Selling Robes in the Hotel Shop: Price, Labels and What Guests Buy

Short answer: sell the same robe that hangs in the room, boxed, with a proper retail label, at about three to four times what it cost you landed. Start with stock equal to 10 percent of your rooms and reorder with your housekeeping robes.

Why it is worth doing

Guests already want the robe. A retail offer gives them a way to have it without taking the one in the room, and each sale covers the cost of several that do go missing. It also puts your name in someone's bathroom for years.

Setting the price

Work from landed cost, not from the FOB price.

The freight and packing lines here are examples. Put your own numbers in. The multiple is yours to choose, but a robe priced too low looks like a souvenir and one priced too high does not sell.

What a retail robe needs that a room robe doesn't

• A sewn-in label with fibre content, care symbols and country of origin. Shop goods are consumer goods, and labelling rules apply.
• A size. Room robes can be one-size. Retail buyers want to choose.
• A box or bag that survives a suitcase. A belly band is cheaper and fine for sales at reception.
• A barcode or price tag your point-of-sale system can read.
• A clean robe. Sell new, sealed stock. Never sell from housekeeping circulation.

Our packing and labelling guide explains each label type and pack level.

How many to hold

For a 100-room hotel, start with 10 to 15 boxed robes across two sizes. Watch what sells for a season. Resorts and spa hotels sell more than city business hotels.

Ordering

Order the retail robes with your housekeeping robes so the fabric, shade and embroidery are from the same run. White robes start at 50 pieces per size, and private label is possible at that quantity if you supply your own labels.

To cut loss in the rooms as well, read why hotel bathrobes go missing. For logos, see the monogrammed bathrobe page. Ask us for a quote for room and retail robes together.