Retail stores handle markdowns in a number of ways from creative signs, sale racks, or color coded price labels. When I opened Ms. Mulligan's, I planned on physically marking down price tags so that items that remain unsold after 30 days are discounted by 15%, after 60 days, they are discounted 30% and so on. Luckily, the consignment shop software I am using handles all the pricing and markdown information for me, according to this preset schedule. So, after my first 30 days in business, with red pen in hand, and with my mom's help, we gathered the list of necessary markdowns and began the hunt. This proved to be one of the most difficult things about running the store. There were hundreds of items that needed to be marked down every week, and locating these pieces was so tedious and time consuming, we just couldn't get to all of them. Often times, potential buyers had no idea what was on sale. We knew there must be a better way. We considered color coded price tags, using a different color each week and assigning a correlating sale schedule, but this just seemed too complicated. Then, while printing price tags one afternoon, I noticed that the markdown schedule could be printed on the tag from the very beginning. Problem solved!!! Or maybe a new problem created???
From a business standpoint, what would a customer do if she wanted an item, but knew it would be dropping in price if she waited a few days or weeks? Would I be creating a scenario in which customers only bought items that had been sitting in the store for 75 days and had dropped to half price? This could be disastrous!!! I decided to do it anyway. I wanted my customers to have all the information up front - how long had this item been sitting in the store? has it been marked down? when does it expire? And their reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. Yes, customers do wait sometimes for an item to be marked down, but if they really love something, our prices are so low already that there's no reason to wait. And that thought process pretty much sums up my philosophy on shopping. If you don't love it, don't buy it (no matter how little it costs)...If you do love it, buy it today. Yep, problem solved!
Retail stores handle markdowns in a number of ways from creative signs, sale racks, or color coded price labels. When I opened Ms. Mulligan's, I planned on physically marking down price tags so that items that remain unsold after 30 days are discounted by 15%, after 60 days, they are discounted 30% and so on. Luckily, the consignment shop software I am using handles all the pricing and markdown information for me, according to this preset schedule. So, after my first 30 days in business, with red pen in hand, and with my mom's help, we gathered the list of necessary markdowns and began the hunt. This proved to be one of the most difficult things about running the store. There were hundreds of items that needed to be marked down every week, and locating these pieces was so tedious and time consuming, we just couldn't get to all of them. Often times, potential buyers had no idea what was on sale. We knew there must be a better way. We considered color coded price tags, using a different color each week and assigning a correlating sale schedule, but this just seemed too complicated. Then, while printing price tags one afternoon, I noticed that the markdown schedule could be printed on the tag from the very beginning. Problem solved!!! Or maybe a new problem created??? 
From a business standpoint, what would a customer do if she wanted an item, but knew it would be dropping in price if she waited a few days or weeks? Would I be creating a scenario in which customers only bought items that had been sitting in the store for 75 days and had dropped to half price? This could be disastrous!!! I decided to do it anyway. I wanted my customers to have all the information up front - how long had this item been sitting in the store? has it been marked down? when does it expire? And their reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. Yes, customers do wait sometimes for an item to be marked down, but if they really love something, our prices are so low already that there's no reason to wait. And that thought process pretty much sums up my philosophy on shopping. If you don't love it, don't buy it (no matter how little it costs)...If you do love it, buy it today. Yep, problem solved!
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