The truth about pricing

A word about prices.

I think it's important to give an insight into the pricing structure of the fashions we, the independent sector, have to follow.
While I'm giving you the feel of the market based on my own experience it's true to say that every other retailer in the same sort of market as we operate in have the same problems.
First of all it's important to have an understanding of the way the business operates so here we go:

Every year there are two main buying seasons for the fashion industry. This is in the first couple of months of the year where orders are placed for the autumn collections some six months up the line, and then in the late summer for deliveries which are for next spring.

As you can see, the orders are placed well in advance of each season. This is a universal situation facing all the main independents. There are inherent problems with this situation. For a start our forecasts of up and coming sales figures may be well out of line. The current credit crunch for instance is explanation enough for this. Then there is the unpredictable British weather which can destroy a business in a single season if customers fall away sufficiently. There is also a big influence on business by the major town centre retailers such as House of Fraser and Debenhams. If they hold a 20% off day you can bet it's the day we take nothing. So business isn't a piece of cake.

So, we need now to take a look at the suppliers to us in the independent sector. These companies are really not represented in the major high street shops. I don't include independents who have a shop in a town centre in this category though. Such suppliers have to make a collection based on the orders placed at the various fashion events in advance of the season. They place orders themselves for material, and other sundry items such as buttons, even packaging etc. Prices at the various shows are always on the orders we place so they are set in stone. However the big problem is that most of the major players in the manufacturing marketplace are in Spain, Italy, France etc.
The orders are therefore usually priced in Euros, in some instances even in dollars for suppliers who are US based.
If you can remember far enough back the Euro and Dollar were pretty well priced against the Pound. Even just in the spring of this year we were getting an exchange rate of around €1.5 to the £, and up to $2 per £. So figure this out. We place an order for an outfit, (if we take just a single outfit from the many on an order) which would normally retail at £700 based on an exchange rate at time of purchase of say €1.35 to the £. Right now the rate has dropped to around €1.12 per £.
With me?
This is a drop of 18%. So an outfit of £700 would become £826. There's no escaping the fact. The same outfit, if it was purchased from the USA would become 30% more expensive. So would need to be priced at £910.
As the payment of these goods by suppliers is generally on a rolling basis up to say 20 weeks from date of delivery the rate could potentially drop even more as time goes by. It's expected that the £ will reach parity with the € in the new year. This will be a really heavy cost increase on the outfits.
The dollar is expected to be around $1.30 per £.
Even for the UK suppliers the situation will be difficult. Those who are still left, and there aren't many now, generally have the outfits made overseas, perhaps China or an EEC country. The pound is getting a real kicking right now against all currencies so even the UK suppliers will have to pass on their increased costs.
What I'm saying is that if you are going to need an outfit next year then the time to shop for it is NOW. Prices will undoubtedly be a lot more next year as the new collections come in.
Our own shop has an ongoing sale, some of the outfits can be had at very reasonable prices on the SALE PAGE. Others will be on sale in the shop itself as we don't have pictures of everything in stock.

Now, prices for mother of the bride outfits and special occasion-wear aren't generally as low as people sometimes expect. Although there are always really good inexpensive alternatives in shop, the more exquisite are priced accordingly. Not because we want to charge high prices but because they are expensive for us to buy.
I have heard it said by at least one bride-to-be that the cost of the mother of the bride outfit was a lot more than her own wedding outfit.
Why this is a surprise to her is beyond me. Most mother of the bride and special occasion outfits are superbly designed by leading fashion houses, are made from the finest silks, sometimes heavily embroidered and are a lot more detailed than a brides outfit. You can't get quality at George of Asda prices I'm afraid. Although we bust a gut to keep prices to a realistic level we just can't give them away and make nothing on them.
We are often asked about why we don't have prices on the website. Well believe me we'd love to but the reaction from our suppliers would cripple us. We are up against jealous competitors all the time who whinge on about the fact that sometimes they find us selling an outfit at a price lower than they charge. We get suppliers calling us and “asking” us to remove any perception of us discounting under threat of having us stopped from ordering any future collections. We don't discount. We offer a price based on our own regional market ability to buy. If the price is then at a lower level than other shops then this isn't deliberately done to annoy them. It's to allow us to operate in a region which has suffered decades of decline following the Thatcher era. Easington is an ex mining town which was closed. That's right. The town was closed. All the banks were closed, the building societies have gone and around 60% of the towns shops have closed. The front street looks like a ghost town with shops all boarded up. So our prices have to reflect the ability of locals to pay for the goods.
Anyway, to finish this take on pricing, I reiterate that if you are looking for an outfit for next year then the time to do it is now as everyone will be upping prices next year when we have to pay for goods at a cost of up to 45% more than expected at time of purchase.

