

Vertical wires within 3 feet of the tower can also cause false alarms. Sometimes the towers are plugged into the ceiling outlets. If this is the case the wire needs to go from the tower to the wall then to the side at least 3 feet before going up into the ceiling. If you need additional cord to do this just let us know as you can not use an extention cord because that can also cause false alarms.