outlook_A63_banner.jpgGloves can be a valuable part of your product mix, adding to the bottom line and helping with customer retention. Here are ten good reasons to build up your glove inventory and make more profit per peg:

10. Gloves are inexpensive. Even very good gloves are an affordable splurge, and many of your customers will want two or three different styles for the different jobs they tackle. Make sure your gloves are easy to find and well stocked. Encourage customers to buy several pairs to keep in their various work areas: a pair in the greenhouse, another in the weeding bucket, one in the garage, and a spare pair in the car.

9. Gloves get lost. It’s a good thing they do, too, because good quality gloves won’t wear out very quickly. If your customers love the gloves they found at your store, they’ll come back for replacements for the ones they lose or lend to a friend. Be the place they can count on for really good gloves.

8. Gloves are a fashion statement. Really! With the bright colors and styles available today, nobody wants to wear boring, white cotton Mickey Mouse gloves anymore. Educate your customers about the relative merits of natural rubber (best grip) and nitrile (best abrasion-resistance) palm dips. Offer them some high-end deerskin gloves, and some combination leather/knit performance styles.

7. Gloves make great gifts! Don’t put your pretty garden gloves away in the winter – put a big bow on the rack and remind your customers that their friends and family will love those brightly colored, versatile styles as much as they do. Gloves are easy to mail and there are styles and sizes to suit everyone. Don’t forget the kids’ gloves!

6. Gloves are thinner. People who “hate to wear gloves” love the new ultra-thin palm-dipped styles that let them feel what they’re doing. They want to be able to pick up seeds and handle delicate transplants with their gloves on. Be sure to have a good selection of sizes and colors of the new sheer glove styles.

5. Gloves are cool. Modern “breathable” gloves help keep hands from sweating. Seamless knit palm-dipped gloves with protective palm and fingertip coatings allow hands to breathe, as do performance styles with leather or synthetic leather palms and knit back of hand. No need to have hot hands – unless it’s cold outside and you want to keep warm, in which case see number 4.

4. Gloves are warm. There are many kinds of winter or cool weather work gloves available today, from thick, soft knits with protective palm coatings to insulated performance and leather styles. Make sure your insulated work and garden gloves are prominently displayed all winter.

3. Gloves are impulse items. Put them all around your store: put the performance and leather styles near the tools, put the palm-dips by the pots and plants, put the ultra sheer styles near the seed racks, and the fully-coated styles by the water feature. Be sure to put a counter-top rack of kid styles at the checkout stands.

2. Gloves are interesting. Well-merchandized gloves start conversations. The gloves themselves should attract interest: bright colors, patterns, logos, and the tags should convey the most important points about uses and benefits. Customers will want to know which gloves work best for which chores, so the more you know, and the more varieties you stock for different applications, the better your sales.

And the number one reason to keep those pegs filled?

1. Gloves sell! Gloves sell because they’re inexpensive, and get lost and have to be replaced; because they’re useful, colorful, fashionable, cool, warm, make great gifts. They sell year-round, and in a dozen different locations in your store. And the comfortable margins on this sweet little impulse item guarantee you a dependable, low-risk source of profit.