Back to basics

I want to kill a few myths and popular misconceptions with this blog, as well as to give an insight into the business of retailing Mother of the Bride outfits etc.

First of all, having trawled around various forums associated with leading magazines etc I have found our shop name mentioned on several occasions. Some praise us very highly and others knock the hell out of us. I guess we just can't please everyone all the time. It's always our ambition of course but no-one can ever do that much so it's something which we have to live with.


For what it's worth I have an attitude that we all stand or fall by our own actions. The business is difficult enough without worrying about remarks on online forums as no-one knows who these anonymous people are in any case.
So, now that's off my chest let me remind you that those people who post on forums are unknown to you, and if they slag someone off they more than probably have a vested interest in doing so.

Our shop is small. Can't escape the fact. We don't have room to accommodate a busload of incoming visitors all at once. We don't have a huge amount of free hanging stock with room to browse through the rails. Instead we have a shop which is absolutely stuffed full of all the important labels you're ever likely to bump into.
Think of this; if you go into a shop and it's pretty quiet with rails of stock that you can shuffle through easily then what does this tell you? It generally means that there isn't a good selection and that if the shop is quiet then it hasn't got a decent customer base.
Customers come through word of mouth recommendations, internet searches of course and by advertising locally in the press. So if a shop isn't busy then there's a problem somewhere. Of course there are also times when the season slows down that may affect how busy a shop is. To give you an example of word of mouth let me tell you of one particular incident. We were contacted by a Jewish gentleman some time ago who lives in Edgware, London. He was wanting to arrange a visit to us by taking an Easyjet flight to Newcastle, where we collect and return visitors at no cost. He and his wife Pyllis had been to a wedding in Westminster and were so knocked out at the mother of the bride's outfit that they asked her where she bought it. She told them that we supplied it by post and she was delighted at the service we gave her. Once the wedding was over, the same people sat at the reception table and another lady was at the same table and was also wearing a really special outfit. She told them we had supplied her too. The funny thing is that this lady lives in Glasgow. Word of mouth, Glasgow --- Westminster?
So, I met Martin and Phyllis at Newcastle Airport last Thursday, took them to the shop where Phyllis tried on several outfits and bought one by Presen which she never stopped talking about all the way back to the airport. She also bought a hat which was too large to take with her so I told her we would post it for ease of travel.
The jacket needed a slight alteration to it and we told her we would also have this done and send this by special delivery too. On Saturday evening we went to Birmingham NEC to view more spring 2009 collections on the Sunday. The exhibition wasn't as good as normal but that's another thing. We then had to travel to London to choose the new Paule Vasseur 2009 collections. On the way we called Martin and Phyllis and arranged to visit to drop of the alteration and the hat. They were knocked out at the service. I must thank them for their kind hospitality. You don't get this level of service anywhere else I doubt.

We sometimes get complaints from potential customers that when they visit us they may have to wait for ages for someone to attend to them. We recognise this as a problem and do our best, but at times the shop is so busy we just can't help it. We have three fitting rooms, not the single one that some forum poster has told you about. Each one is dedicated to one customer until she has finished her shopping. We can't hurry anyone up to make room for another, and if you were that lady being told to get a move on then I guess I know what the result would be. You'd quickly leg it out of the shop. So, if you do have to wait then please accept our apologies but when we can attend to you we will give you best possible service. We know there are shops which do appointments. We tried it. It doesn't work. HONESTLY. How long do we allow each visitor? An hour, two or more? Sometimes a visitor may take well in excess of three hours. We won't push them due to time constraints. Sometimes a lady will look at two outfits and buy one within half an hour. If we did appointments what would we do with the time when a customer has gone and the next isn't due for an hour? It's impossible to run a business like this. We find that most shops who do appointments tend to be slack most of the time but as they have to make an operating profit they charge more per outfit. So, in the meantime, we don't do appointments, we may get busy and you may have to wait a while to be served. But we will see to your every need once we can and we will provide an outfit at a very competitive price.

