Key Points:
1. Retail strategies based on limited hours (i.e. opening one week out of every month) may fly in the face of the 24/7 e-consumer model, but they work.
2. The success of the Fun Sisters Boutique in the moribund St. Paul skyway is case in point.
3. Creative entrepreneurs—mainly female entrepreneurs—are rediscovering and reinventing this classic of scarcity marketing.
By most measures, the St. Paul skyway is not a fun place to be.
I should know. I’ve been walking the downtown walk for the past four years, watching business after business struggle to make a go in a tough retail environment. Unique businesses and boutique shops struggle alongside larger chain restaurants—which get most of the traffic during the brief “lunch hour.”
There are a few exceptions, of course, but it’s hard to deny one conclusion: when you compete with national franchises on their terms, you lose.
That’s why a little shop and its unique approach struck me.
During the run-up to the Republican National Convention last summer, the powers that be ran a promotion to entice new businesses to fill (the many) vacant retail spots in the skyway. One of those new tenants was the Fun Sisters Boutique. The small store sold women’s handbags and accessories. To be blunt, I didn’t think much of it. After the RNC failed to generate much meaningful traffic for businesses in the St. Paul skyway, I figured most of the new businesses would fold up and go away.
But not the Fun Sisters. They stayed.
Here’s the catch: they are open for only one week at a time, with four to six weeks in between. In other words, for more than 80 percent of their lease, the Fun Sisters Boutique is closed.
That seemed a bit insane.
Unless you’ve worked out a sweetheart deal with the landlord, you still need to pay the rent. The inventory turn numbers must be dreadful. And regardless, the conventional wisdom of consumer behavior says we’re both impatient and forgetful. When we can’t get what we want, and we have immediate gratification alternatives, there’s a good chance we’ll forget we wanted it. And even if you do manage to draw people in, how on earth can you sell enough handbags in five business days—in the St. Paul skyway no less—to turn a profit?
Bottom line: that business strategy flies in a face of the way most of us were taught to treat customers—you give them whatever they want, whenever they want it.
I, much to my delight, discovered that I was very, very wrong.
How do I know? I conducted an experiment.
Here was the test: I compared foot traffic at Fun Sisters to a comparable niche retailer in the next building. The competing specialty products retailer seemed to have several advantages. It was across the aisle from a busy Caribou Coffee location and the skyway food court. It was also a building closer to the Ecolab and Travelers headquarters. They have at least six times the space. They not only sell clothing and handbags but a cacophony of interesting products.
Despite all that, I counted no more than six people in their entire cavernous space at any given time. Certainly, I couldn’t camp out in front of each store with a clicker, but I did select several different times throughout the day to check.
The Fun Sisters store, by contrast, was open only from May 11 to May 15. For that week, the store was packed. Every time I checked, there were no less than eight people milling around, with a short line at the register waiting to pay.
Limiting retail hours isn’t a new idea, of course, but over the last 10 years, marketers seem to have forgotten about it. The rise of e-commerce has completely changed our mindset. Buyers can shop 24/7. They are trading hard goods (such as music CDs) for soft goods (such as iTunes downloads) at a staggering clip.
The Fun Sisters Boutique should not work. But just like the bumblebee—who should not be able to fly—the Sisters are successful.
Thankfully, the business concept is much simpler than bumblebee aerodynamics. By opening during only a limited time, you concentrate buying power and interest. It’s scarcity marketing and it’s psychologically quite sound. If you can’t have something, you are likely to want it more.
When I dug into the Fun Sisters Boutique history, I discovered the original idea was conceived more out of necessity than foresight. Two airline flight attendants started the business but could only operate it when they were both in town, which worked out to be about one week out of every six. Today, the Fun Sisters Boutique manages a number of locations, all presumably needing flexible landlords—which are not so hard to find these days—but all running on the same limited-availability strategy.
For me, albeit interesting, all of this would have been an interesting mental footnote had it not been for a corroborating experience.
Last week, I attended the Women in Business Awards on behalf of a client receiving an award. During the brief biographies of the honorees, I noticed a curious thing: one of the winners operated a business very similar to the Fun Sisters. It was only open limited hours but it had become stunningly successful.
Then it occurred to me: the crucible of attempting to start a business, while being employed at another, or caring for a family—the situation of many of these women—re-ignited interest in this limited-time-only retail business model. Out of necessity came reinvention.
I feel lucky I was paying attention. If I were most of my still-male-management-philosophy-dominated counterparts (male or female), I could have missed it. We all learned about scarcity marketing in college, but I have never saw it pulled off quite like this.
Forgive me, women, if you feel like asking me “Where the hell have you been?” (The Fun Sisters have been open for years). And men, don’t be so quick to scoff at their idea. (As we are often callous enough to do with “women’s” products). Handbags and accessories are just the start.
I have a feeling this strategy won’t stay hidden for long.
Is it for every buyer? No. Does it make sense for very product? No.
But it is definitely time to listen.
Related Links:
 |  |
Comments