CALENDAR

Recognition
An unknown author wrote “The deepest craving in man’s soul is his desire to be appreciated and recognized.” Don’t you want to be told when you’re doing something right? Aren’t we all suckers at heart for a bit of praise? Sometimes, all it takes is a bit recognition and encouragement.

A problem is a chance for you to do your best!

Who Determines where your SHOP’S profits go?

Our gift shop makes an annual donation to the hospital from our proceeds. We select a date for our “shopping spree” donation meeting. Next we get a list of ‘requests’ from the hospital. Then we label individual gift bags for each ‘request’. Invite hospital employees who can speak about the need/benefit of each item requested. After volunteers have heard about each item we pass out play money – 1 five, 1 ten and 1 twenty. Volunteers vote by placing their money in the gift bag of their choice. They can place all of their money in one bag or divide it. The bag with the highest amount of money is the source of the donation to be given. Often the total amount we have to give is divided between a few items. The volunteers love having involvement in this fun way. The employees who come to present have a chance to connect with the shop volunteers and personally thank them. — Toni Gildone, Gift Shop Manager and Volunteer Coordinator, Monadnock Community Hospital. 9/4/19

The profits from the gift shop and vending services (we stock and collect from all 19 vending machines in the hospital) are given to the Volunteer program. These profits along with proceeds from our outside vendor sales (held 6 times a year) are placed into the Volunteer bank account. A team of people including the Volunteer Services Director, Gift Shop Manager, Volunteer President, Committee Chairs for Projects (Vendor Sales) and Gift Shop/ Vending Services, and the Volunteer Vice President (head of Budget committee) meet to prepare a budget mid-year for the upcoming year. We have some standard items such as teen scholarships, employee scholarships, etc. that we fund year after year. Other requests from hospital departments are considered and then a proposed budget is set before the entire volunteer group for a vote.— Angela Quinn| Cheer Corner Manager, UNC Lenoir Health Care, Kinston, NC. 8/18/19

Our shop has a board of volunteers who review the “wish list” from the hospital. Our board then meets with the hospital foundation members and together they determine where the money goes. If the foundation tells us about a special need in the hospital that is not on the list we will also consider their request. We have been handling it like that for 65 years and so far so good.— Linda Cloud, Manager, The Window Shop, Blodgett Hospital, Grand Rapids, MI. 7/14/19

VOLUNTEER RECOGNITION IDEAS

Q. How do you recognize a volunteer’s high level of volunteer hours (such as 500, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500 – other than with the usual volunteer recognition luncheon plus a generic token gift? Thank you!  — Anne Trocano, Twig Gift Shop Committee Chair/Co-buyer, Rochester General Hospital, Rochester, NY. 530 beds.  6/11/19

We mail a computer-created card with photos of our volunteers to gift shop volunteers three times a year thanking them for their time and letting them know their $$ cumulative register total in sales and what that means in profit towards our pledge. We do this right before we give our donation so when they are present for the check presentation at our luncheon they know EXACTLY how they contributed. It gives them a sense of accomplishment and maybe the necessary pat on the back they didn’t know they needed. — St. Joseph Gift. 8/17/19

Our volunteer recognition luncheon is held each June. I plan each event around a theme. This year I was honoring our blue-ribbon volunteers (all of our volunteers are blue ribbon!) So, it was a county fair theme. Name tags were in the shape of blue ribbons, carnival type games were set up around the venue with silly little prizes to win, the menu was county fair food, and there was live music with a sing-long. Some volunteers couldn’t resist jumping up and dancing! Door prizes were raffled off pies and cakes baked and donated by many hospital employees. It was a lot of fun!  Thank you so much for the newsletter. It is invaluable at keeping us all connected and focused on the cause! — Toni Gildone, Gift Shop Manager and Volunteer Coordinator, Monadnock Community Hospital. 9/4/19

Our hospital gives each of the volunteers a small gift of some sort for Volunteer Week. — A MN shop manager

We have purchased gifts for the volunteers. One of their favorite gifts in the past was an insulated lunch tote (the kind that holds a six pack of drinks). They also LOVE tote bags of most any kind.

Our Volunteer Services Director holds a Volunteer Appreciation Brunch and gives a hospital logo gift or something with “Volunteer” imprinted. We give all hospital volunteers a 25% OFF discount all week.

I send each Gift Shop Volunteer a $5.00 Gift Shop Gift Certificate to their home. This seems appreciated since most of them do a lot of their shopping in our shop. Many of us do not have budgets that would allow us to spend $6-8 for a gift for each volunteer. Midland, MS  — 7/11/19

HOSPITALGIFTSHOP[DOT]COM

Q. Our gift shops have struggled with our on-line presence and for a variety of reasons we do not accept online orders. We take over-the-phone orders and I would like to increase that business. We are considering partnering with hospitalgiftshop.com to provide on-line access to our customers. Does anyone have experience with hospitalgiftshop.com?— Judi Stallings, Manager, Auxiliary Services, Gift Shops/Espresso Cafes. 8/8/19

We are just launching our online gift shop finally! I would like other shops to share their links and any tips or tricks to make it a success! I would also like do know if anyone has used the Demdeco link on their site or a company called Healthy Commerce?