We have had a remark that this is the oddest shop you will visit. I can see why this comment was made but it's oddity has certain advantages. The shop is divided, more or less into two parts. The front is dedicated to the less expensive guest type outfits, casual wear etc and the rear of the shop has the fitting rooms and a certain amount of special occasion-wear as well as a huge amount of mother of the bride outfits being stocked upstairs.
Put yourself in our position. You have taken delivery of around £400,000 worth of outfits. You hang them on the rails and everyone who comes into the shop shuffles through them. Diamonds engagament rings do nothing for fine silk. Even the normal sweat on someones hands which acrrues in everyday circumstances finds its way onto fine fabrics.
So what do you do? Welcome everyone in and allow them to freely grope through all the stock? If you bought your wedding dress like this then I could accept this as being the norm but I tend to think that most young women would be horrified if they saw a wedding gown with edges scuffed, slightly grimy from being handled and even with blood stains on it.
We like to show you the outfits in perfect condition. We take time to do a personal shopper exercise with you. We will take as much time as you want to bring out the outfits in your size and colour and not push you into a decision or hurry you along. We want you to have the best possible experience and the best selection than anywhere else you'll visit. As I said, we can't always get it right but at least we give it our best shot.
So, for those ladies who think they have more choice by visiting more shops this is generally not true. We all stock more or less the same. When we look at each of our suppliers collections at the exhibitions we don't buy the full collection. We carefully select only those styles which represent the best in value for money, style and quality. In other words we only take the best of any single collection. You will inevitably find other less exciting or original collections with other retailers and at a price disadvantage too in most places, but we honestly don't think you will find a single shop anywhere else in the UK where you will see so many exquisite collections in any single premises.
Could I put you in our shoes once more. This is the sort of thing we hear day-day out. A lady has come into the shop, more often than not with at least two other people to cast their opinions. We show her loads of outfits; she tries on several and looks stunning in at least a couple of them. She then says that this is only the first shop she's looked at and goes on her merry way. I know that this is a prerogative of all customers but this is very hard on our stock. Last year we had one lady try on several outfits. While doing so she broke a fingernail and was bleeding. She got blood on 2 outfits. We didn't make a fuss, realised it was a mistake and didn't want to unduly upset the lady. We didn't make mention of it save for giving her a plaster for her finger. She bought another outfit and went away happy. We tried to have the outfits cleaned but had to throw them away. Did you know that most cleaners won't do clothes with blood on them now? It's all to with AIDS apparently.
The most infuriating part of this story is that she also booked a hat for hire. We do this on a non refundable basis as we often have to buy another hat in to cover further weddings. The lady came back into the shop a month later and cancelled the hat and gave us a good slagging off for refusing to refund the non-refundable deposit. She would tell her friends all about us, tell them not come to us etc. I guess you know what I mean. I haven't resorted to printing profanities on my blogs yet but if I told what was said by her I really would have to.
Anway, the net result was that we threw away two outfits valued at over £1300 and she screamed at us for not refunding £40.

