As rain pelts the aluminum siding, I want to discuss reopening A Sophisticated Pair as well as share the completed survey. To be clear: I have not made any decisions about reopening yet. I need to balance my personal goals with the financial ramifications of opening and maintaining a small business. Furthermore, my mental and physical health must remain top priorities, a caveat not always allowed with entrepreneurship.
While waffling, I waded through conflicting emotions and memories in addition to the grief of the store closing. Reliving so much of what, in many ways, broke me was not without considerable pain. I needed to take a step back, to center myself, to feel those emotions without letting them define me or my story.
When calm and level-headedness returned, I finished the survey and wrote the first draft of this post. Then my aunt Debbie, former co-owner of the shop, suffered her third stroke, the second in less than seven months. She stayed in the hospital for over a month, and while she has been released, she is doing even worse.
Despite the stress, I know the importance of writing, blogging, and keeping in contact with my support system. Blogging, in particular, brings me tremendous joy, even if my contribution to lingerie remains educational. Today I plan to define how the store would grow and change if I reopen. Through the survey and comment section, I also want to give you the opportunity to add feedback/suggestions for how to improve the experience the shop provides.
Location, Location, Location!
When we opened in 2011, Burlington was a natural fit for the store. Living near Liberty, Burlington was the closest major town and where I primarily shopped. The rent was relatively inexpensive, and most retail locations were within a couple miles of the highway, making the growing city a convenient destination spot for customers across the state.
In the wake of the pandemic, Burlington increased the rent costs for both retail space and individual housing. Furthermore, many businesses fail to thrive among the big box heavy landscape. If I reopen, I prefer an area fostering small business entrepreneurship with an affordable cost of living.
My current contenders are: Winston-Salem, Jamestown, Highpoint, Asheboro, Gibsonville, Graham, Pittsboro, and Hillsborough. Greensboro is not on the list because it would violate territory agreements, not because it was an oversight on my part. Each location boasts its own merits and drawbacks, and I am open to feedback from people living in or around those areas.
It’s About Time
I never managed to find the store hours sweet spot when we were open. Never. Since I needed to be at the store constantly, I strove for a reasonable schedule to accommodate time with friends and family, errands, and hobbies. No sooner would I change the hours based on sales and customer suggestions then the new time frames were somehow wrong too. It was maddening! To ease the burden and maintain consistency, especially in the early months, I have two ideas. Both minimize overhead, maximize productivity, and hopefully, ensure convenience for clients.
Time of the Season
Optimal store hours were difficult to pin down because sales shifted between seasons, despite not being in a traditionally “seasonal” environment. From mid-February to late-August, sales consistently gained on previous months, and long hours made fiscal sense. It was commonplace for people to stop in later in the day and stay until past closing, benefiting from the warmth of increased daylight.
Around the start of September, sales sharply declined. As the days shortened, sales after 5p.m. became a rarity, the holiday season notwithstanding. Four months of the year, I spent additional time and accrued higher expenses to heat and light the store for only minimal returns.
Consequently, a seasonal approach could alleviate these issues. I am thinking something like 10a.m. to 7p.m. March—August and 10a.m. to 5:30p.m. September—February. December would benefit from special holiday hours.
Appointments Suggested, Not Required
Another solution is to open fewer days per week for general walk-in traffic, most likely Thursday—Saturday or Friday—Sunday. The remaining days of the week would be open for private appointments, allowing for two days of rest.
Since I work remotely, my hours are flexible. Condensing store hours to best-selling days and supplementing with appointments on slower ones allows me to maintain my existing job. Having dual sources of income offers latitude both for me and for the store until the latter is successful enough to either support me or a staff full-time.
Big Goals, Tiny Store
From the above paragraphs, you probably gauged the reopening plans would be a one-woman solo adventure initially. The increase in responsibilities is also why balancing organic traffic with appointments has appeal. I would be able to schedule “office time” to place orders, clean, blog, pay bills, and complete the multitude of tasks small business ownership requires.
The flip side is I need to be conscientious of managing the budget, the space, and my time. To accomplish these requirements, I would downsize the square footage, including reducing the number of dressing rooms from three to two. Furthermore, I may also devise an organizational system in the back to facilitate pulling bras for fittings at the cost of displaying the inventory. Underwear, accessories, and any non-bra inventory would still be on the sales floor.
