Building the Boutique

Last week I got the exact news I was hoping not to get!

For those of you who have been reading this blog for a while, you probably (hopefully?) remember me going on and on about this new line Bryce & Bouji that I have coming in for the fall. I’ve been hyping it up quite a bit and the pieces I ordered from them were some of my absolute favorites that I’ve come across so far. Well at the end of last week I get an email telling me that they’re about to ship….yay! Then I ask if the fifth piece I ordered went into production or not (it was up in the air because the sales reps said other buyers werent responding well to it). It turns out that THREE out of the five pieces I ordered were not produced!

THREE.

That’s over half my order! And they were pieces I was just dying to try on. Sigh. Can I just rant for a second here? I don’t get what’s wrong with the other buyers. They have the weirdest taste when it comes to this line. Pretty much all the peices I absolutely loved, they didn’t, and the pieces that did well with the other buyers were hit or miss if you ask me.

I can’t complain too much though, the two strongest pieces are still coming through and I was able to exchange the two items. But there’s some very lucky size 00 showroom rep who’s rockin’ those samples.

One more good thing…the peices are coming in a couple of days ahead of scheduele, which has been a life saver, so be sure to check back for pics later this week.

Celeb Sighting!

I love it when celebs wear stuff I’ve purchased! Here’s Hilary Duff, from a couple of days ago, wearing the the Deep Teal Love Quotes scarf. This was a color that I was on the fence about but she totally makes it work. Love the leather pants too.

In case you didn’t know, when I went on my little buying trip a couple of months ago for my holiday merchandise I picked up my very first accessories line, Onna Ehrlich clutches. I didn’t even plan on buying these but the girls at the showroom showed them to me, and since they had a low minimum I jumped at the chance. I’m absolutely in love with these clutches, I could stare at them all day!

Clutches are really hot this season, so I’m thinking these should do well. I chose the first one because gold is always a hot color during the holidays; how cute would that clutch look with a holiday mini dress? And the reddish/hot pink one is just way too fierce. It’s suede with snake down the middle. These bags are great quality too; they come with little certificates of authentication as well as carrying bags.

If you were to ask me what pieces I’m most hyped about this coming season, these Onna Ehrlich make up bags would be in the top 3. Obviously, I chose them because they make great gifts and/or stocking stuffers (nice price points too). The look is similar to the hot pink clutch above with suede and patent croc. That’s such a genius mix of fabrics/textures. And I also have one in cognac (brown) coming in.

This is the clutch Eva Longoria wore on Desperate Housewives, twice actually, in this color and another. It’s rouched all over and it has this cute little tassel. It’s fun, girly and has a bit of a vintage feel. Perfect for evening year round.

I haven’t decided on the exact prices yet, but the make up bags will retail around $50 with the clutches around $200.

If you want to know when any of these items go on sale, go to the mainpage of OohLaLuxe.com and get on the mailing list! Or you can comment here and I’ll email you.

One of the readers of this blog, who I converse with quite a bit, is starting up a boutique of her own and asked me about one the most daunting (and crucial) parts of being a buyer; contacting sales reps. For those of you who have been reading this blog since the beginning of the year, you probably remember all of those horror stories I mentioned having to do with sales reps. Most of that turned out to be hearsay, but sales reps can be hard to get in touch with. Which brings us to….

How do I get a sales rep to take me seriously if I don’t have a location/website or even a business card? Yeah, good question. I was in this same place right about this time last year. I was sending out emails to showrooms and I probably had about a 65-75% reply rate. Not awful, but I was flat out ignored by plenty of reps, and even now that I’m established I still get the cold shoulder from time to time.

Now, I’m not saying there’s a particular art to contacting a rep for the first time, but there are certain things I think should be included in that email. Here’s an example of what I sent:

Hello [name, if you know it]! My name is Kimberly and I’m the owner of OohLaLuxe.com, a new online boutique that will be open [whatever date], and will be based out of [location]. I would like to receive more information about carrying [line name]. Could you please let me know what the minimums for the line are, and if you would be able to send me the Spring 2009 linesheets, and lookbook, if available, that would be appreciated! Thanks, and I look forward to working with you.

