The Specialty Shop
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Review
."..an ideal guidebook for those looking to realize their retail dreams."
"-Dance Retailer News", June 2007
Product Description
This is a lively, informative guide to starting and running a specialty shop - a small retail shop carrying a particular type of merchandise and with only a few employees (sometimes only the owner). Dorothy Finell covers more than 100 niche categories and gives specific examples of 37 successful shops in the US, UK, Australia, Italy, and France. She personally visited all 37 and gives advice from their owners based on her interviews. Shops include bakeries, gift shops, apparel, toys, china, linens, hats, dolls, candles, coffee, tea, books - even a papier mache shop specializing in masks (Venice, Italy).The examples were chosen because the author considers them "fascinating, imaginative, creative shops with a remarkable ambience." In addition to the vignettes, the author provides practical information on key business needs, e.g., pre-planning, decor and display, finances, customer service, marketing, community relations. The appendices include lists of major trade and gift shows, e-commerce sites, and a resource guide to the 37 profiled shops. It also includes many photos.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is superficial and offers useless information. Waste of money. Is a book in which the author likes to brag about her travels.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
9 reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Specialty Shop in Tourist Towns
17 Oct 2007
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
A decent book on the subject, however most examples of the specialty shops that the author used were shops located in the heart of tourist destinations (i.e. Monterey, Carmel, Venice, etc). If you live in average non-tourist locations in America like most people, you'll probably not find much useful information. I did, however, like the listings of industry product shows that I otherwise would not have know existed.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
No truly valuable information
9 Sep 2010
Format:Hardcover
I greatly looked forward to receiving this book from my local dealer. It was a disappointment. Essentially it seems that the author took a lengthy vacation to a few touristy spots and wrote some gushy review of the shops she liked. Her biggest piece of retail knowledge is to have "the right item at the right price at the right time" or something like that, but nowhere in the book is there any sound advice on how to arrive at these crucial decisions. While she highlights her likes and dislikes of a few stores, there's nothing in there about how profitable each of these businesses are. And she does review an array of shops, but it felt as though some of them were merely thrown in- such as the bicycle shop. She mentions that they carry a little bit of everything and have a great location, but doesn't go into any specifics about merchandising or how the owners decided what to stock or even how they decided what brands to carry.
Overall, a breezy read with little content and not for the serious retailer who is short of time and needs to spend it wisely.
Overall, a breezy read with little content and not for the serious retailer who is short of time and needs to spend it wisely.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
helpful though not outstanding
12 Nov 2009
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Many valuable observations, but the book could have benefitted from two things: more metrics (e.g. what are the typical profit margins for different types of retail lines) and more anecdotal advice from customers as well as shop owners. For example, it would have been especially enlightening if every shop owner had been asked the same set of questions (to see trends) and if there had been some customer queries (e.g. "why do you patronize this shop and not others?"
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