To Charge or Not to Charge?
For years, a hot point of contention between customers and entrepreneurs in the business of bra fittings is charging for fitting services. Retailers favor the policy because it ensures they receive compensation for their skills and services, especially when faced with a client who wants the benefits of that knowledge without supporting the business.
My stance has always been to trust clients want to support the shop. Obviously, this is not universal. I spent many hours helping people who used my expertise to find items cheaper online. It’s frustrating. You wouldn’t go into a Jiffy Lube and ask them to walk you through an oil change and then tell them you’ll do it yourself later. Just sayin’.
Moving forward, I have not decided whether to evolve or maintain the faith, but I do ask about the topic on the survey and wanted to provide an explanation here.
The Crew of Serenity, The Losers, &
The Golden Girls
A.K.A. The Ensemble Heroes
Having worked for two department stores in their lingerie departments, I noticed how they improve inventory handling compared to boutiques. They consolidate brands, offering a broad selection of styles and colors from only a handful of companies. The Durham Nordstrom, for example, stocks Wacoal, b.tempt’d by Wacoal, Natori, Fit Fully Yours, Elomi, Fantasie, Freya, and True and Co., and the selection of Fantasie and Freya is pretty abysmal.
For a small business like mine, consolidating inventory means meeting minimum orders faster to facilitate both special orders and replenishment. Consolidating is not without disadvantages. Stocking inventory from so few brands means consumers who cannot wear the sizes or shapes of your inventory are now ostracized from finding a proper fit. Natori, for instance, is a lovely brand who I would absolutely carry again; however, much of their assortment is variations on t-shirt bras. The shape also only works for certain breast types too.
If reopening happens, I plan to start with a finite number of brands, hence why I ask for your favorites in the survey. I kept the response open-ended, but my hope is people will prioritize their favorites. As of writing, my tentative base is Natori, Wacoal, b.tempt’d, Eveden (Elomi, Fantasie, Freya, Goddess), Panache, Curvy Couture, Anita, Parfait, Nessa, and either Comexim or Ewa Michalak.
All That Glitters Isn’t Bras
Beyond bras and bra-related accessories like lingerie bags, specialized wash, extenders, etc., I would also be open to stocking additional products like underwear, hosiery, shape wear, slips, pajamas, robes, and lingerie. Hosiery and shape wear both did well for us, and there are several brands I wanted to stock but never had the opportunity. For example, Nubian Skin makes multiple shades of hosiery (and bras and underwear too!) for people with mid to darker skin tones.
More than likely, I would start with basics and best-sellers and expand as needed. Part of this would be dictated by sales from existing customers while other feedback would originate from walk-in traffic.
However, and I want to say this with the appropriate combination of invective and glee: There will be no bra-sized swimwear. Not for a while. Maybe not ever. Bra-sized swimwear was the single biggest mistake I made with inventory in the entire time I was open. There were too many sizes, tastes, and styles to justify the expense. Plus, because swimwear is seasonal with only a handful of core pieces, there was always something from last season on sale online.
But Will It Go On Sale?
Okay class, what are some of Erica’s least favorite questions? “Will this go on sale?” “Do you offer discounts?” “Will you price match with online?” Because I do not currently have a store, I can say this without fear of pissing off customers: That is a pretty rude fucking thing to ask small business owners because what it translates to is: Would it be okay if you took food out of your mouth, rent/mortgage money out of your pocket, clothes off your back, kibble out of Medjay’s mouth, and discretionary spending so life isn’t a drudgery out of your pocket and put it into mine?
Do you mean it that way when you ask? Of course not! And I don’t think people who ask are inherently rude or “bad.” I think our current economic model where corporations like Amazon can treat their employees like utter shit and then use loss leaders to prop up other profitable products conditions folks to distrust business and devalue the need for fair margins. The true costs of this model have been dissected by people far more qualified than me.
All I can do is speak to my experiences, and I can say now that trying to compete with those retailers, trying to discount things or offer sales so often, is one of the factors that led to not only the closure of the store but also my overall lack of desire to keep it running. It can be so defeating when you are working so hard and there isn’t as much to show for it as if you worked for a corporation.
