Reprint from the Post-Crescent 9-4-07
By Maureen Wallenfang
Post-Crescent Staff Writer
Friends use chic concept at boutique
Partners discover upscale version of consignment working in market
Q: You both have other jobs in addition to this new store?
A: Jill Nelson: I work at Weight Watchers. I’m a leader and a receptionist. I teach kickboxing at Ellipse Fitness. I’m a Girl Scout leader and a PTA president at Einstein. Tammy’s just as bad.
Tammy LeNoble: I also work for Voight Insurance. Jack Voight is our state treasurer. I also teach fitness classes. I’m the fitness coordinator for Ghost Town Fitness.
Nelson: You can tell we like to be busy.
LeNoble: We can’t be idle. We were both stay-at-home moms. We’re transitioning now into the second phase.
Q: This story is running on Labor Day. Will you be open?
A: Yes, absolutely. From 9 to 6.
Q: Consignment is the practice of people giving you their clothes to sell and you split the take. Do people understand this way?
A: LeNoble: Most people understand consignment. We’re like a broker. It’s the difference between resale and consignment that they don’t understand.
Nelson: We have people who come in here and think we’re going to give them cash on the spot, like a resale shop. If that’s what they want, we send them to Plato’s Closet.
Q: When you sell the clothing, how much does a consignee get?
A: LeNoble: We do 60 percent for the store and 40 percent for the consignee.
Q: Do you reject a lot of stuff?
A: Nelson: We go through it. We ask that consignees have at least 15 items to open an account. There are some things we cannot use. We might have too much of that size.
LeNoble: Sometimes it’s condition. We ask that it’s fashionable within the last two years. We’re finding business suits aren’t going to sell.
Q: What types of items sell?
A: Nelson: Right now jeans are one of our biggest sellers along with sportswear and T-shirts. We wanted a place where moms and daughters could shop together. We didn’t want a place where moms were saying, “The music’s blasting.” Or the daughters were saying, “C’mon mom, let’s go.” We’re finding a lot of moms our age coming in with their teenage daughters. We have some new Lucky, which is a huge name brand. Some new handbags, some new jewelry. And 137 consigners.
LeNoble: The biggest misconception is a lot of women think, “Oh there’s nothing here for me.” We carry size 00 up to 3X. The plus sizes are not doing very well yet because (potential customers) are not realizing that we have a lot of plus size.
Nelson: With both of us working in fitness and working for Weight Watchers, we see women who lose weight, gain weight and need to update their wardrobe and don’t have the money, especially with the economy the way it is.
LeNoble: Consignment is not new. It has been around. But making it into a retail store is new. We had three main goals – we wanted it to be organized, computerized and to look and smell nice.
Q: How do you determine prices?
A: Nelson: It’s generally about half of what it would be in a regular store. If we don’t know, we simply Google it.
Q: How has business been in these first weeks?
A: LeNoble: Business has been good. We’ve hit our goals every day since we opened. Some days we’ve tripled that. We’ve already paid ourselves twice.
Q: I know several consignment furniture stores, but what about other clothing stores?
A: Nelson: There are two others, Empty Your Closet and Too Little for Me.
LeNoble: What makes us different is we’re hosting private parties after hours for women, Red Hat Societies, teens.
Q: How did you prepare for this?
A: Nelson: We set this up in February in Tammy’s basement. We’ve been collecting clothes, organizing and tagging. We bought our computer system and went from there.
LeNoble: I called other consignment shops and asked what software they used. We had a business plan in mind. Consignment is a wonderful business as far as startup costs because we don’t (pay for) inventory. The commitment was to make sure our store looked as good as possible. We were very frugal in starting this. We personally financed this.
Q: What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced?
A: Nelson: That our name is Chic to Chic. Not chick to chick.