Sincerly,
[full name]
[title, business name]

Now let me break this down line for line and explain why I included all the information I did…

From what I’ve seen, I’d say expect a reply within 48 hours from most sales reps. But give them time because most are extremely busy, and if it’s market week or they’re traveling for a trade show, it will certainly take long. If they don’t get back to within a week go ahead and give them a call. I had one rep email me back with line sheets a full three weeks after I requested them! Unfortunately for her, I had already found a different handbag line for Fall.

But whatever you do, don’t burn bridges because sales reps are the most important contact you have in the industry.

I’m back from a full day of buying yesterday! My dad drove us down to the showrooms and my mom and I went through and did the actual buying. It was so much fun getting to do this again, selecting the clothes is my favorite part of the process. And I got shut down on the pictures again guys, sorry! Anyways, here’s a complete recap of everything that went down:

12:00
We arrive in downtown LA and I’m SO happy because we’ll actually have time to eat before the appointments.

12:20
After parking the car, I realize that’s far from the case.

12:30 – The New Mart
We head across the street to the New Mart for our first appointment at Kathy Walker Sales. Every building in downtown LA is seriously ancient. The elevators are so old and slow and it takes hours just for them to get to our floor.

Another thing I notice….no one goes to Fall II/Holiday/Resort market week. Seriously, the other times I’ve been there (for Fall and Spring) there’s a mob of buyers waiting for the elevator at the New Mart. This time, only about a handful of people were down there.

So we got to the showroom about five or ten minutes later. It’s a pretty nice space and they carry 7 or 8 lines here (including Gypsy 05 and Linea Pelle). Each sales rep in the showroom reps all of the lines broken up by location, which seems pretty unique because I usually see a rep per brand. Anyways, after all that rushing the sales rep tells us she’s running behind and can’t take us at the moment. Now I start to get kind of worried because I spaced my appointments out by an hour plus we had plans for the evening, but I find out that there really isn’t such a thing called a “scheduele” in this industry. Oh. Okay. Good to know.

But I still like to be on time.

12:45 – Designers & Agents (Trade Show)

Since there’s time to kill, we hop on those slow-as-mollasses elevators and head on to the third floor to check out D&A. And for the second year in a row, I’m disappointed with the merchandise being shown here. I thought it was only me, but I found out that this show has a good reputation of having a pretty bad selection. Ouch! Honestly, it’s true. You’ll find a few gems (Alice & Olivia, Iro and a couple other big brands show there), some decent denim lines, and lots of great accessories, but that’s about it.

1:00 – Kathy Walker Sales
We’re back at the showroom, and the rep can take us now. She’s a really cool girl, and gives us a ton of valuable insight about the business and the lines as well. She was very honest about which pieces would sell well and which to stay away from. While I was there I took a look at two new lines for fall; one clothing and one accessories. Oh, and the rep even had to pull a few strings for me to be able to get both collections, because both of the lines were planning on cutting off distribution to online sales. And it’s understandable, since we are brand new, but interestingly the fact that we carry Voom helped.

1:45- Sway Showroom

Yup, we’re running about fifteen minutes late for the second appointment of the way. Thankfully the folks over at Sway Showroom on the 9th floor of the New Mart didn’t mind. Once again, the sales reps are super nice an friendly. Everyone says that people in the industry, and sales reps especially, are snobby but I’ve been lucky to only work with the nice ones!

She showed us the new up and coming indie line that will be on OohLaLuxe.com this fall. Okay, people…this line is GORGEOUS. I already had an idea of what pieces I wanted but so many of the pieces were just so beautiful in person. The line is young and hip, but it has a touch of elegance to it, and usually you don’t see both. I went out on a limb with a couple of the choices I made from the line, but hopefully it pays off. It’s pretty funny too because they didn’t even show me one of my absolute favorite pieces from the linesheets because none of the other buyers cared for it. I still don’t get that; I placed an order for the pieces anyways and I’m hoping it goes to production.

