Wearability

Ahhhh, boxing day!  My favorite time of year to join the hordes looking for unparalleled deals.  Boxing week is proof that if the price is low enough, consumers will sacrifice their quality standards.  What I like to call wearability (my spell checker doesn’t recognize the word) is a combination of durability and universal appeal.

A nice piece of jewellery can stand-up to daily wear and goes with many things.  But on boxing day, a person might buy a piece of costume jewellery with maybe 10 wearings in it before it starts crumbling if the deal is good enough.  A person might buy a piece of jewellery with an odd combination of colored gemstones if the deal is good enough. 

Besides the electronics stores, who had the biggest line-ups on boxing day?  Old Navy, and Wall-Mart.  Wearability?  Well, neither of these are the place to go for long-wearing clothing.  Fashionable?  Well, whatever is left-over is what is discounted, so items voted the least appealing before Christmas are blown-out after.  Simple formula.  Good business.

Your job?  If you’re one of my typical store owners, your job is to put an attractive incentive on older merchandise in order to get rid of it.  If you’re a sales associate, I charge you with selling the best wearable merchandise that your clients will buy.  If they’ve got money burning a hole in their pockets, show them the good stuff and see if they will start a layaway on something awesome rather than walking out with cheapo left-overs.  As always focus on the good stuff, and work your way down to the best they are willing to purchase.