Anyway, put that into the context of having the freedom to shuffle the outfits around on the rails. We have a responsibility to our customers to provide clean, unmarked and fault free outfits. We do our best to take care of this and with our personal shopper style of attention you won't miss out at all and will probably see a lot more.
Price is often talked about in the forums. I noticed one comment from a forum poster that the outfit for the mother of the bride was over £100 more than the wedding gown bought by her. This was an awesome discovery by the bride.
Why?
A wedding gown has a lovely silk exterior and then loads of inexpensive taffetta. It has some lovely bodice but it's generally pretty uncomplicated in make-up and of one piece, ie a dress of some description.
Not all mother of the bride outfits are in the same mould but the better ones are made from the finest silks, often metallised silks, lots of embroidery and with three pieces, a jacket , a skirt and a top.
We visited the exhibition in Olympia this August to view collections for next spring and saw some wonderful new styles. One of the collections which caught our eye was that of Ian Stuart. Not in wedding gowns, as we don't do them, but in his new venture into mother of the bride outfits. They were absolutely stunning. They shout class. They have as much right to be a premium price as the gorgeous wedding gowns he makes. They are truly worthy of it. They must cost an arm and a leg to make and is it right that he should do it to make an operating loss? Of course not. So although most special occasion fashions tend to be at the top end of the price range they deserve to be there.
Take a look at the wonderful wedding gowns by Ian Staurt, the four times winner of the wedding gown designer of the year. They are gorgeous. They are superb in design and are also quite expensive. You can't get this quality at a budget price.
Not everyone can afford these prices of course so there are always decent alternatives in shop. remember, as well as a wedding being special for the bride, it's equally special for her mum too. Her little girl has grown up and is leaving the nest. She want's to look her absolute best for the occasion and darn the expense. Let her have her day too. She's worked for it for many years.
For those who feel that Debenham's or Marks And Spencer is OK then so be it. They do keep a lot of stock and will always have something that will look decent for a mother of the bride. It probably won't be WOW, will possibly be worn by at least one guest at the same wedding and although it may fit the pocket it won't do mum justice. I know this isn't always possible due to personal circumstances but you should be aware of this beforehand. If you worry about the cost then ask yourself; would you buy the brides gown from George of Asda? Well if it's not good enough for the bride then why should the mum have to do something similar?
So, anyone fancy laying out several hundred thousand pounds to buy into the business? It isn't a bed of roses believe me but when you do a good job and make someones day you have a certain satisfaction that helps you through the nightmares of the next VAT bill to pay.

During the course of each week I get dozens of emails which all need some sort of answer. A considerable number of them are general in nature such as can I tell them who theirlocal Ann Balon supplier is. Naturally this isn't the aim of my website. I don't honestly know any more than a few competitor shops in the local area together with some of the others who have a high profile on the internet. I really don't feel any obligation to pass business on to other shops if they can't be bothered to make some sort of an effort themselves in advertising or producing a working website. I can generally take this sort of business myself and do it all by post.
I also get some very strange emails. I had one around a month ago which was more or less anonymous, ie, it wasn't signed and didn't have any form of personal affirmation such as starting with the words, "Dear June". It just said that for a shop that sells so many top designs and leading fashions, the website is a shambles.
Hell, I do it myself. I know from looking at other websites that there are so many which don't give people what they want. If I was a mother of the bride I want pictures of the outfits. Nothing less will do. So I do it all myself and I put as many pictures onto it as I can get. It may not look nice and flash, doesn't have any fancy pop-up images when you do a mouseover etc, but it's got more pictures than any other website I know of. And of course it's inexpensive. Most website creators I know charge an arm and leg to make up a site and to add more pictures or content during a season costs even more. So I do it myself. Perhaps this email was from a website developer touting for business?
As I get around three quarter of a million hits each year I'm doing something right for my efforts.

Another very strange email dropped into my inbox only a fortnight ago . It was also unsigned. Strange how those who post inane remarks always want to remain anonymous. Anyway, it said basically that this lady? had wasted her time when she visited our shop on two occasions and eventually bought her outfit elsewhere.
I wonder if she emails Marks and Spencer each time she finds nothing she likes there but gets it from House of Fraser? A case of a competitor's staff sniping at us? Perhaps, but I have to wonder on the nature of the mentality of such people.
As I said before, we offer the best selection of outfits in the north-east, probably carry more special designer labels than any other shop in the UK catering for mother of the bride, and try our best to give service that goes beyond the call of duty. We can't always get it right. We try, but life just isn't like that is it?
So we are pleased, well sort of at least, to hear of any complaints where we can learn from our mistakes. I welcome such feedback. There's no shop out there which gives 100% satisfaction all the time, which never makes a mistake or upsets a customer. By burying their head in the sand and thinking all's OK they just don't learn. So I welcome feedback, both negative and positive.
So, should you call into the shop and we don't offer 100% satisfaction then it's best to make it known at the time and we will address the problem there and then.
Just to round this blog off, please take note that although I have now added a SALE PAGE to the website, we still have lots of outfits we don't have photographs for so can't include them on this page. They are still on sale but only in the shop until I can get a decent picture of them.