And before I headed out the reps show me a handbag line that I’ve never heard of. Cute, I’m thinking, but I was really weary of taking on another line that doesn’t have much press and isn’t well known. Turns out that this line has been gettin a TON of press…I’m talking Gossip Girl, Desperate Housewives etc., pretty much the who’s who of stylish celebs and TV shows. How did I miss this brand? And I wanted to add some bags/clutches for the holidays. They also had a very flexible minimum, so of course I took advantage of the opportunity. I ordered four clutches and five make up bags from them. They’re super cute with this great mixture of patent croc and suede. I honestly can not wait to get them!

2:30 – Voom @ Brighte

Honestly I can’t remember what time it was, but we probably weren’t on time after having to rush back across the street and register TWICE; once for the CMC (why they need this, I don’t know) and also to get into the Brighte ENK trade show, which always takes forever. They gave us free bags though so I can’t complain too much.

I meet up with the rep for Voom who actually remembers me, which is pretty amazing since it’s been almost a year since I’ve been there. My budget is so much tighter this time around than it was last year so I had to pass up a couple of cute Voom pieces, but I’m very happy with what I got. Picked up couple of cute little black dresses and some others.

We looked around the tradeshow as well, which is smaller than D&A but they have a better selection, in my opinion.

To sum it all up, the trip was successful. I did go over budget, again, but it was a good over budget and not an “I have no self control” over budget. I picked up four new lines, which will be revealed sometime tomorrow, so be sure to check back for the Fall preview!

Market week is coming up this weekend, and on Saturday I’ll be heading down to LA to buy from the Holiday collections. Today I made my all my appointments with the showrooms, starting around noon through the afternoon. This time around I’ll be visiting two showrooms as well as the Brighte ENK trade show to buy from four different lines. And if I have time I might stop by D&A as well.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been planning my budget for advertisement as well as merchandise and just going back and forth over all of the lines and pieces available deciding what to buy. I’m feeling pretty good about the stuff I’ll be ordering! There will definitely be a better variety of merchandise all around next season; more tops and outwear, accessories, and of course, gorgeous holiday cocktail dresses. Three of the lines will be brand new to the store as well.

Still, I’m pretty bummed out about missing the deadline for one of my favorite lines. The sales rep said there would be “little to no immediates available” for fall. Boo. I’m still holding out hope that I’ll be able to get something from the collection, especially since I’m holding back on buying from their Resort collection, because only one or the other will fit in the budget. If I don’t get it, that’s fine because I’m still going to have an amazing line up come this Fall. And if I do? Well all those other boutiques better watch out! (hah!)

Check back here next Monday for the run down. I’m going to try and take more photos of the whole experience, and if I get permission I’ll post a preview of the merchandise. And of course, I’ll reveal the new lines!

Oh, and I’m so glad I spotted this trend before going to buy. I’m calling it mini layers, and I love it! It’s like a mix between dip dyes and ruffles, two of my favorite trends at the moment. Examples:

The first two are from Madison Marcus and the second is Vanessa Hudgens from the TCA’s last night. And I’ve seen more but I can’t remember where. Very cute!

ETA: The people at TFS are calling this Tiered Layers, and some designers are calling it Colorblock Oragami.

