Careful Peach Saved ME!

It's been over a week since Mother's Day and Careful Peach's pajama party. But they saved me. They saved me from a huge mothers day present drought.

I just lacked the creativity this year. I couldn't figure out what to get my mom. I had gotten her a purse from Flybird a few years ago. There were flowers from Garland last year. I've done stationery products from Fitzgerald's. This year I had to have a different inspired gift.

So I went wandering.

I went into Takara. I went into Gem. I fell flat. Takara's sales person was busy. I saw nothing that started in my price range. Gem had some kind of pretty silk scarves. But I had done the scarf thing before too. I wandered around the corner to Careful Peach. I didn't know what I would find. And I could have very easily walked right out still blindly hoping for inspiration. Luckily I ran into my inspiration in the form of the best customer service!

"Tell me a bit about your mom." " What does she do for fun?" "Is she going to work every day?" Then like a beam in the dark she gave me four ideas.

Luckily my mom was packing for a vacation and wallah - they have awesome pj's. The clerk says, "The pajama party isn't until Saturday - but that's just a few days away - you can have the 20% off today." BOX THEM UP! And I was so thrilled I added French hand lotion and French tinned candy for her trip. What a great idea.

I gave the pj's to my mom early so that she could wash them before her trip. She really liked her pajamas ala Eiffel tower. BUT I can't take credit for the inspiration (sorry mom).

Some people are born to retail. Some people work hard to be good at it. You can train folks to be good at it. But then every once in a while you meet a clerk, who like me, was born to help out the wandering customer with the perfect gift.

If you were born to it, you can sum up how a person is feeling in the first couple of seconds in your store. You know what "kind" of shopper they are: a quickie shopper, a chatter shopper, a needy shopper, an emotional shopper. You tailor your sales approach to fit each shopper: giving them the right kind of space, or conversation — all in the name of "helping" them make a purchase. It's not something you have to even think about — you just treat people that way.

I think Careful Peach as a store was really BORN TO IT. (There are options for every kind of shopper.) And my clerk who helped me last Thursday, she was born to retail too. She caught my lost wide-eyed look IMMEDIATELY and guided me in the right direction. There is almost a kind of magic in it really. Thanks for the help.