I’ve seen stores in great locations with amazing people running them shutter their doors because the owner wanted to have an actual life outside of the business. Y’all know I haven’t taken a real vacation in over 15 years? The most I’ve done is little one or two day trips to lakes or the mountains. Hell, I haven’t even been to the Outer Banks in almost 18 years, and I freakin’ live in the state!
This is basically a long way of saying: I will put things on sale as needed, and I will try to offer a range of product prices. However, I will price things at the MSRP, and those items will stay that way until I need to adjust. I will try to offer competitive services, but what you are paying for bundled in that retail price is not only the nearly 15 years of experience I have as a bra fitter but also the ability for me to keep the shop open, the inventory fresh, and the sanity meter filled enough to continue.
The Finer Points of Policy
Partially from the potential to be running the store solo for a while and partially from recognizing where the business was losing money, there will be policy changes going forward.
Special Orders
Special orders are part and parcel for business these days, especially one like intimate apparel which functions through variety in sizes, styles, and colors. Even department stores with significant budgets and floor space rely on the ordering process to bridge the gap between on-hand inventory and the wealth of potential in distribution centers.
Naturally, larger companies will process and ship orders faster than I can; however, this is the trade-off for service and selection. Going forward, I would prioritize special orders to give people access to more than our base physical inventory. However, in the past, we did not require payment in advance for the orders. Too often people ordered items only to never pick them up. All special orders will require advanced payment, except under special case-by-case circumstances. If the item is not satisfactory, the total will be transferred to store credit on future purchases.
Free Shipping
Back in the old days, we shipped everything from the lowliest pair of sale underwear to a swim wardrobe for free because many customers are not local. I haven’t made any hard and fast rules yet on whether free shipping will be offered should I reopen, but my current thoughts are that there would have to be a dollar value threshold the order must surpass, e.g., $75. This is pretty common for most online retailers, and I feel it would reign in one of those smaller areas where a business hemorrhages money.
Returns
Ah, returns. When I worked for Nordstrom, they would take anything back, and I do mean anything. In the intimate apparel industry, this includes things like bras but also underwear, and if the underwear still had the tags attached? It went back out onto the sales floor immediately. If you’re buying underwear from them, I highly suggest you wash it before wearing it because it’s likely someone put the item on before you.
For a small business, eating the costs of returns can be devastating. Previously, we had a seven day window to return new items with the tags attached apart from certain final sale items like underwear and hosiery. If I reopen, I may continue with this policy because generally returns were not a big of a problem for us. However, I also entertained the idea that items can be returned under those conditions for store credit.
Many factors influence policy decisions, but in the spirit of transparency, I wanted to be upfront. Feel free to leave comments in the section below, on the survey, or via our Contact page.
What’s Love Got to Do with It?
The store provided so many rewarding experiences. I loved seeing the happy expressions on customer’s faces when they found bras which fit them and made them feel confident and secure. It may be unpopular in our divisive world, but I like people. Having the privilege to interact with all of you, to form lasting friendships, to watch your lives grow and expand and evolve over time—that’s something words will never capture.
I watched clients change from being single to married to having children, and I was able to help them in all the different stages of their lives. I saw divorces, weight changes, births, miscarriages, puberty, gender transitions, reductions, augmentations, and so much more. You allowed me into your lives, and that was not a gift I take lightly. It meant the world to me to be privileged enough to see the rich interior of so many exceptional people.
I also loved the flexibility and the dynamic quality of each day. I loved being able to tap into different skills, to spend one day redesigning the website and writing new content to drinking tea in the evening and researching what products to order.
Beyond my customers, I also had exceptional sales representatives. Time and again, they came through with the best suggestions to improve my merchandise assortment without compromising their integrity or pushing products they did not believe were a good fit. They also shared my gripes and frustrations about the changing marketplace.
I always said small business ownership was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my entire life, but it was also the most rewarding. It’s that warm, ooey gooey feeling in my core which motivates me to consider reopening. It is that kernel of love I feel for all of you which pushes me to research, to write this post, and to create the survey.
While I cannot promise I will reopen, I can promise to consider all the factors. I will listen to the feedback you provide and try to make the best decision. To that end, here is another link to the survey. It’s all multiple choice questions, apart from an optional open-ended space at the end, and should take less than 15 minutes.
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