— Jenny Inglett, Retail Coordinator, Gift Shop, Corner Stork Café & Daily Grind, Yuma Regional Medical Center, Yuma, AZ. 8/4/19

We are in the final stages of launching our new website through hospitalgiftshop.com. We are very excited to have it up and running. We have a web presence already, but the fees doubled in the past year. We like that we will still have a web presence, but we don’t have to do any of the work. Just sit back and collect our quarterly commissions. The process was fairly easy, and our marketing and IT Departments were very helpful accomplishing this mission. I highly recommend this service.

— Eric Wininger, Manager, Reading Hospital Gift Shops, Tower Health. 700+ beds

GIFT CARDS

Q. I have been asked to look into selling gift cards for other stores like Best Buy, restaurants, etc. Does anyone have any experience with these? If so, where do I go to find a vendor? Thank you.— Donna Sant, Retail Manager, Carle Hospital Gift shop, Urbana Il 350 beds, 8/1/19   I would also like to know if anyone has purchased one of those gift card centers? If so, what company did you purchase from and what are the margins? Do you think it is successful or do you feel it competes with your business? Thank you for the feedback!   — Jenny Inglett, Retail Coordinator, Gift Shop, Corner Stork Café & Daily Grind, Yuma Regional Medical Center, Yuma, AZ. 8/4/19

For about two years we sold gift cards to Walmart, Target, and about 20 other stores and restaurants. We purchased them from Shop with Scrip. It worked out great for a long while. We got a small discount on the gift cards, sold over $100,00 worth per year, and made about a 5% profit on average. The problems started because of payroll deduction. It was small, at first but we had a number of employees who would charge more than their paycheck could cover. We would then have to make special arrangements with them to get the rest of what they owed. Some paid us back, some did not. Sadly, it got to the point of a few bad apples would charge a few hundred dollars, and then quit. At that point it is nearly impossible to recoup that money. We had to change our policy that the gift cards could only be purchased via cash or credit card. Once that change occurred, we saw a 99% reduction in gift card sales.

— Eric Wininger, Manager, Reading Hospital Gift Shops, Tower Health.700 beds. 8/19/19

Our VP wanted us to carry gift cards, so I found them through our Food Services vendor, Sodexo. A word of advice, if you have payroll deduction, do not let the employees put gift cards on payroll deduction. We just experienced a Christmas season which was dramatically affected by the sale of gift cards, especially Visa. Unfortunately, employees bought the Visa cards to go shopping at the mall instead of in our shop!!

— Minerva Fox, Gift Shop Manager, Wake Forest Baptist Health, Winston-Salem, NC

POS SYSTEM: SQUARE

Q. I’m curious if anybody is using Square POS system? Does it give you the same options for reports and if it’s easy to track inventory as in Quick Books for example? Thank you for the newsletter. I always find lots of helpful information, new vendors and ideas from others. — Sviatlana Masenzhuk, Gift Shop Manager, Vail Valley Medical Center, Vail, CO 49 beds. 8/19/19

We switched to Square two years ago and have been pleased with the program. For what we pay for it, we get accurate information and fast transactions. We have created some easy work arounds to get all the report information we need. Unfortunately, it does not do payroll deductions, so we still have a manual process there. The company is constantly updating, and responsive to requests.

— Karla Glanzman, Manager, Seattle Children’s, Seattle, WA. 340 beds. 8/13/19

We have NCR Counterpoint in our gift shop. We are in our 6^th year with this product and are heading towards an upgrade before year end. The system is fairly user friendly (esp. for the older volunteers).

— Angela Quinn| Cheer Corner Manager, UNC Lenoir Health Care, Kinston, NC  8/18/19

AUXILARIES

Q. I would like to know how many of you still have auxiliary’s, twigs, or other volunteer organization? We keep hearing that auxiliaries are disbanding. While we are small, we are able to contribute over $150,000 each year to our medical center. —Sherry Miller, Gift Shop Coordinator Southeastern Ohio Regional Medical Center, Cambridge, OH. 177 beds

We still have an auxiliary of 240 members. Our Gift Shop alone donates approximately $30,000 to the hospital each year plus what is taken in from vendor sales. We have had a Flea Market for the past 35 years (a one-day sale with two weeks of setting up and pricing items donated by the community and a 50/50 raffle) but had to cancel this year due to the aging of our volunteers. This may take a toll on our numbers as many of our auxilians got their “hours” working at the Flea Market. Thank you so much for this newsletter, Cindy. We’ve gotten many good ideas from it.

— Linda Hocking, Manager War Memorial Hospital Gift Shop, Sault Ste. Marie, MI. 85 beds.

