Siennas goal is to create an urban vibe with a natural twist. We support the community by promoting local artists and their work and by getting involved in its events. We want to create a place where we keep with the ever changing trends yet support eco-friendly practices, and with our re-sale establishment it becomes an attainable idea. The foundation of my retail store will be a sole proprietor ownership, with a partnership with the buyer on the goods that I sell. The reason for this is that I would like to open a lower priced resale boutique that emphasizes vintage clothing, but also sells products made by local artists. I want to embrace the culture that I decide to settle into by bringing in what the community creates along with a fun resale environment. As the store progresses and starts to work its way into popularity I would open a website that also promotes local artist and one-of-a-kind clothing that encourages individuality in a culture that constantly changes. I think this would be the perfect timing to push vintage resale because of societys concern of conserving energy. What better way is there to go green other than stylishly wearing clothes that took no extra energy to create. In a way, you are also recycling your clothing and buying products that were hand-made or create with little energy by people from your local community. If popularity became large enough I would expand it to an online site, and if any other branches were opened Id like it to be in a place that differed from the first. They may have the same name, but the visual merchandising could be completely different from the other locations, each store to reflect its own community. The Location: The street I chose to open my business on is NW 23rd Ave. Its located in the heart of the metro area and draws a lot of interest. It's got a lot to offer, with people coming to that street just to shop, and they say it's a street people go to just people watch. Population in the area: The population in Portland, Oregons metropolitan area is around 2.2 million. It is stated to be the thirtieth most populated metro area. Whats better is that current estimates show a population growth of up to 80 percent in excess of 60 percent over the next 50 years in the metropolitan area! Portland also keeps the mindset to use strong land-use planning, which is an important thing to keep in mind with the estimated population growth. My store fits their eco-minded ways: They take pride in the environment and to emphasize this point, around 8,100 acres of ecologically important area are permanently protected. This explains why they are considered the greenest city in the U.S. Nature is important to Portland. According to Grist magazine, Portland ranked 2 nd in the world! It is huge on urban biking as a way of getting around the metro area. My store holds these values that go along with Portlands views; using eco-friendly POS systems, natural products in displays and decorations, and even some of the products are recycled or created by local artists with no manufacturing factor. Political Advantages: Portland is strongly Democratic among all levels of their government; this is a positive factor since its currently supporting the country with President Obama, whom I also support strongly. Among the community, Portland has a low percentage below the poverty line (only 13.1 percent) and a high median income per household (average of $40,146 per household). This helps the demand aspect and will help my business to get to a great start. The government here also has many special projects planned to improve the city including the light rail, which helps people to get to and around the metro area. Portland ranked 42 nd in worldwide quality of living according to research done in 2009 by Mercer, a US consulting firm. The factors determined included; political stability, personal freedom, sanitation, crime, housing, natural environment, recreation, banking, availability of consumer goods, education and public services. All of these things made me feel very confident in my choice. It is a growing city with a focus on youth. The average age there is 35, but there is a foundation of youth in the community. Supporting Portlands community: The most important factor that, in my mind, was ground breaking, is that it is named the hub of American DIY culture. Portland culture loves the self-dependant mindset, focused on creating and doing things for yourself. I think this fits perfectly with my stores support of local arts and crafts. The population of craft enthusiasts has boomed since the 90s, which would bring in a lot of artist I could buy from and who, in turn, would buy from me! It sounds like this city has many of the passions I do and that incorporates into my store. They have people of all orientations and colors, which add to the vast variety of the culture. It truly makes me excited to see not only what my store can bring to the city, but how the city influences my store. My storefront will have a semi-arcade front only recessing a few feet. The marquee will be simple font and Id like it to be rusted to a sienna color. I want the windows to look like windows from an antique home only bigger, almost ceiling to floor with about 9 panes stained a cherry wood color. There wont always be a display unless its seasonal or promotional, so most of the time it will be open window. Ill make it a priority of the employees to keep the area looking tidy. If there is a display it will reflect the stores ideas and keep current with its location demographic. Cherry wood will be used throughout the store; the color of the wood floors, the home furniture I will get to use as display tables, and other random objects including