The benefits of hosting knitting groups in retail shops are immense as they give you a fantastic opportunity to show your customers new stock which could tempt them into a purchase. Also, if they see another person creating a particular pattern using yarn from your store, you can point it out to them and translate that into a sale.

There is very little outlay involved in hosting knitting groups; I provide refreshments for a small charge. What's more, the people who come to our meetings have now become friends and many of them have been members for nearly five years; ever since we first started.

The Basics
At the moment, I run four knitting groups a month – we call them Click and Clack – and the locations and timings vary as we get a different set of knitters at each one. We hold two daytime sessions in a local deli, which tends to have an older range of people, and two evening gatherings – one in the shop and the second in a local pub. We generally attract much younger customers to the later meetings, as many often work during the day.

Generally speaking, people will come to the sessions with their projects and sit and chat – not just about knitting!– and if anyone needs a bit of advice there is always another knitter or myself on hand to help. If the guidance they need is more complex, we can suggest a suitable workshop they might benefit from. We always have a laugh and recently had a Christmas meal in our local pub, which everyone enjoyed. Better still, we often have a lot of new people who have just moved to the area attending the meetings as they are a great way to meet other individuals with similar interests.

Looking the Part
Our groups are busier in the winter – the summer months are much quieter – however, the evening meetings at the shop are always buzzing. I don't know how popular ours are compared to others, but we always have a core group of customers attending. We are also just about to start running focussed sessions – beginning with a shawl/lace-oriented gathering, which has already been very popular.

We often find that the customers who come to the groups will bring a friend with them the next time they come, which swells the numbers, and also advertise the sessions on our website and in knitting magazines. We also have a sign in our window and at the deli where we have the meetings, and tell customers about the gatherings in the shop – often the main reason many people attend.

Tips for Success!
The main thing to get right is the number of people you can accommodate. I have some folding chairs, which we put out for the meetings, and change the layout of the shop accordingly. We also ask people to let us know if they'll be attending well in advance as we are limited with space – the shop is tiny! Even so, we managed to squeeze 17 in earlier this month!

It can be hard coming back into work after a busy day and having to host a knitting group; I have struggled a few times when my husband hasn't been home and have had to bring the children with me for a while, so being organised is key! I generally like to make the members a homemade cake and try to vary the recipes, which always goes down well, but again, this is something that takes time.

Of course, if you run groups while the shop is open, it can be difficult for the customers coming into the store to see the yarns because of the individuals sitting in front of them and it could also feel quite intimidating for knitters to walk into a place full of people, which is why we moved our daytime groups to the deli nearby.

The most important thing is to take an interest in what everyone is doing; don't just sit down with your own project! I rarely knit much at the groups, but use them as an opportunity to chat to the customers and gauge a feel for what they like and would like to see more of in the shop.

On the whole, the meetings are great and, quite often, our sales increase on the days we have them and although they might not always translate into more transactions, they do enough times for it to make a difference.