What to Do With Gift Products That Aren't Selling in Your Bookstore

Every buyer has them: the things that looked great at the show and are still sitting on the shelf. Here's how I decided when something was really a slow mover, what I tried before discounting, and what to do when it still won't budge.

Quick intro: I'm Theresa. I bought gift for my own shops in Tucson and Phoenix for five years. I've had my share of things that didn't sell!

How long to give it

A category gets six months. If you're giving it dedicated marketing time and merchandising it well, six months is a good window to see how people respond. You'll get good feedback and good sales data.

A single SKU gets about six weeks (depending on the price point). You don't want individual items sitting that long. You want a faster turn. For lower-price items, maybe even less. I wouldn't go past a couple of months. That's just too long for something not to move, especially under a certain price point.

In the meantime, keep an eye on new arrivals in their first few weeks:

• Are any units moving?
• What are your sales staff saying about it? What's their messaging?
• Try it in more than one spot in the store, and track where it does best.

Before you discount anything

Work through this list first (it's also in 7 Free Fixes for Your Bookstore's Gift Section):

1. Move it forward or closer to eye level.
2. Give it a sign. Do people know what it is, where it's from and what's special about it?
3. Make sure staff know about it so they talk it up.
4. Put it near a good pairing, or work it into a theme.
5. Then: could it be bundled? Could you use it for an event?

Bundle it: three ways to price a bundle

Bundling moves product without putting a sale sticker on anything. Decide up front whether your bundle is a discount or an upsell:

• The upsell: add cute decor, a box or gift wrap, and charge a little more than the total value of what's inside.
• The straight discount: take a little off the combined price of the items.
• The quiet discount: keep it at the combined price, and the "discount" is the box, bag, ribbon or wrap you include. This one is less overt, and it feels like it was curated just for you.

My favorite: the mystery bag

People love these. They work best with lower-priced items that fit in a paper bag: stickers, cards, bookmarks, small notepads. You can also pair a book with a few small items, like the blind date with a book wrapping that's so popular right now.

A custom sticker for the bag is easy and cheap to make. Or if someone on your team has good handwriting, have them write a cute note. It's a bundle that gets people excited.

Markdowns that don't train customers to wait

When it's time to discount, you have options:

• Fold it into a category sale. People are always looking for post-Christmas sales the week before New Year's, or in January.
• Hold a sidewalk sale. Sometimes it's better to move items to the back and do one big sidewalk sale than to keep a permanent sale section. It depends on your store.

When it still won't move

With wholesale, once you buy it, it's yours, and it's on you to figure out what to do with it. A few options:

• Donate it. For cards, we'd find a nonprofit that would take them. (We weren't just dropping things off at Goodwill.)
• Sell it to another retailer. We did this sometimes.
• Ask the vendor. If you have a lot of something, reach out: "This isn't moving for us. Could we sell it back to you at a discounted price?" They may need the supply and have people who want it, and they'd rather that than see it at a local thrift.

Let it go

Sometimes we hang on to things because we loved them. You kind of have to get over it. If you have people you can gift a few items to, great: write it into your financials and move it that way. But that doesn't work for a large number of SKUs. At some point, you just have to let go of the emotional attachment.