Retail Store Supply and How to Prepare for Gift Wrapping

If you're planning to begin offering a gift wrapping option at your store for the holiday season, you'll need to do several things to get prepared. Even the quietest shops can become a madhouse when Christmas is around the corner. While customers appreciate free gift wrapping services, a big advantage can turn sour if you aren't ready for the influx. One of the most important things to have in place is a good retail store supply. This is where you'll get the materials you need to make your gift wrapping a success. Next, you'll need to train your employees in the art of fast, attractive wrapping. Finally, you'll need to get the word out.

Retail Store Supply
Before you can begin providing gift wrap options for your customers, you'll need a good retail store supply company from whom you can purchase the ribbons, wrapping paper, and boxes for your endeavor. If you look around, you'll be able to find companies that provide these materials at a wholesale price, which is exactly what you want. It is already going to be a monetary loss to provide these services for free. While it can be beneficial from a goodwill standpoint (and can even potentially draw customers into the store), you can afford to spend unlimited amounts of money on the project. Look for a company that can give you good prices on your materials.

Training Employees
For the gift-wrapping table, you will either need to hire seasonal employees or have some of your existing employees provide the service. If you run a busy shop, you'll need people dedicated only to working the table. In slower shops, you may be able to simply have the clerk gift wrap purchases as requested by the customer. Either way, they will need to know what they're doing. The important thing here is to have uniformity. If hiring employees, make giftwrapping skill a condition of hire. If not, take one evening and ensure anyone who will be working the table knows what they are doing.

Advertising
If you're going to provide a special, free service like gift wrapping, you want customers to know about it. Not only should there be signs in the shop guiding people to the gift wrapping table, but you should go out of your way to advertise the service. Mention it within your regular advertising schedule, put a sign out front, and do anything else you can to get the word out. You don't want to spend a fortune on retail store supply and seasonal hires only to have no one use the service.