First Quarter Coat Drive

If January or February is a relatively slow month for your business, consider launching a coat drive one of those months.

Years ago, before we had our January coat drive, January was our third worst month of sales in the year. The only worse months were the heat of summer in July and August.

That all changed when we added our coat drive in January. Now, January is our fifth best month of the year in sales!

We collect the coats in January. Our messaging is twofold – for people to donate their old coat if they received a new one over the holidays, and to use the donation as a teaching moment for their kids. Either way, the idea is that what might be sitting idle in your coat closet will be an absolute treasure for those locally who do not have a coat.

We collect the coats at all of our locations in January. Then we clean them (as needed) in February and March, as we have time. The last few years, at In The Bag Cleaners, we collected more than 10,000 coats and jackets per January. Each time someone donates, we give them a coupon off of their next drycleaning drop off.

Then we deliver them to the Salvation Army, who distributes them free of charge to those in need when it starts getting cold.

What makes the drive such a big success and drives so much traffic to the stores, is having a good media partner. We have the local ABC network affiliate as a partner and their weather team works hard to communicate the need each January during the local news broadcasts.

Reach out if you would like more details or if I can give you more information about this program. The sales increases are great but what is even better is having our whole team rally around a great cause that really helps our community!

Have a wonderful week!
-Dave