Pick Up Sticks Display Ideas – Jewelie

Wow!  The response to Judy, our full-size black mannequin loaded with Pick Up Sticks, has been incredible.  We never knew that adding a loaded Judy to our catalog would be such a great idea. If you missed our post on Judy, check it out here.

Because of the overwhelming interest in Judy, we decided we’d better add a loaded Jewelie to the mix.

Jewelie is our 20 inch tall counter-top mannequin.  Think of her as Judy’s little sister. Equally as eye-catching, just not quite as big.  If you don’t have space enough for Judy, order a couple of Jewelies to grace a tabletop or counter.  Or consider her as an add-on to your Judy – a complimentary bust form loaded with Pick Up Sticks that will create even more interest.

We’ve heard from lots of retailers that Jewelie’s a great point-of-sale display.  She just might be the perfect way to turn on-the-fence-buyers into jewelry-purchasing-customers.

One of the most frequently asked questions when we’re at market is:  “How should we display Pick Up Sticks in our store?”  It’s also the highest search engine term that takes customers to our blog. And because we’re in the business of helping retailers sell our product, we want to give you the chance to display Pick Up Sticks in the most profitable manner. That’s Judy and Jewelie.

Now you have the chance to order Jewelie fully loaded.  She’ll come with our best-selling two-sided bubble charms and photo charms, our 12 best-selling word candy, our 12 best-selling dot initials, our 12 best-selling trinkets and spacers and 20 assorted necklaces and bracelet chain. She’ll also be wearing our very popular logo price tags. Call the studio today to get the price on this great display value.

Everybody needs Pick Up Sticks!

Simply order, unwrap and display.  And start selling!

Judy, Judy, Judy – Pick Up Sticks’ best sales tip

Pick Up Sticks.  We hope you associate the company name and this blog with our continuing search for ways to help you make your business a screaming success.  That’s why we do this – we want to give you ideas that help you sell, sell, sell.

And that’s why we now offer our loaded Judy in our catalog.  And why we throw in the mannequin for free.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zero.  Null.  Zilch.

We do ask that you pay for the charms and trinkets and necklaces she’s wearing.  But the mannequin and the ribbons that separate price points and the approximately 12 hours of studio labor to load her up?  Free.

“Who’s Judy?” some of you may ask.  Do a search of the term “Judy” in our blog archives and you’ll find several posts dedicated to her.  She’s our “loaded-with-Pick-Up-Sticks,” looking-gorgeous and selling-jewelry-like-crazy Mannequin. We introduced her about six years ago, dragging her to market all dressed up with every photo charm, trinket, and chain we create, as well as the top 12 of our initial charms. We thought she was a fun display.

And then customers started asking if they could take her home with them. Immediately.

What we found was that Judy was a sparkly-girl, catching the eyes of passersby and creating an entirely new kind of excitement in our market booth. And our retailers who bought her told us that she created a fun forum where customers could see a wide variety of jewelry, touching and turning Pick Up Sticks every which way, laughing with their friends at our designs, choosing two or three charms and trinkets and necklace combinations in the process.

What we found was that our Judy sells. In fact, a number of our current Judy orders are from retailers who ordered Judy in the past. She’s been so busy that she’s worn out and they need a replacement.

And the best news is that now you don’t have to wait until market to get your’s. She’s in our latest catalog, just waiting for your order.

She comes shipped to your door looking very chic and  wearing one each of every single Pick Up  Sticks two-sided bubble, dot, candy, chicklet and photo charm, the top 12 initials in five styles, one each of all our trinkets, spacers and locket, and an assortment of necklace and bracelet chain.  She also comes ribboned – meaning that we separate the price categories so that you don’t have to. (Here’s a link to the catalog page – take a look at this beauty!  http://www.pickupsticks.net/US/CATALOG/packages/packages.html)

How good is the deal?  If you order a pre-pinned Judy right now, you’ll get the mannequin free (Yes, we’ve already said that, but it bears repeating.  She’d cost you $120 if you ordered her separately).  You’ll also get the expertise of the girls in the studio pinning and ribboning her so that she’s an eye-catching sales genius.  That alone takes 2 girls 6 hours, so in addition to the mannequin form, you’re getting 12 hours of free labor.  And you get our exclusive logo price tags showing the price for each separate category of jewelry.