Unfair trading conditions

As you might have already gleaned from other blogs at this site, I'm a very vociferous person when it comes to terms and conditions imposed on us by our suppliers which restricts our operational procedures and pricing policy, or which has a detrimental effect on the way we work.

You'll also have seen previously that we have made mention that this business isn't a bed of roses. We often find that a collection we thought would fly out of the shop sticks for some reason or other.
The Tom Bowker collection is still giving us horrendous problems. Only one outfit sold from the many we took delivery of in the spring. This was only last Saturday and we had to almost give it away to get rid of it. No problem with the style or make of the outfits though. It's just that our customers don't like them. I can accept that and don't expect anything from the supplier in terms of compensation. We won't be too keen on taking the label in the future though.

The Belinda Ch'ng collection, as previously mentioned also, has given us lots of problems. We just can't get anyone into a lot of the styles. At least we can, but only if they're prepared to look like a sack of dung. You know when you're arm is too fat for the sleeve? Well it's very much like that. A typical Norman Wisdom look. The hips are the same too. We sold a couple of them but had to size up then have extensive alterations made to get them to fit everywhere else.
The fit is horrendous.
We had a similar problem with the Belinda Ch'ng label sometime ago and sent quite a few outfits back to them for credit. We then stopped trading with them for a couple of seasons or so until we were assured that the fit was no longer a problem. I suppose that by claining this, they took responsibilty that the fit HAD been a problem at least.

I mean, they were really nice looking outfits and the models at the showroom looked fab in them so we had no reason to suspect that once the collection went into general production we would have something completely different in fit to those we had already seen.

We have found different and continue to suffer the consequences.
The phrase "you speak with forked tongue" comes to mind. Not intentionally mind you. I don't see that this was a problem they knew would occur in later production.
Of course, not every outfit is like this. There are some that are fine. The problem tends to be in the early delivery.

Anyway, Robert Bruh, the former co-owner (maybe partner, or whatever) isn't in any way accepting this.
We tried to return the outfits but got the parcel returned, refused by the consignee.
We spoke about the problem following this and he agreed to take a look at an outfit to cast his expert opinion. Now think of this, here he is giving an opinion that might just result in him agreeing with us.
Anyway he returned this parcel too without even opening it.
The total returned goods amount to something akin to £6000 and he's now not trading, as the company has split up. Some chance of a fair hearing here!!!!! In any case, the return of a single outfit was meaningless when the problem was common to more than one style.

When we buy things from our suppliers we generally have a 30 day return period. Most of the badly sized outfits were sent out to us in early January before the main M.O.B. season had started. We checked them over for faults, missing buttons etc then hung them on the rails for the influx of customers.
At first when a lady tried an outfit on and it didn't fit it wasn't immediately evident that the problem was with the outfit. As I said, not everyone is the same shape.
As time went on and we saw the same sort of problem time and time again we realised there was something wrong. This was well after the 30 day return period. I made mention of the problem quite some time ago in a previous posting but we kept them and tried our best to sell them as we still loved the general styling but apart from a couple which we had extensively altered we just couldn't move them.

We got stuck with a whole season's worth of Fransa fashions last year because of wrong sizes. A size 12 had to put on a size 16 to get into it. A small size Fransa was REALLY tight to the extent it was virtually a childs size. They too refused a return and sent the boxful back to us.
You will shortly be able to pick these up on ebay from us as we must get rid of them somehow.

