Reprint from Times-Villager 8-25-07
By Brian Roebke
Women power makes Chic to Chic successful
Chic to Chic is all about women.
The women’s consignment boutique, located on Eisenhower Drive in Darboy, is a perfect place for women to get a deal, support women owners and be with other women.
Owners Jill Nelson and Tammy Eiting started the business a year ago, and worked with other women to get the business started. “We just like supporting other women and women-owned businesses,” Nelson said.
After almost a year of research, the duo opened the business, and are thriving a year later.
“We decided we were at the time of our lives where our kids are getting older and we need to go back into the workforce,” Eiting said. “We saw all these successful women in the community and we thought, we can do what they do, what is it that we love to do?”
Coming up with something profitable and also enjoyable led them to realize that shopping and consignment was something that they loved.
“Helping people, constantly moving, not sitting behind a computer, helping other women dress for success and just to feel good about themselves,” was something they wanted to do.
“Jill and I have been shopping consignment for the last few years and realized that consignment boutiques were not real popular in this part of the area yet, although other areas did have,” Eiting said. “Resale and consignment really is turning around now in such a way that it’s becoming more trendy.”
While consignment had a negative “thrift” connotation at one time, it’s turning around.
“There’s nothing wrong with that, because everything has its niche, we just wanted a place where it was more of a boutique, where people who walk in and get in 20 steps and look for 10 minutes and then say, ‘is this consignment?’ They don’t even know,” Nelson said.
They strive to have the atmosphere of a regular boutique, but with gently used clothing.
The closest shop of its kind is in Green Bay, while they are popular in Madison and larger cities in the country.
“The low ends are $200-300 and that’s a steal,” Jill said of the shops in the big cities. “For the $1,200, $1,800 dress.” Prices in the Darboy store go from $7.99 to $499.
Eiting said, “The big cities have more access to designer things as well and I think we’re just now as a community starting to have that with the mall the way it’s been and I think things are turning around in this area where Appleton’s now a point of destination.” Before, everybody went to Milwaukee and Chicago.
Chic to Chic has 550 consigners and each consigner needs a minimum of 15 items to open an account, but they have people who bring in many more things.
“As our name gets out there, we’re collecting more and more designer things because of our reputation, so we’ve been finding our standards are just getting higher and higher, the longer we’re in business, because we can,” Eiting said.
Their initial concern was how they would get all the clothing but that has not been a problem at all. “The clothing comes easy, finding the women to bring in their gently used and very trendy things, has become part of one of the easier things we’ve had to do,” Eiting said.
“I think the biggest challenges is getting people who do not shop consignment to do that now, to realize that it can be just as fun and even more fun, actually, than regular shopping, because you leave feeling like, “I’ve got these great items, for a third of the cost I would have spent.”
Nelson said the store works for both of them, owning the business and working with people.
“Tammy takes care of the accounting and bookkeeping, taxes, and I do more of the marketing, the logos, the business cards,” Nelson said. “Right now we’re working on a flier with five other consignments in northeast Wisconsin that we chose to hook up with.”
Trying to connect with other women, the business has joined the Heart of the Valley Chamber of Commerce, and Nelson is an ambassador. She’s also a member of several other business associations.
Open 50 hours a week, the two said there’s never a day they dread going to work. They also have three other women who come in to help out as needed, as Nelson has three children and Eiting has four.
Consigners come from areas as far away as Oshkosh, Wausau, West Bend, and Sturgeon Bay.
“Either they travel for their job and they see us, or they have family here,” Eiting said. “They’ve Googled us and they know they’re going to get top dollar because we do. Forty percent of their item at one place might be different than 40 percent of their item somewhere else,” Eiting said. “Customers are repeat customers, so if we don’t keep the store fresh constantly, and getting new things…that’s what keeps our current business.”
Since they opened, their vision for the business has become broader.
“We realized this business can be successful and that there’s a need for this business in other areas in the Fox Valley,” Eiting said. “So opening another location, finding some partners who would want to do that, it’s opening a new realm of another aspect of moving on.”
They have also been able to go to jewelry shows in Chicago, where they can buy some new items.
“Now we’re carrying new jewelry, new watches, some purses, and one line of clothing new, Lucky, so it’s a mix,” Eiting said, while emphasizing that the heart of the business still is consignment.
One of their niches is carrying sizes from 00 to 4X. “A lot of them only go to size 16, so women are very happy to hear we go up to the larger sizes,” Eiting said.
They also carry teens, womens and misses. “So we do get a lot of three generational women coming in to shop together. They can’t go to the mall and shop at the same store,” Eiting added.
A computerized inventory system allows them to keep items on the floor for 60 days, when they are moved to the clearance area at half price.
After that, consigners can pull back their items or donate them to the Community Clothes Closet.
“When my mom passed away, I took her clothes to the Community Clothes Closet,” Nelson said. “And that’s how I heard about it. We knew that there were going to be some clothes that the right person at the right time didn’t walk through the door, and what were we going to with those clothes?” she said.
“We have an awesome working relationship with them there,” Eiting said. “They are more than pleased because we’ve looked through everything. The zippers work, the buttons are all on, it’s in style and the volunteers wait for the clothes to come.” Monthly, $5,000 worth of clothing is donated, with the original value triple that.
The women who receive the clothes are very appreciative of the clothes they receive, and are used to go to parties, for a girl to go to prom, and for job interviews.
“A lot of these women would say they would either give them away or they would give them to someplace else and so they know they’re going to a place where women can really use them and they’re not being resold again,” Nelson said.