I suppose the same is true for fatigue and Movable Type, but I’ll risk it. For those of you who didn’t get Rob’s newsletter (subscribe at ThreadBearFiberArts.com), I’ve spent the last… seven hours or so rearranging shelving after our recent Spring Cleaning Sale. The basic idea was to make room for spring stock, but I also wanted to apply a few pieces of advice that Rob and I have gleaned from our friend and customer from Australia, Stella—a retail usability expert who visited MSU and ThreadBear for a few months last summer (well, winter for her, but she was here, so… HEY! She spent her entire winter in a mild Michigan summer! That dog. I’ll have to look her up so I can avoid February in Michigan some time…. hmm… is this why one shouldn’t blog after a twenty hour day and major physical exertion? Eh, who cares? Hi, Stella!)
Anyway, Stella recommended some further reading, and then Rob saw a piece on CBS Sunday Morning re: retail usability, and well… we were surprised at how much we were doing right… and how much we’d succeeded despite so many things we were doing wrong. So we’ve just been waiting to implement some of what we’d learned. This was our chance. Unfortunately, these chances seem rarely to come with much warning, so I didn’t prepare. It just happens.
So, for those of you who are relatively local, beware. Hogwarts is in full affect at Chez ThreadBear. If you were in the store at close last night, it’s a whole other world, now. If you work for me and you’ll be in the store today, I offer my most sincere condolences. I truly don’t do this just to annoy you. It’s just a pleasant bonus. 🙂
But now, I’m home. The dogs are asleep on the sofas, and I heard Rob’s breathing when I walked by the bedroom door. I’ve been home later after one of these excursions, but I don’t recall too many times coming home any more exhausted. *YAWN!* Wish me luck. Maybe no one will revolt completely at the changes. With any luck, they’ll actually be as workable and as nice as I’d hoped they’d be. I, for one, couldn’t tell you. Be the time I was done, I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to tell. Maybe that’s not such a great thing, but when the store is open seven days a week, the opportunity to move things around doesn’t really present itself during convenient hours.
Good night… or good day.
I’m out.