Whenever I’m conversing with sales reps trying to get linesheets or information about new lines to carry, I always try my hardest not to sound like I’m not completely new to this. I’ve been to fashion school, I know a little bit about this business, and of course, I want it to show, so it’s important for me to use use the right names for things. One question that I frequently get asked through this site is “what do I ask the sales rep for?”. Hopefully this will make it easier to not only know what to ask for but how to ask for it:

Line Sheet - Usually when you contact a designer/sales rep and you’re interested in carrying their line, you’ll ask for a line sheet. I guess you could say it’s sort of like a catalog. It will usually be in a PDF format and it will have all of the styles listed, with colors, and wholesale prices, sometimes the size range, fabric content and retail prices as well. Some linesheets use actual photos and some don’t which brings us to…

Flat Sketches – It sounds like you know the fashion industry a bit better if you say “flat sketch” than “drawings”; and even after hearing this word 1000 times per day while I was at FIDM I still have to remind myself not to say drawings. These are done using Adobe Illustrator and they’re really annoying for me as a buyer because they don’t accurately show you how a garment will look. Which brings us to….

Look book - A look book is usually a small booklet and it has most of the line presented on a model, usually fully styled, similar to a magazine editorial. All of the ones I’ve seen are only photos, no information, no pricing, etc. This is a good thing to ask for if a designer only gives you a line sheet with flt sketches, but sometimes they aren’t available until closer to the date. Usually a rep will have a PDF of the look book, or they can send it to your snail mail. And it’s always nice to pick one up at the showroom even after you’re done with your buying; I have a small collection of them!

Immediates – These are pieces you can order on the spot and have sent to you right away. I’m not sure if they’re regularly stocked on the floor of a showroom, because I’ve only seen them is at trade shows, but usually you can ask a rep if there are immediates available or if a showroom is very much on the ball, they might put you on a mailing list and let you know what is available (which is something all reps should do w/ immediates as well as line sheets, in my opinion).

Minimums – This is something you ALWAYS want to ask about in advance! Especially if you’re starting out and on a tight budget. Some labels might require that you buy $1500-$5000+ per season or delivery. If that’s your entire budget for one delivery, you probably will want to hold off on that brand until you’re more established. And even if a rep says there are no minimums, there usually are some sort of stipulations that they won’t tell you about unless you specifically ask about it. For example, four styles per delivery, four bodies per style. Or maybe just the latter.

Body – Kind of self explanatory but a body = 1 garment.

A breakdown of what a line sheet looks like, basically, and how to read it.  These are imperative if you’re not buying in person, but even if you plan to do so it’s good to at least know if there’s something you’ll be interested in.

Ugh, I swear sometimes trying to communicate with sales reps is like trying to pull teeth! I’m almost convinced they don’t want to sell their lines at times. All of the reps that I’ve purchased from so far are great, but I’m trying to talk with two at the moment to pick up a couple of new lines and they have the hardest time following up. They say they’re in the process of sending something, and it never shows up. They ask me for my information so they can have the correct rep get in contact with me; nope, never hear a thing. I’m seriously considering buying from an east coast rep because playing email tag is just getting ridiculous.

And speaking of getting into contact with sales reps, that brings me to the real purpose of this post. I recently came across a website for fashion industry professionals that allows you to sign up and find the contact information for just about any line. Great, I thought since I was having a hard time find the info for one line in particular. Turns out once I signed up they want to charge me FIFTY DOLLARS for the contact information of three sales reps! Not only is it bad enough that they’re charging at all for information that you can find for free with a little bit of digging, but to overcharge to that degree is just gross. I really, really hate to think that there are up and coming buyers out there who are falling for this and giving them their money!

I’m not going to link to the site, but the site is called Find Fashion Rep. And Find Fashion Rep is a scam.

^^This site is NOT a scam!
Now a great site that is NOT a scam is ThreadMe.com. It’s sort of like Myspace or Linkedin, but connecting boutique owners with lines and showrooms. It’s pretty cool! And I’ve mentioned PLENTY of other places to find the contact information for showrooms (for FREE). The LA Fashion Directory is a great place to start,and there are more places to look in this post. I’ll try and find out more about showrooms on the East Coast. Just don’t pay for ANYTHING!

