Razor Blades and Titrates of Silver
Ah, another placeholder post.
Life proceeds. There are, as always, projects in the works. Some are bigger, or may grow to be, than others. Only time will tell. Situation normal. Thank the heavens I am patient by nature. My workings must be labyrinthine, the time it takes for things to proceed from one end to the other.
Work has been...tenuous. We usually experience a dip in trade late March, early April, but the dip this year was so sharp and sudden and on the heels of an overall unimpressive period for all retail that it almost killed us. The dull patch is normally about three weeks, and we have in the past just soldiered on. This year it was six. I've been balancing our budget on a hair, trimming fat we didn't have and generally trying to keep the staff calm and the boss calmer. I think we're through the worst of it, but after the general sense of malaise at PornCon this year, we're going to need to pare down and sharpen up. I may finally have convinced the boss that all that floor space dedicated to DVDs is wasted, which may help getting the profit per square metre ratio back up...
This is a bit tedious, I suppose, to people who aren't me, but I do rather enjoy tinkering with the tiny numbers. I'm good at it. I'm good at all the little manipulative things you can do with a space to squeeze the most out of my customers. Merchandising to lead the eye. Music to calm the mind on the stereo, so people are less stressed and able to order their thoughts more effectively. Laying out the floor for smoothness and plausible deniability. Seriously. I moved the prostate toys to sit with the vibrating rings and sales spiked - shamed out het boys were more comfortable standing in front of the shelf if they could tell the pretty girls working there they needed a ring so they could MASCULINELY bone their TOTALLY FEMALE girlfriend, giving said pretty girls enough time to convince them that actually, we don't give a damn. Strategically placing the lube and cleaner so no one finished their session with a yeast infection and friction burn. Little things. Bright cheerful balloons outside my door adds two or three hundred dollars to my take. The right fragrance in the air fresheners improves our conversion. A set of dark framed glasses and my sales average jumps. It's fascinating.
And the best part is that if I do my job right, people will also get the most Bang out of their visit. This would be fun if I were selling computer parts or second hand books, but since I'm selling permission to climax it's even better. And the quality of toys has spiked in the last few years too, so there is very little overpriced garbage out there now. It really is a simple Os-Per-Dollar ratio, multiplied by skill.
Anyway. It's getting better. I'm still concerned about the overall state of the industry, and PornCon back on the 14th didn't help that. Web retailers are doing okay, brick and mortar not so much, porn poorly indeed. It's good to see a ray of sunshine in the clouds.
I have a slightly elderly short story wallowing around in purgatory. Very much in puratory, it's got demons in and all. I've taken to curling up with the wee netbook in the living room under a big pile of blankies of an evening, and lap top keyboards drive me to distraction. The touchpad on this little toy also has some odd gestural thinger going on that I still haven't worked out yet. At any rate I have great plans to rig up some sort of swing table thinger and bring in the wireless keyboard and mouse to my little toasty nest, for to make some serious writings over the winter, so fingers crossed I manage it soon or I may have my face eaten off by a restless succubus.
Metaphorically speaking.
Life proceeds. There are, as always, projects in the works. Some are bigger, or may grow to be, than others. Only time will tell. Situation normal. Thank the heavens I am patient by nature. My workings must be labyrinthine, the time it takes for things to proceed from one end to the other.
Work has been...tenuous. We usually experience a dip in trade late March, early April, but the dip this year was so sharp and sudden and on the heels of an overall unimpressive period for all retail that it almost killed us. The dull patch is normally about three weeks, and we have in the past just soldiered on. This year it was six. I've been balancing our budget on a hair, trimming fat we didn't have and generally trying to keep the staff calm and the boss calmer. I think we're through the worst of it, but after the general sense of malaise at PornCon this year, we're going to need to pare down and sharpen up. I may finally have convinced the boss that all that floor space dedicated to DVDs is wasted, which may help getting the profit per square metre ratio back up...
This is a bit tedious, I suppose, to people who aren't me, but I do rather enjoy tinkering with the tiny numbers. I'm good at it. I'm good at all the little manipulative things you can do with a space to squeeze the most out of my customers. Merchandising to lead the eye. Music to calm the mind on the stereo, so people are less stressed and able to order their thoughts more effectively. Laying out the floor for smoothness and plausible deniability. Seriously. I moved the prostate toys to sit with the vibrating rings and sales spiked - shamed out het boys were more comfortable standing in front of the shelf if they could tell the pretty girls working there they needed a ring so they could MASCULINELY bone their TOTALLY FEMALE girlfriend, giving said pretty girls enough time to convince them that actually, we don't give a damn. Strategically placing the lube and cleaner so no one finished their session with a yeast infection and friction burn. Little things. Bright cheerful balloons outside my door adds two or three hundred dollars to my take. The right fragrance in the air fresheners improves our conversion. A set of dark framed glasses and my sales average jumps. It's fascinating.
And the best part is that if I do my job right, people will also get the most Bang out of their visit. This would be fun if I were selling computer parts or second hand books, but since I'm selling permission to climax it's even better. And the quality of toys has spiked in the last few years too, so there is very little overpriced garbage out there now. It really is a simple Os-Per-Dollar ratio, multiplied by skill.
Anyway. It's getting better. I'm still concerned about the overall state of the industry, and PornCon back on the 14th didn't help that. Web retailers are doing okay, brick and mortar not so much, porn poorly indeed. It's good to see a ray of sunshine in the clouds.
I have a slightly elderly short story wallowing around in purgatory. Very much in puratory, it's got demons in and all. I've taken to curling up with the wee netbook in the living room under a big pile of blankies of an evening, and lap top keyboards drive me to distraction. The touchpad on this little toy also has some odd gestural thinger going on that I still haven't worked out yet. At any rate I have great plans to rig up some sort of swing table thinger and bring in the wireless keyboard and mouse to my little toasty nest, for to make some serious writings over the winter, so fingers crossed I manage it soon or I may have my face eaten off by a restless succubus.
Metaphorically speaking.