Even the best can be better!
This October, we will host another One Week Boutique making it our 9th sale.  After each sale, we evaluate every detail and identify improvements, largely as a result of consignor and shopper feedback. In the early sales finding a large suitable location was key, and along came our spot at Tallahassee Mall. Another goal was to attract more shoppers so we increased our advertising program. Five sales ago we added on-line tagging to make things easier for consignors and make the overall sale more efficient.  More recently we have increased our number of registers to speed up checkout times.  We've come a long way since our first sale at Goodwood Museum!  Many of you that return every sale to consign and shop would certainly agree.  But in keeping with what makes TOWB the best, here is one key focus that will make our next sale even better. 
Quality! Expect a renewed focus on ensuring high quality of TOWB inventory.  With our rapid growth and desire to accommodate our consignors, our volume has exploded. We'll enforce our strict standards and ask our volunteers to help ensure the clothes, toys and equipment we sell are all high quality and ready for new homes.  If you consign, be selective in what you bring and expect to have only your best accepted. The best items sell fast and for full price every time! If you're a shopper, be assured that you will have a huge selection of high-quality merchandise to choose from.  Shop early for the best selections!

To ensure we are able to sell as many of your items as we can during peak times without making any errors or missing any items, it is very important that your tags are scannable. Great features of our sale like nightly sales updates and quick check delivery are dependent on scannable barcodes.

So, if you print your tags out and any of them look like these non-scannable examples from past sales, please reprint them before attaching them to your items.

Heavy ink If the ink is too heavy and the lines on the barcode run together as shown here, the space between the bars is filled in and makes the tag unscannable.	Cut off printing This is the tag on the right edge of the page where the printer stopped short of printing the entire barcode. Make sure the barcode is centered under the words Discount: Yes (or No).
Out of toner If you are running out of toner on a laser printer or copier, the bars start to lose their integrity. Make sure the lines are crisp and full.	Linen paper The texture on the paper used for this tag prevented the ink from creating a readable barcode. The color is light enough to be OK, but the texture is causing scanner problems.
Missing pixels This one is less common, and a little hard to see. There are some parts of the print head on this inkjet printer that are stuck and no longer print. Because they make it look like more bars are present, the scanner picks up the wrong number.	Handwritten overrides The barcode scan is the only way we can sell items (or hand entering the barcode). If we try to change the Discount from no to yes, it will not allow us to sell that item because it is not in our inventory. Also, we have to prevent shoppers from changing discount status with their own pens.
Correct page orientation Make sure the black lines are visible on both sides of every tag, and that the tags fill up the entire sheet of letter sized paper.	Incorrect page orientation If your tags print sideways, or leave extra white space on the sheet as shown above, it is likely they will not scan because the barcodes are too small. Also in this example, the black line on the right edge is cut off, which means that part of the barcode might be missing.

More tag printing tips:

• Paper:
  • No dark colored paper, only light or pastel card stock - WHITE is the BEST choice; no fuzzy or textured paper (because the barcodes will bleed)
  • Best type paper: 60# - 67#, 110# card or cover stock. However, please consult with your sale owner for required weight and color
  • Do not put tape on the barcode
• Printer:
  • Best Printer: ink jets with normal toner or laser printers (no dot matrix printers)
• Printing Settings:
  • Use NORMAL or DRAFT. (Best quality is too dark and causes the barcodes to bleed)
  • Print with "Black Cartridge" only.
• Helpful Tips:
  • Make sure the barcodes are crisp and clear and not bleeding
  • Sort their clothes by gender and size before tagging for best efficiency
  • Avoid long descriptions and overuse of capital letters.

If you have any questions about the print quality on your tags, please contact us.

Check-in starts this Sunday the 7th, the Public Sale starts on the 11th. We hope everyone is busy tagging!

Hangers

Remember that all clothing must be on hangers! You will not get those hangers back -- but when you buy new things you will keep those hangers.

• Reusing retail hangers is fine.
• Bigger hangers are fine for bigger sizes.
• Make sure the clothes are hanging in such a way that the hanger looks like a question mark.

Check-in times

Register for a check-in time. If you show up without an appointment you will most likely be asked to come back later. Whatever time you pick for check-in means that we expect you within that hour. If you pick 11:00 please come between 11:00 and 12:00.

