So my last post, “We’re Not Renewing Our Lease”, has generated a lot of discussion on Facebook. And there have been several “shares” of the post, which I deeply, deeply appreciate.
First off I want to say that I hear, all the time, “I am so glad to find a shop like this in Oklahoma City” and “We really need a store like this in Oklahoma City.” It warms my heart when people tell me that, and it helps me to know that I am serving a demographic that often feels left out of things when it comes to niche stores, where the mainstream is Conservative Christian.
But there is a reason why we don’t have more shops like Once Upon A Silver Moon, and that is simply because it is expensive to stock them with beautiful things. Someone asked me today if I’d thought about maybe going into a flea market instead of my expensive, beautiful, historical location, and the simple answer is that honestly I couldn’t sell the things I make to the kind of people who go to the flea market, and the people who buy the kinds of things I sell won’t step foot in the flea market.
We’re a classy shop, but we’re not snooty about it. I have a regular guy who comes in just about every week to buy some incense and a roll of charcoal, maybe a couple of the small household taper candles. That’s all he ever gets but he comes in just like clockwork to pick them up. This gentleman doesn’t have a car, he rides the bus. His $6-8 weekly purchase is just as exciting to me (and just as needed!) as that of a person who drives up in a Mercedes and spends $65 on a handmade bracelet then doesn’t come back for 9 months. Every person’s spiritual needs are unique, and the person wrapped around the soul, well mostly that’s just packaging. I’m not going to shoo someone out for being poor or even homeless – chances are that they need us more than the doctor in the BMW. But the doctor types do pay the overhead that allows us to minister to those of smaller means. It’s easier to get “professionals” in the door of a nice place than a flea market, so we are in the nice place.
And our nice place is soothing, comforting, relaxing, a place where you can ask your weird questions or have a discussion about theology and spiritual paths. The questions posed by the soul are not going to be answered at Target or Walmart or Penn Square. You nourish your body at Whole Foods or the Red Cup, and you come to us for spiritual guidance or, if you are good on that, for supplies to do whatever it is you do with the rocks and candles and oils and soaps.
If we do not have something on the shelf and we can make it for you, such as a pair of pearl and amber earrings, we are very happy to do that. We get a lot of requests for birthstone jewelry. I always ask, What is your budget on those? and then make a few things to choose from, if possible below the budget, maybe 2-3 options in that range, then maybe one or two more just over the budget. The lesser expensive one does not take up less of my time – it’s just less expensive materials. I put a lot of pride and many years of experience into everything I make. The price tag is not my end goal, it’s the customer’s satisfaction. Custom oils are always $8 for the mojo oils. We dress novena candles for free, pray on them and anoint them with oils and sprinkle them with herbs for you, if you request that. NOBODY else in this whole state does that for you at any price, let alone for free!
So when you shop at Once Upon A Silver Moon, you know that you are important as an individual to us, because you are a human with personalized needs. I, or my employees, will always give you one-on-one attention and we strive to give you the kind of customer service that we ourselves require. I am so often disappointed by lousy customer service all over the place, and when I go to a store or a restaurant and the owner (or sometimes the manager) personally comes up to speak to me as a person, I am going to go back there, because we connected on a human-to-human level. In the big world of the internet and texting and social media, really all I want is to be treated like An Individual. And that’s what we give you, and that’s what we’re about.
But this post isn’t meant to be about our awesome customer service chops. It’s about math and just how important our individual customers are, and to try to explain to you exactly how important your interaction is if it means something to you for Once Upon A Silver Moon to stick around so we can serve you, minister to you, pray with or for you, or just sell you awesome stuff for years to come.
I’m going to pull a shopkeeper no-no here: I’m going to tell you what stuff costs us. I love transparency and while no, none of this is really any of your business, I’m going to pull back the curtain and just lay it all out here. After all, like I said, if you are interested in having us stick around, you’re an active partner in our success, so you might appreciate knowing just how important even a monthly $5 purchase can be.
Our overhead currently runs us around $3000 a month. That’s rent ($1800), utilities ($150), advertising ($300 not including flyers and promo stuff), payroll (now that is not your business, but we do pay over minimum wage), and supplies like ziplocks and lunch bags and pens and register tape and sooo much glass cleaner and gasoline for the one or two times we go to Dallas to pick up our candles and other Indio stuff.
Restocking – we spend about $300 monthly on smudge bundles alone. Then another $400 for incense, just to restock the HEM, Nag Champa, and Prabuji’s Gifts (that stuff isn’t cheap). $200 for books/tarot cards which is only about 10 decks and 10 books. Another $100 on minerals and resins, give or take. $200 on candles. And ideally, restocking only, $750 on jewelry.
Add all that up and a healthy monthly budget – to pay overhead and to restock – is about $4500. This keeps the shelves full and our utilities from getting cut off.
