How do you reach out to a new customer base? What tactics have been most effective for you?

What a coincidence, we were on the deck talking about this very thing last night.  We stumbled into two untapped customer bases in our ladies consignment store.

1.  A woman, we later found out her name is Kathy, came in the store in a hover-round and of course could not reach many of the hanging clothes.  She asked if we had one of those poles with a hook stores use to hand clothing up high, we did so we loaned it to her, and offered to help if she needed it in the dressing room.  When the OL came home and told me what had happend, I called a friend telling him what I was looking for, and later he called back letting me know where to get aluminum rods, 1/2 inch in diameter (free as a favor in repayment for my QB help).  I fabricated some more of the hook poles and we put them by the front door.

Kathy came back again, saw the stand of poles and got on her phone.  Since then we have had a parade of hover-rounds and wheel chair bound ladies shopping in the store. 

Moral of the story - go out of your way for one customer, and their friends will hear about it.  We are now the go to clothing store for the hadicapped.

2.  During a slow time at the consignment store, a man came in, not unusual by itself, but it got strange when he asked if we would mind if he tried on a dress.  Kind of a surprising awkward moment, butr the OL said sure.

He bought two dresses.  And mentioned that he was a performer, a transvestite performer and appreciated that we did not get upset with his trying on dresses.  A week or so later another guy showed up asking the same thing, since then we are getting folks who do the same thing, from as far away as Austin (2 hours) and San Antonio (1 hour) - each and every one really apprecative of a non judgemental attitude on our part.

You just never know.