To prove a point in court on these sort of things would be very costly and wouldn't be worthwhile doing so we inevitably swallow the bitter pill after much hassle.
Of course we won't be trading with this sort of operation again, despite the potential promise that the "fit is fine" now and the problem is sorted.
Of course "fit" is a bit of a subjective point as not all people are the same fit even though they may all consider themselves to be a size 12 for instance.
But when you can't get your arm into an outfit that you know is the correct size then there's something wrong, especially when the same thing is common to all other size 12's who try it on.
Anyway I will be giving this particular ex supplier and the general public the opportunity to comment on the fit of the outfits as I'll be posting pictures of them on the website or the blog here, actually being worn by the proper size lady in relation to the size shown on the garment.
Please drop in again shortly as I will post copies of the correspondence that has passed between us and the photo's for your comments.
Robert informed me that he has another financial backer for a new company. Getting a backer is pretty important but no less so than getting and keeping contentded customers. It might be that you're a retailer too as I know that we get lots logging on to this blog. If so then you can draw your own conclusions from this article.
I would like your opinion on the fit of these "wonderful outfits" too.
Watch out for the latest news from around the shows.
We are right in the middle of our buying season for next spring and summer and already we have some real gems coming.
I'll be putting a load of photo's and video clips back on the website for a preview as soon as I get the time.
Have a good summer.

Another season goes out and another swings in

Gulp,
I mean GULP.
This year's been a bit extraordinary so far. So very busy most of the earlier months, slowing a little towards summer but still very much busier than at any similar period in preceeding years. Yet here we are getting some early deliveries of gorgeous outfits for the autumn while the summers in full swing. Gulp.... where the hell do I put them until it cools off a little.
If you took a look at some of my earlier blogs you'll have seen that I was complaining about the bitter cold and where the hell has spring gone.
I have a theory.
I reckon that for every degree we're deprived of in the spring it gets added on to the heat in the summer.
It's been bloody intolerable in the shop most of July even with the doors open and the fan going like a banshee at an Irish wake.
So, August is forecast to be hotter than July and the shop is still stuffed full of the most gorgeous summer dresses, skirts and separates for holidays and just wearing to feel comfortable in. And they;re all in the sale now. Giveaway prices.
Don't miss out. Even if you have to make a special journey it'll be worht your time.
Now then, onto the coming season.
Presen has been arriving in parts since early July and it's selling really well. We're likely to be putting repeats in shortly. They are just so fashionable and smart. Prices are a little less than some of the other more well known designer labels such as Condici.
I took some Jorgina in with the Presne too, as they are both from the same fashion house and they are superb. Slightly less formal, younger in style and beautifully made. I'll be putting more pictures on the website of these as soon as I get the time.
Michael H has sent out some autumn stuff already but hey..... thick wool suits?
Don't know how they plan these deliveries but these would have been better in September.
The mother of the bride outfits from John Charles which we added to our orders for this season have already mostly gone. These are superb fashions and I'm sure we'll be doing this label again and will probably look to buy more as the season gets under way.
I'm sweating on the Paule Vasseur stuff. I just can't wait for them. If there's any one label I would die for it would be this.
I'm told they should be with us within the next 3 weeks though as they're all now on holiday in France I can't see how they'll make this delivery expectation.
Now, can I add a word of caution here. If you've taken a good look through my website you'll have seen that I have put in a page of general things to adhere to when sending me an email.
I don't want to stop anyone from contacting me but it makes life a whole lot easier if you follow some simple rules first.

SALE NOW ON

It's that time of year again. So much stock left on the rails and all the high steet shops madly trying to clear their own shelves with their sale period.
Well now you have the opportunity to make the most of our own sale.
We're not quite giving things away but when I say you'll be amazed at some of the prices I actually mean AMAZED.
All the spring-summer stuff is heavily marked down to make room for the arrival of the start of the autumn collections.
If you can get here then I recommend you do it as soon as possible.
Now.............
back to marking down the stock.........

Early Autumn collections

Don't want to panic you but XMAS is fast coming up..........
Well it seems that way to me at least. We have ALREADY started receiving the first of our autumn stock.

Presen and Coterie early deliveries are with us, as are some wonderful shoes and clutch bags from Presen too.

