A Unique Theme for a Unique Store

In any field, competition is the name of the game. It is not a harmful or destructive part of the business world as some pro socialist or pro communists would have you believe. On the contrary, competition is what drives the market to begin with. I’m not saying this from the heights of a university graduate, which I am not, but I do own my own store and can say this without a college degree, competition is what drives the market. It is the reason why prices are constantly being reduced for the consumer, and also the reason why products improve and develop at a rate that is unprecedented! Just think of your cell phone and then think of the one you had before that, and the one you had before that!

I was thinking of opening a store several years back, and at the time it was very difficult for me to decide how I would go about decorating the place. I had worked at a another clothing store straight out of high school and knew that if my store was going to make it, even on a small scale, I had to be deferent. This challenge is drastically magnified if you live in a big city as I do. In places like new York, if you don’t have something that people have not see before, you won’t stand a chance of making it, the competition is to overwhelming!

So I sat there on the floor of this big empty place (it was a restaurant before I started renting it) with my boyfriend and could not think of the most important part of running a clothing store, how to set the place up. I know what I would be selling and already had received many orders which were sitting in boxes in all over my apartment. But I was drawing a blank on ideas. Of course I had thought about it before, I had thousands of ideas, but that was all when it was free to think about them. Now when it was real and I would have to think of a concept for my store that was affordable I was bone dry and my creativity was nowhere to be found. 

Then it occurred to me, nothing! Yes that’s right!  Noting! My theme would be emptiness. Not an open-space modern look, but a real play on the natural light and mirrors. So I got to work and started positioning clothing racks and mirrors all over the room and thought the plan through, then I went home and started looking for what I would need on line. I also spent many hours over the next two weeks hunting all over the city for the rite kind of décor. Ii found the most amazing transparent mannequins! The light went right through them and I ended up buying some other mannequins and dress forms to complete the picture. I also found the most creative mirrors on a web site (I also got the mannequins and dress forms from an online web site) and after a few short weeks of long hours and hard work I had a grand opening!

I now have a very successful and very unique store and I am so happy to be earning my part of the competition and I have no doubt that it is all attributable to the uniqueness (and also customer service)  of my store. Keep it original and people will find you, get lazy and you will sit in the dust!