the checkout counter. I want large, floral looking rugs underneath the furniture to help define the path through the store for the customer. I will get wrought-iron chandeliers for the ceiling and different kinds of furniture, shelves and oddities to use to display products. Everything I use I will try to find used or antique to fit the motive of the store and bring in the vintage touch. Id like to use the same for decorations, but in a way that I can keep vintage modern and keep my target of years. I would like soft lighting to keep the store warm feeling. I want it bright enough for people to see the correct coloring and such, and obviously for safety, but just a very soft style. The colors I will theme my store around will be in the warm color family. The mix of the lighting and warmer colors will give off the homey feel I am aiming for. Id use minimal focus lighting just to highlight little displays, the checkout counter and to help designate the pathways more. I want to make sure I keep the type of products separated into different sections of the store: local artists merchandise, new products and resale items (which is the majority). I really want to keep it uncluttered, so Ill try my best to keep my stock on the selling floor daily maintained and make sure to trade things in and out of back stock as I see fit with the trends. Overall, my store will be pretty small in staffing to start out. I really want a good team that works well together and stays focused. It will make it a good intimate appearance for the customers and it will feel even more like home combined with the look of the store and a small friendly staff. Store Manager/ Owner (Me): For my role I really want to be involved since it will be a small boutique. Id like to take on the roles of ownership and store manager alongside an Assistant Manager I will hire. Job Specifications: Experience with business affairs and ethics Outstanding promotion and customer service skills Understand the financial aspects of running a business Must have experience in business or retail management (preferably more than 5 years) Positive experience with customer service Outstanding leadership attributes Job Description: Supervises establishment (oversees all employees and how the business is run.) Deals with the buying and selling of the stores products Promotes the new establishment and makes decisions on the visual merchandising of the store, constantly coming up with ideas on the setup and displays of the store Makes the final decisions on finances and pricing Direct boss of the managers Oversees the store on a daily basis Hires new employees, deals with terminations, etc. Order needed merchandise for the sales floor and back stock Establish daily operations to the Assistant Manager (gives them direction on daily happenings: floor sets, new sales items, new merchandise or promotions) Approves scheduling Direct supervisor of the Assistant Manager Work on creating a small website and massto send updates to all customers signed up with their Assistant Manager Job Specifications: Must have experience in management (preferably at least 5 years) Positive experience with customer service Outstanding leadership attributes Respectful to employees (especially those under your authority like retail clerks) Job Description: Oversees and delegates Retail Clerks on marking merchandise Manages breaks and coworker conflicts Outlines schedules and presents it to the Store Manager to approve Deals with customer service issues that surpass the Retail Clerks Train and orientate the new employees Daily manage the sales floor Set up any displays, promotions or changes the Store Manager made note of Check and maintain inventory and keeps unit control records Direct supervisor of all Retail Clerks Take opinions of customers and check on existing ones. Keep up withupdates on the store as it grows. Retail Clerks: Job Specifications (all Retail Clerks) Must have good customer service experience Some cash handling experience Skills in up-selling and promoting merchandise to customers Able to keep up on store policies and be dependable Job Description (Retail Clerk #1): Maintain and organize sales floor Operate a cash register Help Assistant Manager with any floor changes or new displays Tickets on any newly or differently marked merchandise Job Description (Retail Clerk #2): Helps Assistant Manager with any inventory or changes in back stock Operate cash register Helps Assistant Manager with invoice checking Maintains minor customer service issues Job Description (Retail Clerk #3) Promote within the store, as customers walk in; tell them about discounts, specials and new arrivals Personal shopper help customer with any extra needs, run dressing room area, work on tidiness of the sales floor When nothing is currently happening, stay at front of the store, prevent store loss, greet customers and familiarize passerby about our store. Run cash register if theres an overflow of customers. Help Assistant Manager with any visual merchandising changes or mannequin wardrobes and marking changes. Mission Statement: An Anthropologie chain opened up near my small boutique. They are a well-known franchise that sells eclectic things that have the vintage style my boutique also has. Their name is wide known and is pulling sales from my boutique and into their store. It is a different kind of competition from the other surrounding thrift stores and poses more of a threat because of their popularity and copious amounts of advertising and large workable budget. It has decreased Siennas sales by about twenty percent so far and Anthropologie is bringing in more foot traffic each day. I have kept my loyal thriftier customer base, but I need