How long should your clothes be on shelves?

This is one of the common questions which boutique owners will be thinking.  How long should I keep my old stocks?  If I continue to display it on shelves, then my regular customer will be thinking I often keep old stocks in boutique.  If I do not display it out, then how can I sell it off or in other way of saying, how to “get rid” of it?

Of course as a boutique owner, the ideal answer is “as soon as possible”.  Often new stocks arrived in my boutique were sold before I could display it nor iron it.

You might be asking, how could that be possible?  Yes, it is certainly possible for all boutique owners with strategies and experience gained over a period. 

So, how long should your clothes in boutique be on shelves?

In my opinion, we should not leave our display more than 3 weeks or maximum a month.  We know the reality, sometimes we will experience few pieces left over. It could be due to big sizes, specific color not favorable, the cutting just not so great and various reasons.

What can we do?

Here are some tips we can try out…
1.  Mix and match - depending on the design, if you can mix with other fashion and sell it together.  Let’s say the new clothes cost $50, and then you mark up to $69 where it comes with the clothes which you could not sell off earlier.

2.  Provide suggestion to your beloved customers on how they can match those clothes with other purchase.

3.  Setup a “bargain corner” - for some customer who do not willing to spend more $$.

4.  Sell it cheap (I mean really really cheap at cost price) to your relatives / family :)  Not for friends! They should buy it at retail price (with some discounted price).

5.  You can wear it!  Remember yourself need to buy clothes too! 

We should not keep old stock for a long period because customers can spot it.  This discourages customers to visit your boutique often and one of the elements to attract customers to keep revisiting your boutique is ”NEW STOCK” arrival!!