Don’t want all the chain?  We can leave that off and you’ll be charged less.  Since we can’t really reveal our wholesale prices here, please feel free to contact the studio for prices.

One thing you don’t get?  All 26 initials, because we know that some of them are hard to sell.  We only send you the 12 top selling initials from each of our initial lines.

We know that getting customers to make a purchase is tougher now than ever.  That’s why we promote our Judy.  She sells, she adds interest to your retail space, and customers love her. What more could you ask of a pretty girl?

Pick Up Sticks Retailer of the Month – French Market

After a Retailer of the Month is chosen, we send them an e-mail with a list of questions, asking that they take a minute to answer those questions and then send us back a few photos of their store as well as Pick Up Sticks in their store.  It’s a pretty straight-forward process – tell us about your store and tell us what makes Pick Up Sticks work for you.  We want two things:  to give our retailers a high-five and some free publicity for being so enthusiastic about Pick Up Sticks, and to give you, our other retailers, relevant information on how to best market the product.

But sometimes there’s a hidden benefit.  Sometimes in researching our retailers, we find inspiration in how they’ve set up their retail business and promoted themselves.  Which is exactly what happened this month while checking out the French Market and Tavern’s website and Facebook page.

French Market and Tavern, 3840 Hwy 42, Locust Grove, Georgia is touted as South Atlanta’s hottest casual dining spot, and “whether you eat, drink or shop, French Market is the destination place to be.”  What this month’s retailer has done is to very successfully use the internet to entice a wide range of potential shoppers into their space.  Certainly after checking out their website, we were dying to spend a lunch hour at French Market and then an afternoon shopping in the gift shop.

They’re located in the old Gardner Hardware Store, a building dating back to 1906.  Lauren describes their store as a “rustic version of Pottery Barn,” and it looks like she and her husband combined his New Orleans love of food with her love of design in a very appealingly eclectic way.

Here’s what they had to say about Pick Up Sticks:  They love the flexibility in design, and they suggest that you display everything at eye level, with the jewelry set out in a way that allows your shoppers to touch and turn the charms over.  Lauren suggests that your salespeople comment on the uniquely personal ways in which Pick Up Sticks can be added to a piece of jewelry, in essence telling a customer’s story. And she says that she loves that the line keeps people in the store for an extended period of time, searching through charms to find exactly the right initial or charm.

French Market does a great job of retailing Pick Up Sticks. But the bigger take-away here may be that French Market does a great job of promoting their entire business on the web. Their Facebook page is an example of how to use that medium to get buyers in the door.  Frequent posts, gorgeous photos, incentives to customers for checking in. . .this is all textbook stuff on how to grow your community and following.

We applaud French Market on being our Retailer on the Month for July.  They’re doing a great job selling Pick Up Sticks, and as you can see from the photos, the displays make the jewelry very accessible and enticing to the customer. But even better, they’re doing a great job of creating an atmosphere that buyers want to experience.

Next time we’re in Atlanta, we’re putting a visit to French Market on our bucket list. Their website makes our mouths water.  And we plan to follow them on Facebook to get ideas from their very successful social media strategy. Want to join us?

Pick Up Sticks – More Display Ideas

Today we’re finishing up the New York International Gift Fair, and one of the comments we keep hearing in the booth is that our retailers love our display ideas.  So, here are a few more.  We just have to give full disclosure – these aren’t our ideas.  They’re from our fabulous Pick Up Sticks retailers!

These are just a few of the entries we received in our display contest.  We thought we’d pass them along – maybe one or two will work in your store.

