Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 156146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 781(@200wpm)___ 625(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 781(@200wpm)___ 625(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Albeit most stores gave a discount, I had two students on staff who wouldn’t be able to afford it, even on a discount.
So at cost it was, and no skin off my nose, the rest of the clothes were being ordered regardless, throwing more pieces in only increased my status with my suppliers.
It was a tried-and-true system to have your associates attired in your apparel.
I’d tried it, and it held true.
The customer nodded and carried on.
“Eloquii and Lane Bryant have some great clothes, and Nordstrom has a nice curvy section. But most of it is online. I like to shop. Try on. And the clothes are separate. Either completely different stores, or clothes for me are in another section. Like, people like me need to be hidden away. Like, the people not like me don’t want to be rubbing shoulders with me when they shop. They don’t want to look at me. And they definitely don’t want to think that something they wear might be something I’d put on my body. It makes me feel like a pariah. Like I should feel shame when I’m shopping. Shame about my body, shame about wanting to look good. I love shopping, but it’s sometimes hard, and there are times it even makes me sad. I actually have friends I don’t shop with anymore because it’s uncomfortable. Their clothes aren’t in my section, and vice versa.”
“I’m glad you weren’t sad in Velvet,” I said quietly.
“I wasn’t, not at all,” she asserted. “You’re young, you’re slender, so beautiful, so you can’t even begin to know what it means…” She cleared her throat. “Like I said, I have friends. A lot of them. In every shape and size. Those other stores…” She lifted both bags this time. “To quote a pretty woman, mistake. Big mistake. Huge.” She grinned at me. “See you again sometime soon.”
“I hope so,” I replied. “And when you return, ask for Chloe or Mi. One of us is always here, and we’ll take personal care of you. And if you give us a heads up, we’ll have a bottle of champagne waiting.”
The woman actually got tears in her eyes before she dipped her chin, gave me a trembling smile, and walked out of the shop.
I watched her go, thinking how beautiful it felt I gave that to her.
As well as how badly I needed what she just gave me.
I then finished the section I was working and started to head to the back to grab some sizes to restock.
“Hey,” Mi called before I cleared the floor of the store.
I turned to her. “Hey.”
“That lady made your week,” Mi told me.
She didn’t.
She made my month.
Best thing that’d happened so far, considering the good parts with Judge were blown to smithereens by the fact we lasted “a minute” and he was happy to move on.
“As in, she bought that red leather jacket, among a ton of other things,” Mi explained.
I turned to our red section and saw the only red leather jacket that we’d had left—a size 20—was gone.
That had been a hot item that I was pleased, in Phoenix, I took the chance of stocking two in each size, rather than one. I’d sold all the others at full price, which was $850. I didn’t want to discount the last. It was a good markup, a tidy profit.
Add that to another bag and a half worth of stuff and yes, maybe she did make my week.
It felt better that maybe I made hers.
“We need to do more marketing around our size ranges,” I noted, thinking about that conversation, and how maybe testimonials, or even customer models on professional shoots, were possible ways to go.
Tell them their friends could come to the shoot. Have select items on hand for a discount.
“That’s hard, Coco,” Mi replied, cutting into my buzzing mind.
It was.
Because our new customer had not lied.
An extended size range appealed to women who were size 14 and over.
It had the opposite affect with the others.
That said, 68 percent of women were size 14 and above, 25 percent of all online shopping was browsing for curvy size clothes, and again, 68 percent of “plus” consumers were interested in participating in fashion trends.
And I would repeat, one shouldn’t get me started on how I felt about dressing mature women.
Hint: Unless she enjoyed the freedom of caftans and jersey sets and flowy kimonos, she should embrace whatever style she wanted.
However, the golden goose marketing strategy for Velvet was one that appealed to millennials, Gen X, and people of all sizes, not to mention all colors.
As yet, my experience was, such a strategy didn’t exist.
But if it did, I was determined to find it.
“We can brainstorm,” I told her, then shared, “I’m heading back. There are things to restock.”
Before I took two steps, Mi called, “Chloe.”
I turned to her again.