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Novelty Items: a Bad Omen

an opinion

"Uh oh!" is usually what I think to myself when I walk into a C-store and see novelty items. More often than not, when I go back to that store over the next several months, there will be more and more novelty items and fewer and fewer of the good-selling items.

Novelty items are a sign of decay and an early indicator that the store will soon be spiralling downward.

I have difficulty explaining exactly what I mean by "novelty items." I admit that what I call a novelty item in one store might make perfect sense in another store.

Change the term "novelty item" to "junk." Now you have a better idea of what I am writing about.

These are the main points to make about junk:

1. Seasonal items are junk if you stock them year-round.
2. Fad items are junk if the fad has passed.
3. If you can buy it at Sharky's on the Gulf Coast, it is probably junk in your store.
4. If you can buy it in Helen, Georgia in a gift shop, it is probably junk in your store.
5. If it is an ethnic item, unless it fits in with the more generic products, it is probably junk in your store.
6. If it is rude, crude, or cras, it is probably junk.
7. If it is for a special event, it becomes junk at noon of the event day. (Mardi Gras, Olympics, races, etc.)

This is why having junk is so bad.

1. Why did you buy it in the first place?
2. Attractive salesperson?
3. Favor to a good cause?
4. Seemed like a good idea at the time?
5. These are indicators that you might not be focusing on your inventory.
6. Have you turned over the buy decisions to others?
7. Are you more interested in the junk merchandise than in checking quantities of the essential C-store inventory?
8. Have you noticed that customers are beginning to complain (or "comment") about outages of the "regular" stock?

However, you should also consider this opposing point-of-view. At some time in the past, sometimes the not-so-distant past, nearly everything in a C-store was a "novelty item." In past years do you remember hearing:

• What? Is this a gas station or a grocery store?
• Aspirins at a gas station?
• Hamburgers from a gas station? I wonder what they taste like?
• McDonald's in a gas station?
• "Gourmet" what-the-hell in a gas station?

There are guidelines for testing whether you should go in some new, bold direction.

1. If some others have tried it and it worked, then you try it out.
2. If no one else has "thought" of it, then wait until someone else tries it out at his expense.

Copyright © - 2003 Dutch Hawkins Mandeville, LA USA - All Rights Reserved

July 27, 2003