We’re always amazed at the multitude of incredibly creative (and effective) ways retailers find to display Pick Up Sticks.  If you have additional display ideas, feel free to send them to us by e-mail and we’ll try to include them in a future blog post.

Now you can see why we had such a difficult time choosing a winner. . .

Pick Up Sticks Display Ideas – D’Accord Boutique

D’Accord Boutique in Shepherdstown, WV (134 West German Street), was just one of the many Pick Up Sticks retailers who entered our display contest, but we found their bird house display one of the most unusual we’ve ever seen.  We’re thrift store and flea market junkies at Pick Up Sticks, and we love the idea of using found items to create displays. 

We were so intrigued with Debbie’s display for D’Accord that we asked her to give us some details.  Here’s what she said:

“It was springtime, and we were enjoying an outdoor antique flea market.  In one of the booths, a vintage wooden birdcage caught our eye.  We began thinking of the Pick Up Sticks Display Contest, and thought it would be fun to display our charms in a birdcage. 

What a great way to display our bird-themed charms and trinkets.

After debating how to display the charms inside, we decided to hang them on  the outside with small clothespins.  We continued walking around the flea market, and began noticing a lot of small teal bottles at several booths.  We bought several, deciding to place them inside the birdcage to display our necklaces.  To complete the springtime display, we placed a decorative bird inside.”

“Our customers often tell us of how much they enjoy our display.  It is one of the first things you see upon entering our store, and sits atop a jewelry case.  Several customers have told us that they love birds and birdcages, and that our display is what drew them into the store. Having our Pick Up Sticks display in a birdcage allows our customers to stop a while and peek inside before looking at our example necklaces in the jewelry case beneath.

Or the bird necklace. . .

“We have found that the easiest way to sell Pick Up Sticks jewelry is to display them in a fun, cute manner and have many example necklaces present.  We have pieced together our necklaces to have certain themes, such as birds, bees, luck, royalty, flowers, and Paris. Since we are a French Boutique, our Paris themed necklace is the most popular, with some customers buying the chain and charms as a set rather than buying one of the charms on its own.”

Thanks Debbie, and thanks to D’Accord Boutique for so cleverly showing off
your Pick Up Sticks.  Find D’Accord’s website at http://daccordboutique.com/
or join them on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/DaccordBoutique.

For those of you who are still searching for the perfect Pick Up Sticks display idea, feel free to use Debbie’s.  Or stay tuned – we’ll be sharing more ideas from our display contest entrants in the weeks to come. 

Our best advice:  Do what Debbie did – keep your eyes peeled for great vintage finds at junk stores or flea markets (or in your grandmother’s barn. . .).  There’s no better way to display our vintage-themed charms.

Pick Up Sticks Design Contest Winner – The Mole Hole of Somerset, KY

We thought holding a contest to find the best displays from Pick Up Sticks retailers would be great fun – give us some new ideas, show us how all of you out there do it. . .We just had no inkling how tough it would be to pick a winner.  But we have, and we’re pleased to announce The Mole Hole of Somerset has taken the cake, set the standard, seized the prize!  And won themselves $200 of wholesale jewelry by doing so.

Are these displays great or what?  We especially love the dog, which The Mole Hole calls Pick the Dog.  Their story is that they found him waiting outside the front door one morning and decided to let him in for a while.  He was so grateful that he chose to make himself useful, and has been displaying their Pick Up Sticks jewelry since day one.  He makes us laugh out loud. . .

And these framed, themed displays?  Rosa from The Mole Hole says, “One of our employees keeps a large supply of scrap-booking materials – vintage papers, stickers, quotes, decals, etc.  We thought the concept behind Pick Up Sticks would be enhanced by displaying similar subjects in a shadow box or frame. . .”

