It was a perfect Saturday afternoon, and I was sitting on my couch curled up with my husband and dogs, when I scrolled upon a re-posted video of a boutique going out of business. The lady online was showing the merchandise and talking about the sale, when she casually panned over a fuchsia fur coat that immediately motivated me to get off the couch and into my car. As I pulled into the parking lot of the building, I felt immediate regret because I’d driven past this place many times, brushing it off for an old office building. Nothing about it said high end boutique from the outside, and nothing made me want to stop there. How could this building be housing all that pretty attire that moved me to action?
I walked inside, and my soul began weeping over the fact this beautiful boutique was going to be closing. It had everything I wanted from a shopping experience. It was orderly, well merchandised, smelled of fir tree candles, and had a nicely curated collection of clothing. What it did not have was good curbside presence, signage, or any sort of social media following or desirable webpage. The store was packed with shoppers, and as I walked around the front of the store, the lady at the cash wrap asked me how I heard about them. I told her it was from my friend’s social media re-post. She smirked.
I wandered around the store, touching all the textiles and observing the merchandising trends, when I eventually found myself alone. Alone in my thoughts, and alone with the cash wrap lady. The shopper in me was devastated just to find this gem of a store, but the business owner in me had so many questions. What did that smirk mean? How did they get to the point of closing? It didn’t make sense to me. The location was great, the people in the area were exactly their type of consumer, and the selection of items was exciting. I started asking questions.
The lady at the cash wrap was the boutique owner. We quickly fell into business banter, and she mentioned how she saw more footsteps in the last 2 weeks of changing marketing companies than ever before, and briefly considered staying open. Ultimately, she could not. She went on to tell me the person hired to do her webpage and social media originally was a “friend” that not only failed her in the marketing department, but also stole a substantial amount of merchandise. This loss was two-fold, and, vast. Her smirk was a direct response to her seeing firsthand the power of social media. Everyone she asked was there because they saw the same Live. We talked for a long time, and a few things really stuck out to me that I felt were relevant to share with my fellow auto shop owners.
