Posts filed under 'Apparel & Accessory Merchandising'
I have four days to prep for the next event. This lightbulb is hitting me right now, at this moment. It’s a one day cash-n-carry show right here in San Diego (first in-town event – I can’t believe I don’t have to travel!). I’m ok with the product we have to take, but I have to get my head around other issues.
I’m happy to announce that my sales marathon is going GREAT, although my training sessions are no where near what I envisioned they would be…I can’t put nearly the hour a day into that I want to, but I am accomplishing that hour, or more, on many more days than I was previously.
The thing is that the sales stuff is going so great, and is thus so consuming, that I don’t have time to focus on the other things – like upcoming events. The surge in sales has presented all kinds of new juggling fun – which is why it’s good to grow; every new level presents new challenges.
Being a mom in business is pretty much craziness. I know I’m supposed to be sick right now, – my daughter came home with a fever today and I can feel that achiness, the hot / cold spells, the urge to sleep – but I don’t have time for that. I’m behind on things as it is. Like planning for upcoming events.
This weekend’s event is thrown by Appel & Frank. It will be held on Sunday, March 9, from 11 – 4 pm at the Abbey. I’m excited to be there – it looks like there are a couple of other children’s designers there, but I’m excited to see all the HOT, new, and fun women’s wear and accessories. How great for me, since I never ever get out shopping for myself, I can see some of the trend-setting stuff. FUN. I should also mention that I don’t really like shopping, so something like this is perfect – all in one space and all the good stuff.
If you are in Southern California and want to get an exclusive preview of San Diego’s newest and hottest upcoming designers at the Spring into Style event, just email me.
March 4th, 2008
I was researching fashion advertising last night and ran across what I think is a REALLY cool site, both for fashion advertising samples and fashion designing inspiration. The site is:
Fashion Ad Resource: http://www.fashionadresource.com/
Here’s what I think is great about the site:
- You can view past advertisements by designer brand or by type.
- She has a great section on magazines – which preview images from the decades of the last century.
- You can zoom in on the images twice, so you can actually see them!
Her homepage has her bio, so you can read a bit about her by clicking on the link above.
Enjoy!
February 19th, 2008
I got an email last night from someone I met at that tradeshow. This is someone who made an appointment to see us at the show, interested in carrying our personalized baby blankets in their personalized gift boutique. They came, they critiqued, they balked that OUR LABEL WAS ON OUR PRODUCTS, and then they left.
I sent a follow-up email after the tradeshow, to say “great to meet you” and blah blah niceties. Two weeks go by and I get a response last night – telling me they won’t be carrying our blankets but to let them know when if we ever have new prints, oh and by the way – “I hope you got a chance to see what some of the other bedding companies are doing”.
And that was how it ended. Not even a period at the end of that sentence. At first I didn’t know why it bothered me. Besides the fact that we define ourselves as a trend-setting company and “copying” other companies is the last thing I’m into, what bothered me is that there was absolutely no reason for the snippiness. No reason at all.
So, I guess those are some of “those” people that you run into in this business. But all it does is confirm for me that I never want to become one of those people. All she did was leave a bad impression on me – and confirm that no, I will not be contacting her when we have new prints. Or ever. On the bright side, darn it if isn’t “those” people that light an extra fire, make me want to prove all the more how successful we’re going to be…so maybe we need a little snippiness here and there.
October 1st, 2007
We’ve been talking about performing some usability testing on our website for awhile, and today we finally accomplished that goal. It was amazing. All these “little” things that I’ve let myself think nothing of were actually big glitches for the user.
I can not believe how much I learned by sitting silently behind someone and watching them browse our site. Luckily for me, I’ve worked with our site tester for years, so I knew she would be perfect. She was perfect because, as she says, “I have no patience for anything, if I don’t like, I’m gone”. Plus, she’s really good at thinking out loud, so I could take notes on what was tripping her up.
The good news for us was that she had no problem navigating the site and felt confident shopping on our site because of our privacy and security notices.
The bad news was the number of glitches during the checkout process that must’ve been driving people batty. However, this is good news too. Believe me, it’s comforting to find reasons people are abandoning their shopping carts – makes the site traffic conversion rate make a lot more sense.
We’ve already used her feedback to streamline the checkout process, and I’m starting to make some of her recommended content edits and changes.