We agree.  Using vintage materials to display Pick Up Sticks, and doing it in such an appealing way (hmmmm – a frame within a frame?) is a great way to sell jewelry.  You make us proud, Mole Hole, and you’ve given us some great ideas so share with other retailers.

By the way, you can find The Mole Hole at 370 S. Hwy 27 in Somerset, Kentucky, or follow them on facebook.

Thanks to all of you who entered the contest – we posted the runners-up on Facebook, and may have space here to show you some of their amazing displays in the future.  It really was a daunting task to choose the winner – we’re blown away by how creative ou retailers have been with their Pick Up Sticks displays.  Can’t wait to see how you wow us next time!

Pick Up Sticks Retail Display Contest

 

Every month we get the privilege of posting photos on our blog of our amazing retailers’ Pick Up Sticks displays – we’re continually amazed at the creative ways all of you find to promote our line. To celebrate your ingenuity AND to gather new ideas for all of us to share, we’re having a display contest from today through the end of May. And to make it worthwhile, the prize for first place will be $200 of wholesale jewelry! Second place will get $100 of jewelry and third will win $50 (wholesale price).

THE CONTEST

Take a look around your retail space – if you already have a tested and true eye-catching Pick Up Sticks display, send a couple of photos to sabrina@pickupsticks.net. If you’ve been thinking about shaking things up in your store and totally changing your display, we’d love to see what you come up with in the next month.

The staff, friends and family of Pick Up Sticks will help us decide which display is the most compelling, fun and attractive (since that’s what Pick Up Sticks is all about. . .)! If it’s too close to call, we may post three or four of the best display ideas on the blog and Facebook and let you help us choose.

THE RULES

Deadline: June 18, 2011

1. Who is eligible? All Pick Up Sticks retailers! But please understand, if you win, we can only ship your prizes to United States or Canada. You may enter as many display ideas as you want, before the deadline. So if you do a fun Easter display and then change it up for Mother’s Day or graduation, be sure to send us a photo of everything you try.
2. What is eligible? Any photos of your Pick Up Sticks displays. Obviously photos must be submitted by the retailer to whom the display belongs. Don’t submit a display you’ve seen elsewhere in someone else’s store.
3. What do I need to submit? Entries accepted via email only. High resolution images work best. Please email in a jpg format. 
4. Where do I email the entries and who do I contact if I have questions? Sabrina@pickupsticks.net

You don’t have to purchase anything to win or participate. Internet access and valid e-mail address required. Void where prohibited. All entries must be received by June 18, 2011, 11:59 pm (MST) .

THE GOOD STUFF (aka The Prize!)

If your display is selected as a prize winner, you’ll receive:

First place: $200 of your choice of in-stock Pick Up Sticks jewelry (wholesale value)

Second place: $100 of your choice of in-stock Pick Up Sticks jewelry (wholesale value)

Third place: $50 of your choice of in-stock Pick Up Sticks jewelry (wholesale value)

When you submit a display idea, it means you have read and agree to the following rules:

Submissions must be the exclusive property of the entrant. You must have the unrestricted right to submit the display photo. You guarantee that the submission does not infringe upon any third party’s proprietary, copyright or other rights.

You transfer to Pick Up Sticks all rights, title and interest in and to the display photos you submit.

Pick Up Sticks will have the worldwide perpetual right to copy, display, reproduce, change, sell, assign, and market the photo of your display. Pick Up Sticks may register or otherwise use and exploit your display photo, in whole or in part, for any purpose, in any way and in any media without approval by or compensation to you or anyone else.

If you’re not the winner of the competition, you still grant Pick Up Sticks the right to use any element of your display photo if they deem it appropriate for same.

You grant Pick Up Sticks the worldwide, perpetual right to use your name as the designer of the display and the winner of this contest, without approval or compensation.

We’re going to say this part again, just so you don’t forget:

You don’t have to purchase anything to win or participate. Internet access and valid e-mail address required. Void where prohibited. All entries must be received by June 18, 2011, 11:59 pm (MST).