We have all volunteers in our store. I am the only paid staff as manager. We still have an Auxiliary but we are not as active as a few years ago. We hold fund raisers, a Holiday Bazaar, Rocker-thon, Support Fund and The Corner Store/gift shop. We are blessed with great volunteers that work well together and are very dedicated to their scheduled time. Since we no longer handle our big fund raiser, we are still able to donate back to the home between $50,000-$75,000 a year for the Agape Fund that assists residents whose money has been depleted. I enjoy the newsletter.

— Alta S. Yoder, Manager of Gif t Shop and Auxiliary, Living Branches Retirement Community, Souderton Mennonite Homes, Souderton PA. 9/19

CANDLE LINE

Q. I am looking for a new candle line. Right now, I sell A Cheerful Giver, which has been good but I would like to try something different. I would love ideas. Thank you— Jodi Babineau, Sunshine Gift Shoppe Rice Lake, WI. 40 beds. 8/12/19

I have a candle recommendation for Jodi who is looking for a new candle vendor:  Swan Creek Candle Company or email info@swancreekwholesale.com.  I have carried several lines of candles in the past and this one outsells them all consistently.  Also, Stony Creek at Home, Inc. has some wonderful Christmas light up décor and snowmen. Some other Christmas items that I would recommend are items from DM Merchandising, candles, clothing, jewelry, Snoozies socks, anything with snowmen on it, scarves and gloves. Our christmas décor is selling less than it used to; I am noticing that the younger generation prefer minimal items in their homes for décor. Love your newsletter!

—Diane Honsberger, Manager, Volunteers/Gift Shop, Mercy Health, St. Anne Hospital Gift Shop, Toledo OH. 8/23/19

We were also looking for a new candle line and decided to start carrying the Swan Creek Candle line. The sales representative helped us determine the best-selling scents and sizes. We chose to start with 12 scents in the 12 oz. vintage glass containers and purchased the basket displayer to show 16 of the sample-size glass containers (tiny jar with lid). We put them out and customers were amazed by how strong the fragrances were when you opened the lids. We sold so many the first 4 days we placed a reorder of both the sample size jars ($6.99 retail) and the 12oz jars ($16.99). I think the combination of the great fragrance, cute container and the great retail prices make this line a winner. We have been looking to make a change for quite some time from Woodwick and the price increase and move to in-house sales sealed the deal for us.

— Anne Sutton, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Gift Shop, Cincinnati, OH. 8/19

TWO SUCCESSFUL IDEAS

I am still very new at managing our gift shop. These are two things that I have had success with:

1. I have a volunteer who has a flair for displays come in for special holidays displays. I have her come in and do themed displays in the shop to draw attention to the store and get people browsing. This has increased sales. Hospital staff who have not previously been a patron of the store are now coming in regularly to see what’s new!
2. While time consuming, I have been taking pictures of the new products that come in. Then, once a month I send a house-wide email sharing what’s new in the gift shop for that month. I will add some commentary with the pictures. —Christina Blaskie, CPXP, Manager, Patient Experience, Volunteers, Gift Shop, Community Health, LaGrange, IN. beds 25. 8/17/19

CBD OIL

Q. I would like to know if any hospital gift shops here in Arizona or other states are currently selling CBD products? If so, what was your process to obtain approval from administration? Were there any barriers that you faced or guidelines that needed to be followed? If you were able to carry CBD products what company do you buy from and what products are you successful with? I appreciate any feedback or advice you may have.—Jenny Inglett, Retail Coordinator, Gift Shop, Corner Stork Café & Daily Grind, Yuma Regional Medical Center, Yuma, AZ. 8/8/19.  +: It seems that CBD Oil is all the rage right now. I am wondering if anybody has stocked it in their Gift Shop? If so, how are the sales?— Jodi Babineau, Lakeview Medical Center, Sunshine Gift Shoppe Rice Lake, WI. 40 beds. 8/17/19

With approval from Administration beforehand, I purchased Twine CBD oil in Atlanta at the Link2Sales Showroom. In fact, Link developed the product. However, I put it out and it got downed by the medical doctors doing the drug testing and the pharmacy so I am discontinuing it. It is selling all over our community. I am not a medical expert and our gift shop does not need to be seen as controversial so it is not for us right now. The problem is that in companies where they do drug testing, there is an issue with CBD oil causing them to fail drug test. I sold out of the cream first and am on the last of the oil.—Connie Slingluff, CDVS, Director of Volunteer Services, Blount Memorial Hospital, Maryville, TN. 8/17/19

FOUR GREAT SELLERS!

1. We were purchasing the crisscross undershirt from Accent Accessories but found they were the middleman so they cost more. We found them at Yelete (323-201-3770). They also have great leggings.
2. Soxland International, 800-643-4769
3. Dr. Motion Compression Socks
4. Large wooden 3-D signs; Blessed, Gather, Family, In This House. The larger size sells out quickly. They all sell very well. Pine Designs – Handmade Wood Signs, Dahlonega, GA (706) 867-8509— Linda J. Bacon, Mgr., MHP Medical Center, Volunteer Services/Gift Shop, Shelbyville, IN. 85 beds.

PROMOTIONS