The Paule Vasseur collection is expected within the next 3 to 4 weeks and I'm really looking forward to having it in stock. The outfit on the left is one of the styles I have on order.
Presen always makes a statement about superb style and this autumn is no different. Of course the collection isn't as big in the autumn as in the spring but lacks nothing in sophistication.
Down at the shows in Birmingham earlier this year when we all troop down to place our orders I found another absolutely gorgeous label.
Don't know what it is with the Spanish but they seem to have the best designers in the world right now. The label is Mireia Bisbe and the outfits simply sparkle in splendour.
I just can't wait for our first deliveries.
If you remember from my previous blog, I made mention that the Tom Bowker collection wasn't selling. Well the situation is still the same. Not one piece has gone from the rails. They are lovely outfits but for some reason they just don't capture the imagination of our customers. If you've seen them elsewhere and would like one at a very decent price just make me an offer.
Belinda Ch'ng was another label that wasn't doing much for us as well if you recall. I mentioned that the first deliveries were badly sized.
Well we've had notification that this company is ceasing to trade. The autumn collection which has already been ordered by shops will now be handled by Medici, a near neighbour to Belinda, actually upstairs in the same building. Don't know the future though. I think the autumn collection will be the last and then the label will die.
I don't know the reason for the cessation of business but wish both Belinda and Robert all the very best for the future, whichever direction they go in.
Anyway, life goes on for the rest of us in this business.
You may have noticed that our original website is undergoing a bit of a revamp. Actually it's a bit deeper than that.
I realise now that some of the features of the site were poorly displayed, the music was annoying to some and the video clips took bloody ages to download.

So much so that 50% of the visitors to the site who found us by a search buggered off within the first five seconds.
Since I changed the index page only 23% are doing that now so I guess it must be doing something for us.
I think I'll still put some video clips on the site when I get more but put them on a separate page so that those on dial up modems won't be miffed when it takes half a day to load a page. I think it's important to show as many clips as possible of the things we buy for you. I mean there's only so much a picture can do. A lovely fishtail skirt for instance looks superb as the model swirls round and shows it to its best.
Watch for developments on this.
It's now thirty minutes to the England Portugal match and without wanting to seem fanatical I think it''s time I posted this now.
Off to order my early spring collection of Condici tomorrow. These come in sometime in November. It's all go isn't it?
Things get hectic from now on especially as I'm gearing up to the sales. OH, watch out for this. I think it's possible you will find the bargain of a lifetime if you visit us then with prices well below our usually low RRP.

Concessions? Why should we?