 Okay, I’m sure you’ve all enjoyed checking out the new products on OohLaLuxe.com (right? right!), but don’t think I’m going to forget what we’re all really here for!  Building the boutique is a never ending process.   I actually did my 3rd photoshoot last weekend, and my last for a while here….and for that I’m thankful.  Photoshoots just aren’t fun. Why?  Too much lifting!  I love the styling aspect but I hate having to take up that heavy mannequin and dress it.  It’s good excersize, though.  Thankfully this one was only about an hour with seven looks or so.

New Section – FAQs
You might notice the “FAQs” button at the top of the page.  This is my way of making the site easier to navigate.  So if anyone has questions that have already been answered in older posts, you can look up there and quickly find the particular post without having to wade through months and months of posts.  But its a work in progress!

Speaking of questions, a couple of weeks ago I received an email  from Latasha with a thorough set of questions about launching a boutique.  It’s basically a quick over view of a lot of things I discussed early on, but this is great for anyone who has just found this site, so check it out:

Q&A

How much do you know to order (inventory) for an online boutique, vs a actual boutique where you may have 3 of the same shirts where as online you have way more customer since you are online?
Well first off, I didn’t assume that I was going to have more customers.  When you think about it it’s more likely that you’ll have less customers because there’s no walk in traffic; you have to build your customer base from the ground up and you’re competing against EVERY online boutique, not just the ones in your town or in your area.  There’s really no set amount on how much to order.  I bought 1 or 2 in each size, and the only reason why I bought two in some sizes was because of the minimums on some lines.  I personally think it’s good to start small and not get in over your head, so I wouldn’t recommend taking in more than two pieces per size.

I know you are housing the merchandise yourself, did you ever think about letting a fulfillment house your merchandise? And with you housing the merchandise, how are you going about with shipping, packaging and that sort, are you going thru usps, fedx??

I don’t even know what a fulfillment house is!  People keep mentioning this but I’ve honestly never heard of it before.  I’ll have to look into it, but I highly doubt there’s one in my town anyways.  But I like having my things right here where I can access them in case a customer has a question about fit or if I need to do reshoots or something like that.  Plus, I’m guessing it’s cheaper and I need to save as much as I can!  I’m using UPS and USPS for international orders.

Did you ever email any of the sales reps asking to carry their lines, and if so, how did your go about asking them (what is key info to ask)?
I did, I emailed tons of them.  Just tell them what you can about your business and ask for their line sheets.  Usually they want to know where you’re located and what other brands you’re carrying.  If the line is really high end they might want to know more.  In this case you will probably need (I forget what it’s called exactly…) sort of like a press/media kit?  It would most likely be a PDF with information about your store, floor plans, square footage and a ton of other stuff. Unfortunately I don’t know too much about this since my store isn’t brick and mortar (yet )

Did you create any contracts and agreements for the reps or designers?
Not beyond the invoices, which only allows you to cancel an order up to 7 days after it’s place (I think; it might be 10 days, can’t remember exactly).

I know a lot of people say when starting out start out small and what not, but with starting out do you think its best to have a business lawyer and a business consultant, pr/marketing firm?
If you can afford those things I would say go for it.  I would KILL to be able to afford pr/marketing!  If you can only pick one out of those three, I would say go with that one.  And if you can, try and find someone you know to help with these things for free.  My dad runs a business totally unrelated to fashion, but he was still able to help me a lot with the paper work in the beginning (and the fact that he’s in financial services doesn’t hurt!) and I have a friend in PR who helped me with a press release.

How are you promoting your site??
Through advertisement!   This is the only thing I’m trying to keep hush hush, but it’s not that hard to figure out.  Online advertisement, basically.

When paying the sales reps are you doing cod or paying up front, credit??
They take my credit card at the show room and then they charge the card when it ships.  Usually they will call you to confirm the card before the ship date.

At the showroom/tradeshow, when you find the lines you want and the pieces do you have to pay up front?
No, you don’t have to. They give you a choice.  You can also do COD, or credit like I did.  I believe they take checks as well.

When you do decide on the lines you want to carry, how long is it until you receive the merchandise  Or does that depends on you and when you need the merchandise or when the site will be up and running?