But we also try to grow a little bit every month. Growth requires new (or good condition used) fixtures. When possible, those good old Ikea bookcases are $30, but to fill five shelves with new (purchased) product costs, at the very least, about $250 per shelf! Everyone has a minimum order, and NOBODY does credit terms, meaning that we have to front that expense and recoup it slowly, as things sell. A small order of incense is going to run us $100 but that’s a pretty thin order. Statuary, triple that; tarot cards, double it. A lot of companies have a minimum opening order of $300 and $150 for re-orders. So it’s not like “oh hey, we are out of the sandalwood Prabhuji’s incense, let’s order a dozen” ($25), it’s “man, we’re running low on six of these, time to restock the ENTIRE DISPLAY ($200). And that is why, at the moment, that display is completely empty, save for four packages of their amazing, amazing incense. I simply have not had $200 in one place at the same time to do it. (Actually I did re-order it last week, it’s on a UPS truck as I write.)
So call it about $6000 a month, for overhead, restocking, and growth.
And you know what, that breaks down to $1500 a week. A lot of weeks we’re grossing just right at $1100, $1200. But 10% of that is sales tax, so back it down to “bringing in” about a grand a week. That hits overhead and restocking necessitites. Just a little bit extra and on a good week we have a little bit to put toward some new stuff too.
But this is where the cool thing happens, where youse guys, you customer-people, really can make a difference.
Our average sale has been running about $21 per person since we opened. Some weeks it’s been as high as $28, but that usually happens around tax refund time or if someone got a bonus and comes in to buy a gemstone pendant or a really nice statue. Consistently though, on the average, $21-25 per sale.
On the average we’ve had a pretty consistent 42 sales a week, an average of 8 sales per day (open 6 days/week). In a bad week it’s 20-25, in a crazy good week (Christmas) it’s maybe over 60. September, October, the icy week in November, some of those weeks were like 25-30 sales, $500-750/week. Ow!
So to make $1500/week (our goal), we need to have an average of 60 customers spending an average of $25 per sale, $250/day. We’re still short of that, but when tornadoes or the Tea Party aren’t screwing things up, we’re getting close to it, about what you can expect for a store as young as ours is. We can also cheat the overhead a little. Our employees prefer not to have their hours cut, though. So right now I’m making a lot of our jewelry and other things, so that helps keep costs down too. But there’s a trade-off, if I don’t have time to do it, the shelf or display stays empty til I do. (This is why I don’t offer classes – no time!)
So we need to get in just a few more customers if we’re going to buy a building. If we can hit our overhead, catch up on our past due stuff, get those shelves filled out and bring in some new things on a regular basis, we need not to cry to the regulars to get your wallets out more often, but to bring in your friends more often! Or stop by and pick up some of our flyers, and hand them out to “like minded” people. (Psst, you need some more soap too, maybe a suncatcher for your mom?) Here’s one way – when you go out, if you see a parked car with a bunch of “CoExist” type stickers on it, take a flyer, WRITE ON THE BACK “I saw your bumper stickers and I thought you’d like my friend Ande’s store”, and put it on their windshield. Or leave a couple at your yoga studio or chiropractor or hair salon next time.
We have a 20 month window of opportunity here. To buy a building, let’s reasonably assume that we will need to put down $20,000 on a $185,000 building. The payment on that is going to be just a little less than what we’re doing right now, on a 15 year note. I’m not sure what that will buy us, but it’s what my landlord paid for our building, so I have hope.
But $20,000 over 20 months, wait, that’s just $1000 more a month. That’s $250 more in sales a week. That is ten more customers a week. THAT IS LESS THAN TWO MORE CUSTOMERS EVERY DAY.
Whoa!!
This becomes doable!!
Holy shit! Do you realize what a HUGE difference YOU mean to us?!
No goddamn wonder we are so nice to you! Coz you are REALLY IMPORTANT!!! But also we are nice to you because your needs are our business, it’s the whole point of doing this store versus oh, a vape bar or whatever.
Every dollar brought in by every customer is keeping our store open. I DO NOT GET PAID. So I need to have a future, some kind of retirement, an asset, eg a building. The sparkly stuff – man, I have more than my share at home, I cannot retire on Bastet pendants or crystal balls.
We never, ever, take you for granted. And now you know why – every rock you buy, every candle, every bar of soap, contributes not only to your enjoyment of our store and collection of cool stuff, but also to our ability to be there for the person who gets sent to us by a friend because they know we will help them through whatever difficulties they are having. The woman who comes in for a reading because she can’t face the fact that her marriage is over. The woman who comes in for a reading, looking for a reason to leave because she’s bored, and we wind up saving that marriage. The people who, at 50, realize they desperately need to stop wearing their masks and start being themselves. The newly awakened pagan, the recently sobered addict. You might get a necklace, which is what you wanted, and they get their lives back, which is what they needed. Your purchases help random other people, by allowing us to continue to be there for them.
How important is it to you that our shop is able to continue? Is it worth the effort of telling a couple of people about us? Swinging by every 6-8 weeks to see what’s new, to buy a single package of incense (or more)? You saw the math, you KNOW you are a vital part of our survival. Will you do what it takes to help us help others, or are you going to let us fail and leave this city with just a little less hope? The choice is up to you – EVERY ONE OF YOU.