One of the things about working in the fashion industry is that without being aware of it, we check out other styles, shops etc everytime we go into another outlet, even if what I go into a shop for has nothing to do with fashion.
For instance, if I go into Marks and Spencer for my groceries, I always notice the latest offerings on their womenswear department. I suppose it's always useful to know what other competitors are offering in styles, quality and price. So, I also know about several MAJOR designer labels we don't stock at the shop just because they are pretty well represented in the high street.
Any regular reader to my blogs will undoubtedly have formed the impression that I HATE the high street shops. It's not an entirely unfounded opinion. I do see them as the means to an end for some people but they have a huge detrimental effect on the small independant retailers away from the high rent properties in the town centres.
Let's face it, fashion is dead in the UK right now. At least in the manufacturing of it at. No more Dewhirst's, no more small town factories employing a couple of dozen women dedicated to producing ladies fashions that no one else in the world can produce in such style and quality anymore.
Well, that bit at least is a bit of a misconception.
I had a letter the other day from one of the UK's largest fashion groups. It had been keeping tabs on the amount of business I do, the customer comments etc and had seen an opportunity to prop itself up by offering us a concession.
Now then, the names this group represent are very well known in the marketplace. Jacques Vert, Eastex, Precis Petite, Windsmoor etc,
You know, when I first became involved in the higher end fashion market I looked at the likes of Jacques Vert and almost drooled. The same with Country Casuals and others; they were all well known labels and seemed very exclusive somehow. They were certainly pretty pricey.
Anyway, they offered me a concession last month. Most shops would give an arm and leg for this sort of arrangement, sale or return, no risk business.
Now to move on a little, I was out shopping yesterday for some bed covers, curtains etc. My first port of call was in the Royal Quays Outlet Centre in North Shields.
These places are stuffed full of the sort of things I tend to steer well clear of. Low end "fashions" (for want of a better description) that have been largely poorly made or have not sold in the mainstream shops.
That's what these outlet centres are for after all.
Anyway, there it was, right at the top of the centre, a bloody huge Windsmoor Shop.
Didn't go in as time was tight.
My next port of call was the massive Boundary Mills Store nearby where there is generally a decent selection of bedding.
Again, browsing around the shop (and inevitably buying something I didn't go in for) I couldn't help but notice the "designer labels in the fashion section.
Everything I had been offered a concession for was in the store.
Eastex, Windsmoor, Precis Petite, Jacques Vert, Country Casuals, etc.
Worse than that, the actual clothes themselves with few exceptions were things I wouldn't be seen dead in.
They certainly wouldn't be found hanging in my own shop.
Jacques Vert is pretty colourful and tries to make a stand on this but to be honest, and this only my opinion, I get the feeling that Boundary Mills is where all the style failures have been sent to be sold off.
Nothing on any of these famous labels gave me any confidence in stocking them.
Quite apart from the huge problem of having to sell things which are freely available in outlet centres, I just couldn't bring myself to sell anything which I wouldn't actually wear myself.
OK the prices were a fair bit under the RRP, but this didn't mean they were worth the money anyway.
I've seen better bargains on Ebay.
So I can guess you know what my response will be to the offer of a concession for these labels will be when they get around to contacting me again.
To kind of follow on from this I must let you into further details of our suppliers.
A few years ago we gave the Whimsey label a try.
It didn't sell very well for us. There were quality issues, bad delivery timings, ie the tops of an outfit would arrive weeks before the skirts etc, and we decided to drop the label. There was also an issue with the agent who promised exclusivity in the area then sold to the next shops along the road in both directions.
Anyway, we dropped the label.
Last year we decided to give it another go. The agent had been "moved on", was how they put it.
The styling seemd OK and we were promised a better quality garment with better delivery timings.
So we bought a few things and came across similar problems as before but not as many, as we hadn't committed ourselves to such a big purchase. We managed ourselves through the problems.
This spring we ordered a very large amount from the whole group. Not only Whimsey but Godske and Lady G as well.
There have been so many problems that we have sent back loads of things.
Bad colour matching on individual outfit pieces, even sending us outfits in completely different colours from those we ordered, tops to bottoms. The delivery problem is still a huge issue, and even the lad who works in the returns department told us that they were having a lot of problems and returns.
Well I think we gave them a good go. After more problems than we are prepared to put up with I think Whimsey can expect to be better represented in the outlet centres. There are certainly enough of them on sale there, which I guess is testimony to their quality after all.
This season has been terrific. I have never been as busy, our turnover is very substantial compared to last years same period, and I don't mean by 10 or 15%. I mean by upwards of 60%.
This has been superb. It's given us problems though as we really do need a bigger shop to cope.
Anyway, during this time we've found a few other labels that appeat to have problems too.
For no apparent reason the collection by Tom Bowker has been a complete failure. We have sold none of the outfits we bought for the spring from his collection.
They are shown to nearly everyone who visits the shop and none of them have been sold.
I can't understand it. I have spoken to Rachel at the Tom Bowker Group office in London who says that they have no problems elsewhere and have even had quite a few re-orders from other shops. She seemed suprised whern she heard of our plight and says she will keep us in mind for any re-orders she can't fulfill for other shops as they are now on making the autumn collection.
It would be very nice if she did pass along business from other shops.
If you happen to be one of them, we'll be happy to supply on a cost plus VAT basis, so you won't pay any more than you would from Tom Bowker.
Failing this we will have no option other than to put all our summer Tom Bowker on Ebay.
Rachel was optimistic that we would be paying them a visit to place our order for next spring.
I think wildly optimistic would be a better phrase.
I know it's not the manufacturers fault if we can't sell their collection. Some sort of arrangement with them would be very welcome though.
For those of you who think the fashion industry is a great way to make money, bear this in mind. Not everything we buy in gets sold. Our profits are largely sitting as dead stock in an attic before I get the hump and eventually throw it into the skip.
Life isn't always a bed of roses.
Belinda Ch'ng is another label we had some problems with. The early delivery seemed to be poor fitting. The tops, jackets and skirts, dresses etc which go to make up anoutfit just didn't size well. We have sold none of these as a consequence. The second and subsequent deliveries have been OK.
It's not a quality issue as such. The styling and design are superb but the fit of the first collection was bloody awful. These might find themselves on ebay too.
Keep smiling and remember, whatever you do, do it well.