Nalini’s Diary
21-12-2004
The LFF boutique is certainly reaping the benefits of all this customer traffic – we are now up to sales of roughly £2000 a day! Amazing, isn’t it! So as you can see the designers have certainly benefited from the whole experience including me and the crew on the shop floor.
{mosimage} New additions to the designer list now include ‘Michael Hall’s’ ponchos and scarves. He had an amazing first day! Customers really have shown great interest ever since they were placed on the shop floor. Also to join us was Charlotte Keating and Julie Berubé which are genuinely lovely collections of lace and funky trends that are THE “must-haves†of the season. They are really reasonably priced, too, compared to other shops in Bluewater and the quality is excellent.
Tarbucktizard also came in last week, with some extremely beautiful camisoles, that should go down well for the party season – again we have had lots of interest by customers here too.
My team and I have been extremely busy taking deliveries, requests from customers etc and we continuously re-merchandise the stock so that we are fair and impartial. Stock rotation is key to a lively and new shop front every week! We all did some extra curricular activities last week by reviewing the hot spots and trendy Christmas windows. {mosimage}
{mosimage} Ruth, our dynamic sales assistant, discovered that the favourite shop front was definitely ‘Laura Ashley’ which was festive yet stylish with its backdrop and white glistening beads and stars. Other trendies that fit this season’s look are Miss Selfridge with a bohemian theme and Choice with a very glam exterior.
However, we did find the item of the season that should be avoided like the plague unless you wanted to look cheap and nasty this Christmas: Burberry. {mosimage}
We were disappointed with shop fronts such as Burberrys which looked completely wrong and outdated and Juicy Couture which was completely over done – their product is just tracksuits at the end of the day – the gym is where they should firmly stay! Anyone who wears labels like these, we decided, must be label freaks with no sense of style!
Also exciting rumours I got wind of this week at Bluewater, Claire Tweedy from Girls Aloud pop group was spotted shopping in Bluewater not looking as hot as usual – just like a normal shopper.
Places that my team found valuable were high street stores such as Miss Selfridge and TopShop – they really are providing winning combinations of style and fashion. At the other end of the scale were Logo and Pilot created a false sense of security – the garments are cheap but poor quality so you know that they are just not going to last. Alternatively H&M looks strong with good value and well made clothes. I used to think ‘Mango’ was a sophisticated high street store with a good fashionable product. However my team and I found sizes were not particularly well done and were inconsistent and the quality varied from garment to garment, too.
One purchase by one of my girls was a beautiful peach sequined dress from Mango, lovely shape – plunge neck and cross over back, however quality was bad, after one night’s use sequins had started to disappear rapidly – very disappointing but still a nice collection in the new season.
A lot of Christmas shoppers have been commenting to me about ‘Next’ being another disappointment with mass produce and too plain collections. This has worked perfectly to our boutiques’ advantage as we offer exclusive designs at affordable prices.
With such encouraging response to the boutique from our customers it’s a big well done and hats off to the designers who are really getting noticed. The designers are right with their collections and the ensemble is a great mix together. Already we are getting regular customers that come back each week for another exciting peak into the LFF boutique. It’s great for us and we hope it continues in high spirits for the rest of the Christmas and New Year period and long beyond into 2005!
Speak to you next week.
Nalini
