Unhappy Customers

                Have you ever had to deal with unhappy customers? Owning your own business it’s guaranteed to happen! What if one of your best customers had a bad experience with a new pair of name brand boots that you had sold them. The brand was most popular for the leather holding up and lasting so long, well hers fell apart within a few months. What do you do? You’ve already bought tons of these boots from this company and sold over half of them and haven’t had any complaints yet. Do you give the customer a full refund, store credit, or nothing at all since you did not make the boots why should you lose money by taking them back? Personally, I would give the customer a full refund and let the company know since they may have had a defect. You definitely want her to know that you care and that you are trying to help her and also keep her happy so that she will want to return back to your store. What would you do?

Forever Vintage

Vintage clothing and accessories are definitely making a comeback in today’s fashion industry. The quality, however, of today’s merchandise is not even comparable to the old stuff that it is being fashioned after.  My goal in having a vintage oriented store is to focus on quality as well as being fashion forward. I want to establish a long standing relationship with the customers that enter my store by providing them with a good quality product and in this way setting myself apart from my competitors. Many businesses offer fashion forward merchandise but the merchandise is poor quality that doesn’t withstand every day wear and tear.  They eventually will lose their customers because people will get tired of buying products that don’t last. Therefore, when opening a business you must consider not only cost but also quality in order to build and maintain customer relationships.

Presentation

             What is it that attracts you to a store? If you see an old run down shop at the end of a nasty street, do you think you would be interested in what they had inside? The presentation of your store is extremely important! How you do you expect to bring customers in if there not already at least somewhat interested. You must make sure that you have a nice clean area out front that offers them a little taste of what you have to offer. Be creative and unique, decorate a little, maybe hang signs up about a sale that you’re having for the week. It may be spring time and you’ve set out gorgeous flowers along the walk way to your entry door. Anything that would catch the eye of your customers and make them curious of what’s inside!

Being Different

 

                Today while I was brainstorming I was thinking about how many clothing/fashion stores were already out there. There are quite a few that is for sure. It is very important that I make sure that my store stands out from all others, which this goes for anyone and their business. If you do not do something different and unique with your business you will just be another store along with the others. It is very important for my business that I maybe have a different style, offer special discounts, or anything at all that would make my store standout to my customers. When it comes to fashion you absolutely must have everything up to date. Everyone will be searching for the newest styles out. Perhaps if your store could somehow get your products in faster than others your customers would know exactly where to go to find their new outfit as soon as possible before anyone else was wearing it!

Nostalgic Momments

I am feeling very nostalgic this afternoon. I know that I often talk about the old vintage styles like my grandma wore and how these styles are starting to come back.  I love this because all those old clothes that I got from her after she passed away are precious memories of her that I wouldn’t give all the money in the world for. Because these styles are coming back, I can now take some of her old clothes and with a little tweaking, enhance my closet with beautiful new pieces that I can wear and not only look stylish in but also feel close to my grandma through the sweet memories of childhood that the clothing brings back to mind. These are clothes that at one point in my life I thought I would never ever wear anything that even looked close to it because they weren’t “cool” clothes; however, now that I am older and these styles are coming back I realize that she wasn’t as out of style as I once thought.  One day I hope to carry a line of clothing in my store that will replicate the clothing that my grandma wore throughout my childhood and in that way always keep her memory alive.

High Prices Cheap Quality

 

Have you ever noticed that some of your old clothes that you may still have put up in a box somewhere may actually be in much better condition than the shirt or pants that you just bought a year ago? Seems to me like you more than likely just paid twice as much money for cheap material that will wear out easily. I actually have a few old shirts of my mom’s that she had when she was a teenager and there isn’t a hole one. Most of the clothing that I have now already seems to be worn out. I believe that you not only must have good style but most importantly have good strong long lasting material! Once your customers start noticing that the clothing and products such as shoes also start falling apart they won’t be buying them from your store much longer! I think that if you start out buying good material in the beginning your business will be more successful in the end!

Keeping Up With Ideas

                I am all the time keeping record of ideas that I may find, whether it be searching the web or just snapping a picture of something that catches my eye. Anything that I see that I may have the slightest idea on how to make it better or even just come up with something completely different, I keep pictures of it on my phone in a specific album. I constantly have ideas running through my head all day. Sometimes I’ll even Google a certain something just to see what ideas I can get from it. My friends and I were shopping a few weeks ago in Huntsville and went in a store called Altered State. Their merchandise was very unique and classy but however the items seemed a bit pricey. I thought to myself I could make some of those same things for half the price at what they were selling it for. So I took at few pictures of their clothing and household items to keep for myself for later on when I will be brainstorming.