If you are running an online boutique, I recommend you get user testing on your site. Highly recommend it. Sit behind someone and observe your site in action. Give the user some generic directions – mine were “you’re shopping for a cool baby shower gift”.
The first thing our user did was google our business name, rather than typing the name into the URL. She was then impressed that the whole first page of google results had to do with our business and that product reviews showed up.
The website designing and traffic building is a constant process of improvement. I feel SO much better about our site after seeing someone else use it.
June 10th, 2007
We spent this past weekend at a big cash-n-carry show. We learned so much I can’t believe it. I highly recommend this experience to everyone who is launching their own line. I can’t tell you how invaluable it was to have so much direct contact with retail buyers – the end users of our products. We got a lot of feedback, we have a better idea of what will sell, and we learned more about pitching our line to customers – so we know our selling points a little better.
The biggest lesson we learned at this past show was how much sales depend on the booth display and the product presentation. We were leaps and bounds above where we’ve been in the past, because we had some awesome banners and graphic signs this time. But we were surprised by different wall heights than we expected and then we, well, basically had a lot to learn.
The first day, we didn’t have enough product out. I can’t say enough about selection, selection, selection. Show the buyers that you have a lot of choices. My husband describes it as “have more than they take in with a simply walk-by”. You need teasers to grab their attention, and then you enough choices to pull them in.
We even switched up our display for the last three hours of the show, and our sales increased dramatically during those three hours. We moved both tables to the front, filled them with nicely-organized product, and added a couple of signs.
We are now eagerly planning for the next show, we feel like we’re slowly coming into our own, now that we’re getting past the initial first-few-shows shock. By all counts, the ABC show is supposed to BIG this year, so we’re setting our eyes on standing out there and merchandising our product well.
The signs helped. Now we’ll work on extra shelving and display options for the rest of the booth. All in the name of pulling the buyer into our booth to look for more.
The worst this weekend was the booth next to us had this HUGE easel that completely blocked the view of our booth for people coming down the aisle. It was completely beyond regulation and it took us almost the whole two days of the show to fight with that one and get her to lower it so it wasn’t blocking us and unfairly trapping attention. I’ve decided there’ll be all types at every show. I would never dream of doing that to a neighbor, but I guess if you’re desperate…
May 2nd, 2007
I think we might have a prayer of meeting our two big deadlines. Celebrity event (watch us scramble like blind mice) and KIDShow. Won’t we all be interested to see how KIDShow goes? Will it be worth the money we’re about to spend? Huge blessing is that my dad just retired and he’s going to come to our house and stay with our kids for the week. Bless his heart. I’m sure my mom will join him and they can have a jolly olly good time.
We’re in the buckle-down phase now. I’m going to fess up and be completely honest that I haven’t gotten one scratch of a sketch to my pattern maker yet. I definitely got de-railed by planning for this celebrity event, but have faith in our ability to roll with the punches. So, we’ll slim down our offerings even more. Even if we just go with our blankets, which are completely developed and ready-to-go, at least we’re going and we’re going with something to be proud of. But we’ll get beyond that.
For all of these things, merchandising and display comes into play. I can’t believe how many aspects there are to this business. We need to sit down and figure out display options that we love for:
- In-store displays
- Celebrity event (marketing event) displays
- Trade Show Displays
In-store displays: We need our blankets to be well-displayed, and sprawled out enough that customers can see immediately that there is a name appliqued onto the blanket. We need solutions for wall hangings, shelf displays, and floor displays, and we need to keep it simple. They MUST stand out.
Celebrity Event: Signs and wall displays will double for marketing events and trade shows. Capitalize on dual-usage as much as possible. Marketing event table display for gift-ines; marketing materials and coupons will be different than trade show materials.
Trade Show Display: More space than the marketing event for display options, different size and shape of table, and garment racks provided. Different set up, but definitely can keep it along the same lines as the marketing events. It should be a marketing event anyways.
We need to study merchandising now. Or more, just work up some mock displays and get it right. At least it’s something new and exciting. Need to take some time to brainstorm with my eyes closed, but don’t see that happening until after the holidays. My husband is with me all the way, and he does just as much as I do to plan and prep for this, I don’t know how any of it would be possible otherwise. Eternally greatful for his belief in this business.
December 20th, 2006
