Local boutiques pivot to digital
As winter turned a corner toward spring, the prospects looked sunny for Vancouver luxury-resale retailer Mine & Yours. Owner Courtney Watkins was outgrowing her space at 1025 Howe Street and was looking at larger digs. By March 14 she was in Toronto, ready to launch a monthlong pop-up on swishy Yorkville Avenue. She had a $15,000 lease for the space and her product had been shipped.
Then COVID-19 lockdown hit. Watkins had to cancel the pop-up, work out a plan to postpone it with the landlord, and send all her apparel and accessories back home to Vancouver.
Like so many of this city’s fashion retailers, she’s had to pivot almost overnight—first boarding up her boutique, then figuring out ways to go virtual and online.
“Luckily, we had an online store, and we have doubled what we do with online content, posting 20 to 30 stories a day,” says Watkins, who’s managed to keep and redeploy most of her brick-and-mortar staff and has increased e-sales by 60 percent in just two weeks. All inventory is part of a “Give 10 Get 10” sale, with 10-percent-off stock and all purchases sending 10 percent to frontline healthcare workers. “I’m probably going to lose money for the next few months [overall], but my hopes are that we can keep these online sales at what they are when things open again.”
COVID-19 is wreaking havoc on independent boutiques here, with the double whammy of having to close brick-and-mortar stores combined with an economic hit to their customers’ wallets. But already, it’s also changing business models and altering the way we shop for clothes—and that goes far beyond a sudden boost in e-commerce.
Of course, this holds true for bigger fashion companies too. Nordstrom just accelerated the launch of its Canadian website, Nordstrom.ca, which opened for business on April 6. Vancouverbased global brand Aritzia quickly unveiled a massive online “Thanks to You” sale that’s raised over $5 million for an Aritzia Community Relief Fund, with 100 percent of revenues going to its employees and their families.
For the smaller fashion retailers here, it’s meant getting innovative with online sales, and also trying to find new virtual methods of maintaining personal shopping experiences. And as much as they’re reeling from their own financial hit, a lot them are finding a way to give back to the community: Gastown’s the Block, for instance, has donated 10 percent of all online sales to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank.
Online Shopping, especially poring over the resale finds at Mine & Yours, offers something to do when you’re locked down at home, Watkins surmises. “People are on their phones and looking for stuff to do.” At recent check, her growing site’s new items included a chic grey-suede-and-leather Faye bag by Chloé, black-and-gold Alexander McQueen sunglasses, and a pair of black-leather-fringe Marni mules perfect for lazing around your loft.
But Watkins has also noticed a surge of people posting and tagging small businesses amid COVID-19. “I’m feeling very supported by our community and our customers,” says the retailer, who had a big shop-online mural painted in pink and white on the boarding she had to put over her storefront. “I actually did a personal thank-you email to anyone who bought clothes online in the last two weeks.”
Now she and her team are trying to boost virtual shopping. Watkins starts the process by having customers fill out a questionnaire with their sizing and three favourite brands in clothes, bags, and shoes. Then she pulls some clothes and walks them through the accessories in the store via online video.
“People aren’t jumping on it yet,” Watkins says. “I had to reach out to clients, but once I suggested a shopping appointment, people were into it. It keeps that personalized touch.”
OVER AT TENTH & Proper (4483 West 10th Avenue) in Point Grey Village, the crisis also took long-time boutique owner Marion Fudge by surprise.
“It was a bit of a shock,” she admits. “I had just finished my treatment for breast cancer March 6; seven or eight days later I had to shut down my store. I pretty much had to lay everyone off, so I just started scrambling immediately to just keep me going as a small business. There’s not a lot of cash flow. But my landlord’s been really kind and just cancelled my rent for April. So I’m extremely lucky for that.”
Fudge immediately began researching ways to launch an e-store, taking pictures of her stock and getting a crash course in Shopify. It goes live this week.
Like Watkins, she feels lockdown has accelerated a move to digital that would have had to come anyway. Recent city research has shown the foot traffic for the retail area along West 10th Avenue has decreased in recent years, she points out. “It’s been about having the time to do it,” she says.
Now that time is of the essence, Fudge is already doing virtual shopping appointments with some of her clientele. “I’ve got one this afternoon,” she says. “I have an iPad, I get an idea of what they’re looking for, and I put together a few things they can try on. They either pick it up or I can drop it off, because most of them so far have been right here in the neighbourhood.”
What are people buying right now? Smart-casual looks that don’t necessarily break the bank, Fudge says, like spring tops and silk scarves.
Customers seem to want to support small local business right now. And part of it is to just feel better in these isolated times, Fudge observes: “There’s definitely a retail-therapy thing going on.”