Shopkeeper of the Year

Sales continue to be quite brisk. I don't whether this is because I've been moving the stuff that has never sold out of the Print Store and adding prints that I think are more sellable - or it's just the season. When I told my younger sister about the idea of altering the photography store so that it featured what I thought would be more sellable prints she said, "And it took you how long to come up with that idea... six years?" "More or less," I laughed.

She then went through the store and suggested that I stick the more popular prints in the beginning rather than having them listed alphabetically. She further suggested that I put some sign or title next to the most popular prints such as "Photographer's Favorites."

"But the best-sellers aren't my favorites," I said. "Some of them are, but -- "

"That doesn't matter. You want to have them in front of the gallery - that's for sure. Look at this one - reservoir night - all the way at the end. I wouldn't have even seen that one. Move it to the beginning. And say it's one of your favorites."

"What about calling them best sellers," I said.

"No. That won't be as good. A lot of people want to feel they've discovered something on their own and they don't want what everybody has. Call it - Photographer's Favorites. That way people may look at them twice and say, 'maybe he sees something in it that I don't.'"

Then, to finish me off she said, "Six years?"

Me: Six years.

Her: O.K. gotta go now.

It's fortunate that we have a good relationship because I know she is only half-teasing me. But what is scary - if I don't have the shopkeeper gene (as my sister seems to) then how many other techniques have I missed.

For example: the newsletter seems to be a big "keep your audience" thing - and I get them from a bunch of stores I've bought from but I just find them annoying. There are some shopkeepers if I go back through the family tree - but they were, as best as I can figure, in the grocery business and they generally went out of business and turned to something else.

My father's parents owned a small grocery store in the Bronx. Grandpa Max was a nervous guy who snapped at customers; and made bad business decisions. The story my father tells is that one day during WWII he was talked into buying a huge number of canned pineapples. The sales guy told him that these were going to be very much in demand because of the war in the Pacific and the inability to get pineapples.

At some point, when his little grocery store went bust, the bank officers arrived to divide the spoils and discovered hundreds of pineapple cans in the basement which hadn't sold and gave him a penny a can. Just one a million stories about Grandpa Max and his business ventures.

After that he delivered milk from a horse-drawn cart with a horse that has a gaseous disorder. Then he made hats for a factory that went bankrupt. It goes on and on. The "teaching gene" is pretty strong in the family since just about every living family member is a teacher. But I assure you that none are teaching business techniques.