The closer it gets to the holiday gift-giving season, the more
customers we have requesting “gift receipts” (a receipt that doesn’t
list the price of the item but which the recipient of the gift can
use to return/exchange the gift). Our store is not computerized; the
price tags on our jewelry are handwritten, and presently the only
receipt our customers receive are cash register and/or credit card
receipts.
Anyone have any good (meaning quick and simple!) ways to offer
customers gift receipts?
The only thing I can think to do is give the customer our business
card, and on the back of the card write a description of the item
along with a numeric or alphabetical code which employees will be
able to decipher to determine the price paid.
Anyone have any suggestions for price codes which will allow
employees to determine prices but which will be more or less look
meaningless or be indecipherable by customers?
Thanks all! Hope your sales for October have been better than mine!
One quick way is to use a phrase with 10 letters, in which none of
the letters repeats like “Kays Friend”. Decide if the 1st character
is a 0 or a 1, then count up from there. If the 1st character is a
0, then the last is a 9. If the 1st character is a 1, then the last
character is a 0. Pretty simple, but effective. Your customers
will have no clue what is going on.
Silverfoot-
Jewelry Designer and Craftsman
Main Site = www.firescale.com
HI Doug Most jewelers use who code, use a 10 letter word or words to
symbolize the price code. Such as:
B L A C K W H I T E
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
So, if a ring cost you 100, the code would be BEE some use other
letters like X or Z for the second zero (BEX would be $100)
YOu could even code retails right on the receipts this way but I
code my inventory tags so I know what things cost without going to
the computer. I like to use POS software though…
Maybe you could make a list of items sold with descriptions, and
each item would have its own number. On the “gift” receipt you just
write the number of the item. Then if it is returned you can check
your master list to see which item it is and its price. In this
digital age another option (one that I am attempting to initiate
myself) is to have a digital “catalog” of works, again each numbered
(with date created for me), and a price for each piece. This would
give the salespeople a visual guide also, to be sure what is being
returned to you is what was purchased from you. Gift tags and
receipts DO get mixed up sometimes! I have thought the visual
catalog would be very helpful when I have others working with me who
are not as familiar as I am with my work!
I have been using this method for a couple of years to create “item
numbers” on my one-of-a-kind pieces for shows:
cost x 2 + "-" + random number
so
Example 1: Something that cost $123.85 to produce would become item #:
024770-56
Example 2: Something that cost $519.26 to produce would become item #:
103852-12
It has been working quite well for the past couple of years…
find a ten letter word, that has all different letters. assign a
number to each letter (0-9) and then code the price that way. #s
before the comma are capitals, # after the comma are lower case.
stick a laminated post-it note with the word to your cash register,
so your personell can figure it out from there. the reason for not
using a straight 1-a 2-b 3-c etc, is, that it`s too easy to figure
out. This is the way we marked our whole sale prices on our retail
price tags at my very first job ever.
danube ship (hey that one works in German *AND in English
quick and simple ways to offer customers gift receipts? The only
thing I can think to do is give the customer our business card,
and on the back of the card write a description of the item along
with a numeric or alphabetical code which employees will be able
to decipher to determine the price paid.
That method sounds like a good one.
Anyone have any suggestions for price codes which will allow
employees to determine prices but which will be more or less look
meaningless or be indecipherable by customers?
There are MANY alphabetic codes. Any phrase of ten letters with no
duplications will work, if everyone remembers it. One which I know
(NOT my secret code) is BLACKHORSE 1234567890.
So that BLA/CK equals $123.45, and BB/SR equals $11.98.
Hi Doug, I worked at a store many years ago that had a couple of
different cost codes. One technique that is very easy is to come up
with a 10 letter word that is easy to remember and assign a number to
each letter. ie: They used “cleopatris”…to reference…1234567890
So $1,280.00 would be coded clrs.ss or clrs if you wanted to leave
off the change. This can be written inside of the gift box for easy
reference.
The same thing can be done with your internal cost codes on the
actual jewelry tags of each piece…I would suggest using a different
code though…Your employees don’t need to know your actual costs. To
avoid confusion as to which code is which you can use simple symbols
instead of letters…I’ll describe them instead of typing
them…you’ll see why…
ie: 0,
0 with a line through it,
0 with an X through it,
=,
= with a line,
#,
-,
+,
box shape,
Z
Put these in any order that is easy for you to remember…make a key
for yourself and for your employees to reference.
2) Anyone have any suggestions for price codes which will allow
employees to determine prices but which will be more or less look
meaningless or be indecipherable by customers?
Hi, Probably the most comon way of including a ‘wholesale’ or cost
price on a sales ticket which would also fit purpose you have in mind
is to replace each number with the letter of a ten-letter word which
has each letter used only once. For example, a jewellery wholesaler I
used to deal with used the word SUTHERLAND so that S=1, U=2 etc.
Unless the customer knows the word used, of course, the code will be
meaningless to them. To complicate matters further, this particular
wholesaler also had a second price on the ticket which was the same
word written in an old Germanic script from the owner’s homeland.
Hello, Doug, About price codes I know this: Figure out a 9- or
10-letter word, with no repeating letters.
V-I-C-K-S-B-U-R-G will work.
S-I-L-L-I-N-E-S-S will not.
Assign numbers 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 to the letters. Use a blank for
zero in the 9-letter-word instance. Substitute letters for numbers on
the attached business card, and, voila, there’s your price, and/or
cost code. Cost codes are handy for the wheeler-dealers that
occasionally wash ashore, that the cat drags in, that fall off the
turnip truck…
I agree use a word and sub out numbers for your letters. This will
give employees an idea of how much they can sell for and you will
know what you have in it.
The only thing I can think to do is give the customer our
business card, and on the back of the card write a description of
the item along with a numeric or alphabetical code which employees
will be able to decipher to determine the price paid.
I worked in a store that gave out gift enclosure card that had a
bunch of gobbleygook numbers and last in the line of numbers was the
price written backwards. You could have a code for pieces ,numbers
or letters denoting ring, earrings etc. and that would go before the
price
so a ring for let's say $259.00 could be 8989 111 00952
inventory code or blah,blah ring price all they see is
898911100952 (or a shorter code!)
or use a code using letters to replace numbers. Some people do
figure it out but i don’t know any one who really likes having to
ask the person who gave them the gift for the receipt.