to come up with a strategy to get Siennas name out there. Situational Analysis: I chose Anthropologie as the new competitor in my area. The size of their sales and advertising is very hard to compete with. It is a company of employees numbering from and the company itself had very good statistics the fourth quarter (relating to a report posted on March 4 th 2010). Their earnings were up 92% totaling $78 million and for the fiscal year, sales closed at $1.9 billion. The stores direct sales were up 28% and their gross margins were up to 41.7% from 34%. It is noted this may be due to a reduction in markdowns. The company also released a customer bonus card called the Anthro card. It tracks each individual customer no matter where they shop within the store (online, brick and mortar, or catalog). It keeps track of the things you buy and the brands you like within their product line. Anthropologie is known as not being very budget friendly; its on the higher priced end. They have an online shopping website and also stock which actually doubled its share this quarter. The Overall Objectives: Siennas main goal is to get my name out there as much as I can for a single boutique competing with such a big retailer name. There are many actions I can take to improve my foot traffic and popularity. Marketing The store will be a unique and personal experience each time you walk in. It will always offer a new line of products and each piece is unique because of the re-sale factor. It offers more than a line of brands that are mass-produced. The first action would be to get involved in community events. It would be good to sponsor or host a local artist event. I would like to create a Trunk show for all the local artists to display their products, crafts and artwork that will be sold in the store. Next Sienna would promote an ad in local travelers guides to bring in more out of the area foot traffic. Create a customer reward card, which would track purchases and promote sales, coupons and reward gift cards on birthdays. This will help with the competing Anthro card. Create eye-catching brochures that display current sales or events within our store and place them throughout the community. Communication: Create a Facebook business fan page along with a Twitter account. This is a great way to promote freely. Sienna should look into creating a small business website. A typical website for this kind of establishment is usually about 8-16 pages and takes around days to create. It is a large investment that I would like to work into my budget. Lastly I would like to tag a business blog onto the website to promote community events and featured local artists. It can also showcase unique products and styles the store will use in its changing trends. Budget: The budget will be a tight squeeze over the next 2 months. The website might take a bit longer than those two months and can range from $75-$200 a year for hosting and an average of $10 a year for the domain name. Maintenance ranges from $500-$1250 a year. On average getting a small business based website, depending on the graphics and number of pages, is from $2000-$6000. The cost for creating a business account for Twitter and Facebook is generally free and is a great idea for promotion with the current social networking craze. The advertising in the travelers guides is about $600-$700 a page ad and runs cheaper the more times you reprint it in the guide. It would also be a good idea to look into local newspapers and magazines. I would really like to fit this in my budget, as it will increase my budget. Id like to fit about 25% of my budget from my boutiques sales into theses new marketing techniques and I hope to shop around for the right prices for the aspects of my store. The Overall Strategy: Siennas strategy is to bring in more foot traffic despite the larger corporation moving in. It is crucial to keep my boutique offering a unique and personal experience, with no reductions in markdowns. Sienna will constantly change their floor layout and merchandise, so we can afford to be marking down items that have been on the floor for a shorter period of time versus Anthropologie. Our store has a high standard of being involved directly in the community and will implement the new marketing strategies along with hosting and creating events for local artists. Tactical Execution: Use all possible resources to market online. (website, social networking, ads). Use PR to push out brochures and get the word out there, even if the PR is some of our employees working outside of the boutique to promote our name, events, sales and promotions. Meet with website designers and find a person that fits our budget. Have them come up with a design that fits the feel of the store. We will do the same to meet with the travelers guide and local magazine companies to discuss ad prices. Layout a plan to change the sales floor every 2-3 weeks, even if in a small way. It is detrimental to keep the store unique and to offer something different to keep regulars coming in and increase foot traffic to create regulars. Implement a rewards card program that offers special deals and to make the shopping experience more personal, as we can track shopping trips and birthdays. Evaluation: The whole idea of fitting this plan into my budget is to give customers 100% satisfaction. It will involve the community more than any franchise could with their focus on the bigger corporation. The plan will get our name out there in Portland and help Sienna establish a permanent base within its community by supporting it and the people who work so hard to keep it together. Jennifer Durre FRM 110 Instructor: Lissa Braganca-Diez Week 5, Assignment 3 September 20, 2010