getting started

[wedding shop lady]

HI,
I have a shop, stocked the shop with wedding gowns, and all accessories. advertising on yell.com 118118 . thompsons directory, got a website, face book advertizing, flyers out cards out . shop not a great location but in a bust town. window s displayed nicely :|not one phone call or customer what am i doing wrong . help only been advertising two weeks and had shop that long but not a call. can any one advise me or reassure me from wedding dress lady

 

[Silvera]

I've just finished making my website and i'm the same. A bit worried that it'll never get people interested!

I guess just keep increading visability and maybe push a promotion or something? Give people an incentive to come to you, even just for enquiring.

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

HI,
I have a shop, stocked the shop with wedding gowns, and all accessories. advertising on yell.com 118118 . thompsons directory, got a website, face book advertizing, flyers out cards out . shop not a great location but in a bust town. window s displayed nicely :|not one phone call or customer what am i doing wrong . help only been advertising two weeks and had shop that long but not a call. can any one advise me or reassure me from wedding dress lady

Maybe consider where brides to be will look for wedding dresses - how many young people now use 118118 and Thompsons directory?

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Hi

Take it easy it takes quite a while for word to get around, Your best bet would be to get a mention in a local weekly paper, most do a half page advert where your suppliers are asked by the paper to buy a advert in your section reducing the price you pay

You can write a story about yourself and why you opened the shop and your range of goods and how you selected them etc and send to the business section of the local or area papers, the more you tell them and make it interesting the more chance they will use it, and the beauty is it's for free.

Are you ordereing what items you like instead of what your customers like, fashion changes all the time and what say a 40 something person considers fantastic may be seen as the pits by someone at 20

In Great Yarmouth most of the wedding shops are displaying two colour dresses i.e white with say burgundy highlights

If you don't have the number of people walking past the front door then unfortuatly it's only advertising and word of mouth that will get people into the shop

Our own history of opening a shop ment we took nothing for the first 6 weeks apart from a few under £10 items, but after that growth has been good, Web sites take a long time to get sales, everyone is a expert who will help you for a fortune but not live up to expectation, a usefull tool but think long term for first year or so unless you have plenty of money to spend on adwords or the like

Good Luck

 

[minz]

Do you do wedding fayres? they seem to be everywhere at the moment and the one they hold at the hotel here is always busy, I would have thought that would be a good way to get your name out there.

 

[thegreattonino]

what about advertising an evening event to celebrate your opening with a small fashion show and some free wine?

 

[newwavecreativemedia]

Hi

Do you have any specific marketing strategies, I mean what makes your shop different to any other, are you cheaper, or maybe you specialise in a specific style for example.

Just a note on having a website, a common mistake to make is just by having a website people will visit it.

You need to understand your niche and try to exploit it using some keyword research etc

If you want some ideas on how you could do this just drop me a pm

Ta

 

[Matt Gent]

Hi i know your eager to get going and obviously wanting to re coup some money, but you say you have only been advertising for two weeks.
If your web site has only been up that long then your going to need to give it some more time, also are you doing Seo on the site?
You really will need to work on this and depending on the keywords your using don't expect results straight away.
You could try an adwords campaign for faster results and extra traffic.
Good luck!

 

[KateCB]

When I started my business, it did nothing for 6 months. Nothing.
Then I got my first order, for a whole £20.

It takes time, to get known, to get trusted. As someone else said, if I were looking for a wedding gown, I wouldn't use thomson local or 118118, so that is money wasted IMO; I wouldn't use Yell.com either, I would search google for 'wedding dresses in Barnsley' and see what came up - cancel the advertising if you can, and put more into search engine advertising as this is where people look now.

Get your local reporter to do a piece on your 'Grand opening' and have a wine and cheese evening for prospective customers; offer mother of the bride gifts etc, anything to raise awareness of your existence.

