October Action Plan

Start your holiday event planning now before the madness begins!

• October 16: National Bosses’ Day. Create a display of desk accessories, candy and flowers.
• October 19: Sweetest Day is always held the third Saturday in October. Set up a display with cards, gifts, candy, and flowers. Sweetest Day is a strong holiday in the northeast and central states.
• Halloween is just 36 days away!
• Train cashiers your procedures to follow when a shoplifter is spotted.
• Order bag and wrap supplies for the holidays. Assign someone to restock the register area from now to December 25.
• Remember, credit cards sales will account for about 40% of your total sales.
• Be the first to say, “Hello! Good to see you!” Smile at everyone you meet.
• Set and post sales goals for October, November and December, since this quarter should represent some 40-50% of your annual retail sales. This will motivate everyone to do and be his or her best during this busy period.
• Meet with your flower vendor to ensure that your cooler will be well stocked with holiday plants and flowers throughout November and December.
• Begin promoting gift certificates as co-worker holiday gifts in the hospital newsletter and at the cashier counter.
• Plan, write and submit holiday merchandise news/features to the hospital’s newsletter. (Plan to feature something in each issue to keep your shop “top of mind” during the holiday season.)
• Plan holiday displays for the next eight weeks.
• All Halloween merchandise should be on display in the shop by the first of October.

…. see the rest of October and action items for all year in the Twelve Month Action Plan

JOB OPENINGS

Gift Shop Manager
Hannibal Regional Hospital, Hannibal, MO
Under the day-to-day supervision of the Director–Guest and Volunteer Services and in conjunction with the Auxiliary Board, the Gift Shop Manager is responsible for the retail operations, volunteer training and oversight of the gift shop. View more…

Gift Shop Manager
Houston Methodist Hospital, Houston, TX
At Houston Methodist, the Manager Gift Shop position is responsible for managing the Gift Shop staff and daily operations, providing oversight to ensure high quality, retail services over all retail locations and offices.  This is accomplished by working with the Gift Shop director and Auxiliary Board to execute a strategic and operational plan and generate revenue that supports the Auxiliary vision. View more…

Gift Shop Supervisor
SCL Health, Butte, MT
Establish gift shop budget, accountability for variances with actual results. As a Gift Shop Supervisor you need to know how to: You know how to move fast. View more…

Tools and Step-by-Step Guides
for
Gift Shop Managers

How to Conduct A Physical Inventory
Benchmarks for Hospital Gift Shops
How To Implement an Employee Payroll Deduction System
12-Month Action Plan for Hospital Gift Shop Managers & Buyers

Available for immediate download!

EIGHT QUESTIONS WHO DETERMINES WHERE YOUR SHOP’S PROFITS GO? 

We request proposals from various departments by a certain date and then the board meets to discuss them.  Once we have decided on the ones we want to support, we put it to a vote at the auxiliary meeting.  We also have two scholarships for $2500 each, for hospital employees furthering their education and we work with Human Resources to review applications and select recipients. Some of this money comes from the Gift Shop and some from cookbook sales, scrub sales, bake sales etc.

We try to hold a training meeting for volunteers in the fall before the holidays to review policies, such as returns, and to brush up on procedures and field ideas.  We have a notebook in the shop for volunteers to record ideas, complaints, requests and for me to leave information about merchandise.  I also host a lunch or tea party once a year for all the volunteers to thank them for their hard work.  This is in addition to our Auxiliary Volunteer Luncheon which is put on by the hospital every spring.  They recognize the hours given by each volunteer with pins for our badges, and small gifts.  One volunteer of the year is chosen and given a plaque, pin and gift.  Thanks for all the wonderful ideas in your newsletter.  Almost every issue gives me a jump start on something new.  This is my response for the quarter.  — Sandy Oldfield, Coquille Valley Hospital, Coquille, OR. 19 beds. 10/16/19

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

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

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:

• 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!
• 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

PROMOTIONS