For the past month or so, my fellow pawn shop employees and I have been promoting what would be the biggest sale of the year. We've been sending out mailers, sticking little promos on the paper money we give our customers, and telling everyone about the sale and sending them home with fliers. All of these efforts culminated in a day of pawn shop mayhem. Absolutely everything in the store was on sale, there was a free hot dog lunch, and we even had a money machine (a little chamber you stand in as money blows all around you and you try to catch it). Normally, the pawn shop makes a profit of about $1,500 per day. But The One Day Sale brought in over $24,000 in a little over 8 hours.
The day began with coming in an hour and a half early. We flung open the front double doors, weighed them open with mini-fridges, and hauled an expansive array of items out into the front parking lot. Folding tables were unfolded and laden with the most random things, tub after tub of DVDs were scatted about, a large display of CDs was wheeled outside (and precariously balanced on the uneven pavement, I might add. I seriously thought it was going to start rolling and hurt someone. Luckily, it didn't.), and many more things were displayed in the crisp November air. Customers began wondering through the maze of merchandise twenty minutes before we officially opened for business and even stood just outside the open doors so they could peer inside and see what was displayed. There was one teenage boy who kept reappearing every couple of minutes and staring off in a specific direction.
Now, it is important to know that for The One Day Sale, we have a pre-sale that leads up to it. The week before The One Day Sale AKA The Big Sale, little pink tags began appearing on the merchandise in the store. First, they appeared on the guitars and guitar accessories, then they advanced over to the stereo equipment, and then the Ipods and cameras sprouted these bright rectangles of paper, the tools were next, and soon enough everything but the jewelry was pre-priced and the store was a swarm of little pink tags. On these tags were prices listed as "Buy It Now". These prices were fairly good discounts from the original prices of the items and were what constituted our pre-sale, but what really enticed people were the "November 6, 2010" prices. These were the prices that would be available the day of the sale and the day of the sale only. So, when the customers looked at the pink tags, they had to make the decision to either get the smaller discount and obtain their items immediately or wait and hope their desired purchases had not been bought out from under them before the day of the sale. It was a sneaky tactic, but making the individual sale prices known in advance made many customers very anxious--this teenage boy being one of them. He had come into the shop with his mother two days before the sale and had drooled over a specific bass guitar. It had been originally priced at $399.99, but the little pink tag boasted a discounted price of $240 on the day of the sale. The mother and the boy asked me if I thought the bass would still be available on the day of the sale or if I thought it would be sold at the pre-sale price of $280. I was asked this question a lot by many different people concerning many different items, but my response was always the same--"You can never tell. It could still be here, but it's a gamble. You never know who's going to come though that door and what they're going to be looking for." It was a truthful answer--but the truth of the statement was coupled with the intention of increasing the customers' anxiety. It's cruel, I know, but I purposefully responded that way to watch their eyebrows furrow as they weighed their frugality against how badly they wanted the item. It was so much fun.
As it turned out, the boy and his mother's patience payed off. The boy nearly jogged to the bass when we officially opened for business, but tried to act cool once he had it in his hands. He turned it over and over, twisting it this way and that, scrutinizing it with microscope intensity as he ran his fingers across every last square inch of it. Then he sat down and played it for a while before finally purchasing it and leaving the store, trying to act nonchalant but failing to effectively conceal his excitement.
As far as the day of the sale went, I thought things went very smoothly. Everyone was assigned different stations at the pawn counter, the pay day counter, different positions on the showroom floor, and outside. I was assigned a specific register at the pay day counter and must have rang up several thousands of dollars of the sales that day. But for being as busy as we were, things didn't feel overwhelming. Every one of our staff was working and we even had a few other employees from our sister store joining us to help out. There were moments when the lines at the registers stretched across the store, but, still, things went very well. This does not, however, mean that there were no problems.