Bumbo Seats are on the recall list!

Go to www.cpsc.gov to see what you need to do to remedy the problem and make them sale-worthy. It sounds like just a sticker needs to be ordered and placed on the seat. We will not take recalled items.

Please check your things --

• Especially big items like baby gear, cribs, pack-n-plays, highchairs, etc.
• We will not take sweatshirts with drawstrings.
• We will not take hand painted wooden toys or jewelry.
• No toys with small magnets.

We have more consignors than ever and are excited about a bigger sale than ever!

So we have had the fastest consignor registration rate to date! After sharing with our Facebook friends, we had over 50 consignors sign up. After notifying our ever growing e-mail list, we quickly grew to over 175. Consignors are excited about the upcoming sale and it shows. Thanks for registering and signing up to volunteer. Now on identifying partner businesses! All ideas welcome.

We are working hard to get registration open for our next event. The sale dates are definite and the location is secured -- consignor drop-off starts March 7th. The public sale will start Thursday morning, March 11th. We will be at the old Goody's location for the third time in a row. We anticipate having more people than ever and using more space than before.

Spread the word, start going through those closets...The One Week Boutique starts again soon!

Our first two shoppers are already in line at 8:30am, ready for the deals to be found when the doors open at 10am. The cool clear weather this morning will at least make the waiting comfortable.

The Fall 2009 event has easily eclipsed all of our previous sales in scale, with 26,000 items from 300 consignors. Featured at this sale are:

• Over 1,200 pairs of kids shoes
• 250 Halloween costumes
• Almost 100 pieces of furniture
• 73 strollers
• 40 high chairs
• 18,000 clothing items!
• 30 bikes
• Over 200 DVDs
• 2,000 toys
• 900 maternity items
• 1,000 books
• and way more in hundreds of other categories

We have posted photos from the sales floor in our online gallery,

Among the many improvements shoppers will find at this sale:

• significantly more floor space and rack space for easier shopping
• better fixtures to display bedding, toys and accessories
• clearer signage indicating sizes and sections
• five checkout lanes to keep peak-shopping lines moving quickly
• of course a huge inventory of kids items at rock bottom prices

About this time before each sale Cindi and I start to get a little manic. Have we passed out enough fliers, secured enough sponsors, scheduled the utilities for the right day? Will we have enough rack space or should or husband carpenters build some more? Will we have more consingors this time around, and more shoppers too?

Luckily all usually comes together by sale time. We are really lucky to have multi-talented family members who, in addition to their day jobs, also function as cashiers, baby-sitters, tech-support, and the aforementioned rack-builders. We have also always been lucky to have enough great volunteers at each sale. We cannot do it without extra hands and the event benefits from a group effort. Having consignors who have a vested interest in making the event a great success makes the whole sale better. We all benefit from more shoppers, better customer service and a pleasant atmosphere.

The last few days are also filled with reminding folks how the system works. Everyone has to choose a check-in time. We cannot just handle people walking in during check-in. It is a period of controlled chaos and we need to know how many people are coming at once. Everyone has to get their tags entered before check-in begins. The sale has to be closed before we start taking in items. We need everyone to follow the same tagging guidelines. Hang all clothes, supply your own hangers, put small toys and puzzles in ziplocs, put shoes in bags. I think Cindi and I recite these things in our sleep.

About this time before each sale we also get pretty excited. This event that started with 55 consignors in 800 square feet is now taking place in 25,000 square feet with what could be over 250 consignors. We help people find great deals, we donate items to worthy charities, and we make ourselves and many others a bit of spending money! 5 days til the fun begins!

Just wanted to give everyone a head's up about the sponsors we have confirmed for our Fall sale. Also, we are always looking to include more people who have family-friendly businesses so keep that in mind. We are going to do our Goodie Bags again and they are a great option for someone with a small business who wants to get their name out there but doesn't have too big of a budget. For $25 we will include a coupon in Goodie Bags for the first 250 shoppers.

The Prenatal Experience

The Prenatal Experience will be returning to our Fall sale. The Prenatal Experience offers pregnant moms and their families a unique experience by offering 3D/4D ultrasounds. In a comfortable setting they provide amazing ultrasound images and encourage families to come view and bond with the unborn baby. Check out their table at our sale to view sample video footage from real 3D/4D ultrasounds. Go to theprenatalexperience.com for more information.

