There'll be a children's consignment sale in Boise, Idaho, April 10-12.

 

You should care.

 

Moppet Togs, "Boise's Premier Children's Consignment Sale," will be open to the public from Thursday April 10 through Saturday April 22, 2008 at the same location near the Boise Town Square Mall. Doors will be open to the public on Thursday and Friday from 9:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. and on Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

 

Pay attention.

"We had a record turnout at our fall 2007 sale due in part to drive by traffic at this location near the intersection of Fairview and Milwaukee," states Karie Skamser, co-founder and partner with Moppet Togs. The company held its first sale in the fall of 2005 and has been holding a spring and fall sale each year ever since.

 

Skamser says that starting with the first sale, "we have quickly grown into a much bigger business than we had ever imagined. We had over 250 Consignors at our Fall 2007 sale with more than 15,000 items and 5,000 shoppers over the three day sale."

 

And what did the company do? Automated its entire business with an online inventory control system that lets shoppers enter and price all of their items over the Internet. Workers then print bar-coded price tags and attach the tags to the items when consignors drop them off. The company automates checkout through an integrated online POS system that supports barcode readers and real-time inventory control.

 

Moppet Togs has an integrated online accounting system that reports sales to its consignors at the end of every sale day and has consignor payments ready within several days after the sale closes. Company officials say they have "a sophisticated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system" to continuously update Consignors and invite the public to its sales. They'll send out over 20,000 e-mails for the Spring 2008 sale.

 

See? CRM, at any level and in pretty much any sort of organization, when used correctly for a specific purpose, can actually increase business, as Karen Green proves:

"The Moppet Togs system is very professional, convenient and easy to use," states Karen Green, one of Moppet Togs’ consignors. "I have consigned with other sales and it has always been a real hassle to create my own price tags and then wait for weeks to get paid for the items that were sold. I have shopped some of the other sales and checkout is a real nightmare waiting for someone to add up your items manually and hoping that they don't make a mistake. I am done with the other sales. I plan to put all of my consignment items in the Moppet Togs sale from now on."

 

This is how business grows — people like doing business with people who know what they're doing and who treat their partners and customers well. Moppet Togs isn't even a year-round business, it only maintains a retail location for two weeks twice a year. But it thinks it needs CRM, and it’s right.