Good question!   Right now the lines are showing their Fall 2 and Holiday collections to buyers; buying for Fall 1 (usually August & September) ended in April, so that gives you an idea of how far in advance buying is.  But sometimes, depending on the line, you can order immediates and have them shipped right away.  They’re basically left overs.  Voom, for example, is great with this.

And each season is broken up into two or three delivery dates, usually one per month.  So if I’m the sales rep for OLL and you’re looking to buy for this fall, there will be a different collection for October (shipping 10/15), November (shipping 11/15) and December (shipping 12/15).  That’s just an example, sometimes the ship dates are the 1st or 30th of the month.  More flexible lines will let you push back items from one shipment to a later one in order to meet their minimums. So there are ways to customize your deliveries, to a certain extent.

 So, what’s next? Hopefully buying for Fall and Spring in the coming months! I can’t wait for holiday sales, that should be a fun time.  And more importantly I can’t wait to get into the showrooms again.  Buying is seriously my favorite part of this process.  I’m looking at a handful of up and coming lines, and I’ll probably add one more well known line.

I can’t WAIT for you guys to see what Voom and Plastic Island have for Fall!!

My mannequin drama ended last week. I found this company, Joslin Display who got a pretty silver headless female sent out to me in almost no time, while just about every other online retailer said I would’ve had to wait a week or two longer. I’m really glad I made the decision to go silver, but I sure wish mannequins weren’t so scrawny. Do those even count as thighs??

So this weekend is my first photoshoot, and I have a feeling it’s going to be an all day thing with about twenty pieces to shoot, front, back and detail shots to take. I still can’t give an approximate date as to when the site will be open. But as long as there aren’t any technical snafu’s, it should be very soon.

Fall Drama
Oh boy, I’m so disappointed with so many of the Fall collections I’ve seen so far! There were a few lines I had my eye on, and I absolutely loved what they did for Spring/Summer, but everything just fell apart after that! I guess some designers are just better doing short, bright colored, sassy clothing, which makes a bit of sense.

But thankfully, my favorite line always comes through and I’m highly impressed with what they have for Fall. It’s really tough having to place an order for 7 months from now when you’re not even sure what kind of return you’ll see before then! But I’m hoping to place at least a small one, and then hope to get in on some immediates when Fall actually comes around. Here’s the catch though….I only have until next week to make a decision!

So the opening date I proposed before has come and gone.  I’ve had to delay the opening for two reasons; 1. I’ve had to send quite a bit of things back recently.  Always, always, ALWAYS check each garment, and check your invoices to make sure you weren’t charged for something you did not receive!  And also check your old invoices from the showroom to make sure you’re not going crazy and the showroom really did send you a dress in the wrong color.

The second reason is because I could not find a mannequin.  No mannequin, no photoshoot. No photoshoot, no pictures.  No pictures, no website (or at least no customers!).  But thankfully I managed to track one down and I’ll hopefully get into the studio sometime in the next week or two.  I can’t give a specific launch date this time around, but I’m hoping for early May.

In the mean time I thought I’d answer this question from Letitia:

Hey Kim,

I know you posted about start-up costs, but I was wondering if you could do a post for funding. Just how does a savvy student like yourself manage to find the thousands of dollars you mentioned to get started?
-Letitia

Thanks a bunch Letitia for all your comments, I REALLY appreciate them! So how did I get the money? While I was in school I worked as a celebrity & fashion blogger, and I still do actually. I had one particularly lucrative but unfortunately short lived gig last year; I didn’t spend a dime of the money I earned from it, and that’s what I’m using now to start my business. My parents also said they would make an investment if I needed it.  So far I’ve spent about $7500 on merchandise for the first three months (but also keep in mind that I probably won’t be able to buy much for Summer).

I’m really just lucky to be in such a good position financially that I can get this started at such a young age. I didn’t take out any loans for college, so I have nothing to pay back. I also don’t pay any bills, save a gym membership.