Fliggity

Fliggity is a line of clothing made exclusively for kids up to size 7. They offer adorable tie-dye shirts and "number" shirts that let kids show off how old they are. They also have a unique offering in their stylish superhero shirts. These imaginative shirts come with a removable and reversible super-hero cape and are available for boys and girls. Check out fliggity.com for pictures and ordering information.

Shana Beiro Photography

Looking for a great photographer to capture some of your family's special moments? Check out shanabeiro.com and see some of the variety of events and candid moments that Shana captures with her camera. She will be at our sale to display some of her great photography.

Usborne Books

Anyone looking for a great gift for a child or to stock up on your own home library will be thrilled to hear that Emily DeLisle with Usborne Books will be back at our Fall sale. Usborne offers great deals on books as well as fun activity "kits" for kids of all ages. You will be able to buy books directly off the Usborne racks at our sale as well as place special orders.

Good Samaritan Academy, Arts at Good Samaritan

Another sponsor that we have worked with in the past is Good Samaritan Academy and the Arts at Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan Academy is a christian based childcare facility located across from Southwood. They provide year-round care for children 18 months to pre-kindergarten/VPK. The Arts at Good Samaritan offers classes and lessons for children in music, art, dance, and drama. You can find information about the Academy and more details about class times at goodsamaritantallahassee.org

We love finding sponsors that have unique things to offer our shoppers and consignors. It is fun getting so many family-friendly businesses under the same roof. If you know of someone else who would make a good addition to our sponsor list please let us know!

Just wanted to give everyone a head's up about the sponsors we have confirmed for our Fall sale. Also, we are always looking to include more people who have family-friendly businesses so keep that in mind. We are going to do our Goodie Bags again and they are a great option for someone with a small business who wants to get their name out there but doesn't have too big of a budget. For $25 we will include a coupon in Goodie Bags for the first 250 shoppers.

The Prenatal Experience will be returning to our Fall sale. The Prenatal Experience offers pregnant moms and their families a unique experience by offering 3D/4D ultrasounds. In a comfortable setting they provide amazing ultrasound images and encourage families to come view and bond with the unborn baby. Check out their table at our sale to view sample video footage from real 3D/4D ultrasounds. Go to theprenatalexperience.com for more information.

Fliggity is a line of clothing made exclusively for kids up to size 7. They offer adorable tie-dye shirts and "number" shirts that let kids show off how old they are. They also have a unique offering in their stylish superhero shirts. These imaginative shirts come with a removable and reversible super-hero cape and are available for boys and girls. Check out fliggity.com for pictures and ordering information.

Looking for a great photographer to capture some of your family's special moments? Check out shanabeiro.com and see some of the variety of events and candid moments that Shana captures with her camera. She will be at our sale to display some of her great photography.

Anyone looking for a great gift for a child or to stock up on your own home library will be thrilled to hear that Emily DeLisle with Usborne books will be back at our Fall sale. Usborne offers great deals on books as well as fun activity "kits" for kids of all ages. You will be able to buy books directly off the Usborne racks at our sale as well as place special orders.

Another sponsor that we have worked with in the past is Good Samaritan Academy and the Arts at Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan Academy is a christian based childcare facility located across from Southwood. They provide year-round care for children 18 months to pre-kindergarten/VPK. The Arts at Good Samaritan offers classes and lessons for children in music, art, dance, and drama. You can find information about the Academy and more details about class times at goodsamaritantallahassee.org

We love finding sponsors that have unique things to offer our shoppers and consignors. It is fun getting so many family-friendly businesses under the same roof. If you know of someone else who would make a good addition to our sponsor list please let us know!

In an effort to give back a little more to the charities that we support through The One Week Boutique, we are starting a Diaper Drive at our Fall sale. Any packages (opened or unopened) and any size diaper or pull-up will be accepted. These will then be donated to the Pregnanacy Help and Information (PHI) Center and the Brehon Institute. Please look through your cabinets and closets for those half packs of outgrown diapers and bring them to the sale. We obviously will accept them from consignors and shoppers alike so spread the word! New packs of wipes will also be accepted.

Thanks in advance!