Do you have a local magazine that is delivered free to households? Advertise in there - its the only paper based thing I actually look at and keep for interesting adverts and its a lot cheaper than 118/yell! Another goos way to advertise is by approaching known wedding reception venues with flyers to give to people asking about the venue for a wedding reception - often the venue is booked prior to the dress, so they see the brides to be before you do and can point them in your direction.

Above all, you need to remember that 2 weeks is nothing, plus we have jsut seen to large bank holiday weeks, so footfall int he best of places has been slower.

 

[luckystar]

Hi,

This may sound random but I used to be a makeup consultant and I used to have ladies that would always ask about bridal makeup....could you link up with makeup counters as they do tend to do alot of evening events? Or maybe hairdressers etc? Even if the bride has her dress, they may know someone who is looking for her dream dress.....the wedding fayres are a great idea aswell.....all worth a shot!!

Good luck!!

 

[the Chocolate]

Contact the local paper and organise an opening evening/day, as for the website you will need a seo expert, the company I use are fantastic to get your page ranking and do not charge the earth! They are www.mayhemnewmedia.co.uk

 

[villabadger]

HI,
I have a shop, stocked the shop with wedding gowns, and all accessories. advertising on yell.com 118118 . thompsons directory, got a website, face book advertizing, flyers out cards out . shop not a great location but in a bust town. window s displayed nicely :|not one phone call or customer what am i doing wrong . help only been advertising two weeks and had shop that long but not a call. can any one advise me or reassure me from wedding dress lady

Hi,

Firstly, good luck with your new business. We had a wedding shop for a couple of years so we can certainly help you try to avoid some of the pitfalls.

Some of the things you mention we found were difficult to monitor and felt as though they were a waste of money. Also, it is easy to fall into the trap of trying to match your competitors' advertising - in other words you end up paying to advertise everywhere other shops do. Our local paper didn't help matters as they would frequently run themed advertising spreads and you felt obliged to join in as your competitors were in there.

In the end we focused on just a few things.....
1 Website - had lots of dress pics taken from the supplier cd's rather than links to the supplier websites. If you point your potential customers to other sites then they may see a dress they like from a range that you don't stock.

2 Wedding Events - exhibition stand with live models wearing different styles of dresses. Luckily we have 2 daughters (bridemaids) and friends older daughter who wore brides dresses.

3 Networking - make friends with businesses who offered complimentary wedding products/services such as wedding planners, florists, jewellery, hotels, chauffeurs, hairdressers. Get some of their products/literature in your shop and vice versa. Maybe collaborate with them on a joint brochure for a specific event.

4 Main Competitors - get to know the owners of the other dress shops - there will be lots of times that you will simply not have a dress to suit a particular customer and passing them onto another local shop may actually be beneficial to you (get them to fall in love with your bridesmaid ranges first though).

Make sure you get your alterations prices right - they are essential for virtually every sale and a great earner. Even better if you have the skills to do them yourself.

Last point - ensure that you have larger size wedding gowns available for trying on and don't be afraid to sell your stock dresses when you already have the correct size on your rail.

Hope this helps.

 

[Jayser100]

It is a shame that so many people start a business with the idea that, provided the products are good and the presentation is great, they are bound to make money. Business life isn't that simple I'm afraid.

I live in Maidstone, and there are too many wedding shops here - they keep coming and going as well.

Anyhow, that's the negative stuff, but you've opened your shop and so now it has to work. As others have said, make sure you have a strong grasp on who your local competition is, and what angles they have, if any (i.e. discounting, bespoke, internet etc.). If you don't have a niche or angle yourself, try to think of one that will set you aside form the local competition at least in one area of your business. That way, when you put marketing out, you'll have something to get the local press interested etc.

As others have said, getting your first few sales will be the hardest. Businesses like this one always blossom through making a good name, and those happy first customers will soon put the word round about where they bought their beautiful gowns and accessories.

Good luck

 

[justinshi]

Just make yourself different from others,although it's not that easy.

Good luck!