Retail Therapy

support your locally owned businesses

It is that time of year again... lots of shopping, eating, drinking, and being happy.

Please support your local businesses during this wonderful time. I have lots of friends who own businesses and we are hoping that you will come to us for your holiday gifts and your nights out.

I am so grateful that I have been here almost three years!!!!!!! It is really hard to believe.
I love meeting the new customers and being a part of my regular shoppers/friends lives. It makes me appreciate you all so much.

We are here because we love what we do and hopefully that comes through to our customers. I have talked to lots of boutique owners that are on the verge of closing. and that makes me really sad, I am sure their customers would be surprised and sad not to be able to shop there again.

I do know that it is sometimes harder to get to our stores, with parking, our hours that we are open and other things. If you have any suggestions on what we can do better or you would like to see, please feel free to let me know! I would be glad to hear about it.

Happy Holidays!!! Enjoy every minute and appreciate your family and friends.

Quickbooks

I really cant complain this morning. I went for a long walk with my friend Elyse who owns Strut shoes. We got a lot of business and work related talk covered. It is great to have a friend who goes through the same things I do.
Today I got some new dresses in the store. So cute! And I will spend the morning trying on new clothes like I am a customer, seeing the fit, what customers might be the best fit for it and then steam my new dresses.

Today I am going to town on quickbooks, which I must say is the most tedious most important thing you need to do as a biz owner. I made the big mistake of not starting off entering all my financial info right away. BIG MISTAKE. If you are thinking of opening your own biz, go out and buy quickbooks today, and I mean today and start entering all your expenditures for your biz.

Now, I have unending hours of data entry and catch up. must do it

its just business

Sitting here in the store on a sunday. I have the door closed because I am not feeling very social and the big ole plane flys that come in from the alley are an unwelcome presence in the store. I have had a terrible weekend in sales and I am having a day of wondering why I am doing this and should I still be doing this. A friend just closed her store and she put up signs and with in a few weeks she has sold all her merchandise. Now if only people could have supported her a bit more she might still be here.

I understand that gas is high right now and people are cutting back.  I feel that pain also. It affects my business in ways you might not think about.

All plane tickets are the highest I have seen them, this makes me cut back on buying trips, and when I do go, I have to pay double what I normally do. This cuts down on profits.

Shipping and freight on all my merchandise is higher due to gas prices

There are obviously other ways that retail is affected by what is going on in our economy.

I don't want to start a Bush rant because I don't like getting political in public. But enough is enough. We can afford to have an expensive war that was started on false pretenses on foreign soil but cant take care of our education and poverty needs right here in the US. It really is scary the condition of our country.
ok, just my little two cents on our government.

Just a word to peeps out there, please support your local and small businesses. Don't always go to the malls. I know it is convenient and maybe less expensive but if you want charming areas in our cities with locally owned boutiques and and restaurants, we need your help to keep our doors open. We care about our communities that we live and work in. Don't always go to the chain restaurants, they are often boring and don't offer what our amazing local restaurants have in ambiance and quality.

Cold Saturday morning

It is Saturday morning. I am sitting here at my computer and getting into a funk. I have been here for over an hour and not one soul has come in. It gets you into a mode of making it tough to have a good attitude.

I am going to get a latte and something chocolatey, even though I said that I would try not to eat sugar this week. Yah right.

 This week has been a transition for me. After being broken into, I got into a big funky yuck phase and did not want to come into the store. I gave myself a few days to be mopey person, but I am over that now. 

We were just voted “best women’s clothing” 2006 by citysearch. That will help.
 

Ok, owning a running your own boutique really truly is a dream come true. It is very amazing to be your own boss, go on fabulous buying trips to New York and LA, have a never ending closet, BUT, it is also

Endless financial worries
No salary for me
Lots of days with no human contact
Lots of ups and downs 

But, I would also never trade it for the world. I love, love, love swank. It is like my alter ego. I will mix it up this year and continue on my path forward.
 

Also, for other exciting news,Pasquinis restaurant is coming in across the street!!!!!!!!!!! Yippeeeee

I may have to become a plus size store after that. I love, love, love PASQUINIS PIZZA!!!

friends in the business

I had recently had the chance to get to know Elyse the owner of STRUT shoes and Veronica from Dragonfly. Both have locally owned stores in denver and the highland neighborhood.
we all came together to put together a boutique guide for some of the local boutiques. We had 18 stores participate. It ended up being a lot of work but I have made two good friends in the process. Elyse has been really instrumental in getting this all put together.  Everyone loves her and I love that we talk so many times a day to vent and to talk about our businesses.

It really helps to have someone in your shoes who knows what it is like to work 10 hours a day and to leave with a day of no sales. Sometimes you feel like you are working for free and it does get to us once in awhile. We are all doing what we love and not a day goes by that I dont realize that and am grateful for it. BUT, that does not mean that I do not get in bad moods about the lack of business and sometimes I am afraid it may come out accidentally.

We will sit in our stores for 8 hours with out a soul coming in, you get in your hermit mode then a customer will walk in and we have to try harder to get into retail mode and not get down on the day.
We all have a week where nothing goes according to plan and to be in the public eye so much, we must always seem to be in a good mood.  Usually we are but there are those days :)

Retail is a brutal business to be in, we arent doing this to become millionaires. We love clothes, shoes, fashion, beauty, etc and are so grateful to have expanded our closets and opened them to our friends and customers in denver. I love meeting you all and appreciate you taking the time to come to swank and hang out with me. It it the best feeling to hear that you get compliments on the clothes that you purchased here. I will always strive to bring you cool, unique but  affordable fashion to swank.
WORD

First steps

My name is Wendy Van Der Maas.  I own a new small business; Swank, in the Highlands of Denver.  I love to shop and it's a dream come true, but it is work.  I'm running and managing a store along with 2 small daughters ( Morgan 5 and Quincey 3 - Happy Birthday peanut!).  It isn't all fun and games, although I always have something to wear. 

Traffic and word of mouth has been good. My problems aren't any different than most businesses: paying the bills on time, budgeting and getting my name out there.  I'm approaching a year in business (May 21st) and feel like I’ve really achieved something in my life. 

 

Going info fashion wasn’t my only reason for the store. I put together some important things I wanted and built my business around them.

I wanted to:

• Watch my daughters grow up.
• Travel
• Shop
• Open a store that helped women pamper themselves.
• Build something in my neighborhood.

 

Mission accomplished. Time to reevaluate my goals: Prove Swank is a success! Build a name and brand for myself.