Winmark Corporation, the Resale Company, has been bringing resale franchises to communities across North America since the 1980s. Our brands, Music Go Round®, Once Upon A Child®, Plato’s Closet®, Play It Again Sports® or Style Encore®, are positioned in an ideal spot for success within a growing industry. Reduced prices for high-quality used items is appealing to customers – whether they’re looking for a deal or want to help out the environment.
Our years of experience and knowledge has helped us develop a strong support system that provides our franchisees with the tools, resources and guidance needed to operate a successful resale franchise. Here are just a few:
Site Selection
As a first-time franchisee, opening your first store is incredibly exciting – but finding the perfect location can be daunting. We understand how intimidating the site selection process is to do alone, so we have a team dedicated to assisting franchisees on their journey to find the right location to open their store.
When it comes to real estate, we want our franchisees to make thoughtful decisions – the entire location must fit into their business plan. Franchisee are discouraged from signing a lease that doesn’t economically make sense. The real estate search can be grueling, but it doesn’t have to be thanks to our dedicated support team.
Check out this blog post for more information.
Store Layout and Design
One of the most integral parts of ensuring store success is maximizing the layout and spatial design. You want to make sure your store layout results in a positive and convenient experience for customers, whether they’re looking for a particular item or seeking to get cash on the spot for their used items.
A hallmark of our resale brands is our open-concept, customer-centric store design. In order to capitalize on this store layout, franchisees need to integrate their inventory management into the overall layout and design of their store. Through sales incentives that keep products moving off the shelves and the use of off-site storage, franchisees can offer fully-stocked stores while avoiding clutter and negative customer experiences in any of our stores.
For more information, check out this post detailing three simple store design factors that impact sales.
Franchise-Specific Product and Trend Training
When it comes to making sure our franchisees are successful, we do ongoing market research for all of our brands to determine the styles and items that are hot in the market. We may be in the resale business, but it’s essential to our franchisees’ success that the products they offer are current and in style to their customers.
Once our research is complete, we take the time to educate our franchisees through a variety of channels, including webinars, publications and regional meetings – so they can remain up to date on the latest styles and trends in their respective industries. Not only do we train our franchisees on how to know what styles and items are hot on the market, but we also train them to buy year-round instead of focusing on the short term with current or upcoming seasons.
For more information, check out this blog post on how our quality control captures trendy, thrifty shoppers.
Inventory Management Assistance
In the world of resale, your customers double as your suppliers. They are your main source of receiving inventory – making them the drivers of your ability to sell.
In order to keep our franchise partners’ locations up to date on their inventory, we use a highly specialized POS system called the data recycling system (DRS). This system tracks products using information about the item’s brand, date of purchase, category and subcategory to determine the appropriate price – helping franchisees plan and refresh their inventory as needed.
Take a more in-depth look at our inventory management support for franchisees here.
How to Get Started
Are you ready to become part of the rapidly growing resale industry? Contact us today to learn more about franchising with Winmark brands.