When we did have long lines, there were numerous people who tried to budge in line, trying to press their way up to the register by coming at it from the side instead of the front. I kindly asked the customers to go to the back of the line, which they were not too happy about, but no one made too much of a fuss. There was also a moment when a woman who regularly buys jewelry tried to pay for a ring with a check but did not have her ID. Without her ID, we were unable to run the check (the machine we run the checks through asks for the ID number and without the physical ID there is no way of putting it in). This woman is slightly mentally handicapped and is a very amusing character because of her passion for rings and the way she constantly adds "if you know what I mean" onto the tail end of sixty percent of her sentences. I felt bad turning her away and she seemed very upset at the idea of not being able to buy her ring at the discounted price. When I suggested that she go home and get her ID and come back, she responded that she couldn't because she was going to help her friend with some yard work that afternoon and wouldn't have time to make it back before we closed. She began to rummage through what seemed like an inordinate number of pockets on her coat, pulling out bills from various places and throwing them on the counter. She even produced a roll of quarters, but, sadly, there was still not enough to cover the cost even after the discount. Dejected, the woman collected her forms of money and the other random things she had pulled from her pockets and left the counter. She did not, however, leave the store until after having roamed the jewelry displays one final time with a sad look on her face. At one point in the day, I remember a hand patting me on the small of my back and feeling a form move past me, but I had been so busy ringing up customers that I didn't turn to see who it was--making the natural assumption that it was another employee. Moments later, I caught a man in the corner of my eye messing with a handmade guitar that hung behind the counter. So, it had not been a fellow employee moving past me but a brazen customer who had no shame in venturing into places he shouldn't. I didn't say anything because a manager was at the register next to me and I thought it was more of his place to direct the man out from behind the counter. This manager, however, said nothing and the man took his time examining the guitar before going back to the side of the counter where he belonged. But when the man tried to invade my work space a second time, I did not remain silent. I turned to block him and said, "Sir, please, do not step behind our counters. If you need something, ask." I was not happy and made this very clear with the tone of my voice. The man seemed a little shocked at my confrontational attitude and appeared to consider my request as both unexpected and irrational. The same manager who had been working beside me the first time the man had come behind the counter stepped in and handed him something. The man mumbled something to me that sounded like "be nice" before walking off. Whatever, dude.
During the sale, we had two two-hour stretches where customers were given raffle tickets and the chance to enter the money machine. These periods of time, as would be expected, found the shop to be more crowded than usual as people milled about, hoping their number would be called and they'd have the chance to snatch some cash from the air. The machine itself was stocked with $500 in the denominations of ones, fives, tens, and twenties. I believe the highest amount that a customer grabbed was $39. I only caught glimpses of people thrashing about and grabbing for money because I was so busy, but the little bits I saw were entertaining enough. I heard that some customers who had not gotten the chance to enter into the money machine bitterly made up conspiracies about us rigging the drawings and/or making grabbing the cash harder than it should have been--how we would have done either of those is beyond me, and how I wish I could have overheard their in depth discussions of exactly how we would have done this--second hand black magic or pawn shop voodoo, perhaps? But what was even more fun than these ignorant ramblings was when, after we had closed for the day, all of the employees were given a chance to go into the money machine. The order in which we went into the machine was determined by all of us drawing numbers. I drew number 14--last place--and had a heck of a time grabbing anything as there only seemed to be a handful of bills left, but one of our female employees--who went second--grabbed $61. I was amazing at how practiced she looked, making it appear so easy. I, on the other hand, only managed to get one bill--thankfully it was a five.
Unfortunately, I was not able to take much advantage of the sales themselves. I would have been happy spending a couple hours looking through everything, but only had a couple minutes to get something when my boss unexpectedly asked if anyone wanted to buy anything. But, as a matter of fact, there was something I wanted. I rushed to where I knew it had been the day before and was shocked to find that no one had bought either of the things I'd wanted. Not only did we have a GameBoy Color (a lime green one, at that), but we also had a copy of Zelda, Link's Awakening DX (the DX meaning that it has an extra dungeon than the original version of the game). Many fond childhood memories center upon playing GameBoy and, more specifically, this exact Zelda game. What made obtaining these items even sweeter was what a steal they were at the low, low price of $7.04 for both. I really should be spending every free moment I have working on my graduate school applications. I really don't need another distraction, but at least it's a cheap distraction, and a distraction that produces inexpressible joy and comfort when I turn on my GameBoy and hear that happy little Nintendo DING as the system powers up. I'm currently stuck at the end of the second dungeon, but, never fear, I shall prevail!
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