Speaker: 00:00:00

Summer's often kind of a weird season for a boutique owner, especially if you're not in a

tourist town.

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We're selling through spring and summer.

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We're getting ready to bring fall into our stores.

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But what does the timing look like in between?

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Like, what are we doing for July, August, September?

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What does that flow look like?

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That's exactly what I'm going to teach you here today because so many boutique owners come

to me frantic in July and August, just sort of freaking out about how they're going to get

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through inventory and move into fall.

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So if we haven't met yet, hi, I'm Emily Benson.

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I'm a retail strategist and founder of Boutique Training Academy.

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I'm also host of the Booster Boutique Podcast.

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I have been doing this forever.

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I've helped thousands and thousands of boutique owners start grow and scale their

businesses all while maintaining their profitability.

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So that is what I keep in mind as we go through any training that I'm teaching you and in

particular this one because the focus of this three part series that we're on video three

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for is all about

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your summer to fall profit strategy.

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Yes, you can have a strategy.

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I think a lot of people get lost in the summer, like where are we?

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So in today's video, this is what we're gonna cover.

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First is what to expect in this late summer, early fall time period, how to think about

the timing of bringing in items, marking things down.

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I also wanna talk about tax-free weekends and any sort of promotions you might think about

doing during this time period.

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And lastly, I wanna talk you through, before this big holiday rush starts, what should you

be thinking about?

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Fall and holiday are our biggest seasons in boutique land and pretty much across the board

in retail.

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So what do you need to be doing now to set yourself up for success for the end of the

year?

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So let's talk about the overview of June, July, August, September, and then like kind of

what comes after.

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So we already talked about why J months are not bad.

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They're just transition months.

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So June, you still should be in full price, spring and summer, summer especially, styles.

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Then once we hit July, things kind of slow down.

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And this again is not due in part to what you're selling.

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It's due in part to the fact that people are.

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They're like checking in in that halfway mark.

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They're on vacation.

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Their kids are home.

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Like there's a lot going on in July.

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And so I don't want you to think that like Jay is a slow month.

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It's naturally like a bit of a month off.

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So I always want you to be taking your own vacation.

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I want you to close the store to do any repairs that you might need to do.

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This also might be a time where you shut down your website for a week and relaunch it with

a refreshed look.

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Again, you have the opportunity in July to disappear a little bit and then like come back

even stronger.

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So I want you to utilize it like do not stress about sales in July Hopefully we've already

planned and you know what you're gonna do in July So like the idea of stressing about

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sales in July to me is silly.

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That's not a month to stress about sales It's like make as much as you can It's not gonna

be your highest month of the year and that's okay Unless you're in a tourist town if you

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are in a tourist town, then yes This might be your highest month ever June July and

August.

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So if that's you then

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we're going at full price.

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We're selling as much at full price as we can, like we're moving through as we have the

traffic through the store, okay?

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So I do wanna have that little asterisk that if you are in a tourist area or somewhere

where people come to in the summer specifically, this might be a little bit different for

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you, okay?

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So just take it with a grain of salt.

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August and September are totally regionally specific.

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I live outside Boston.

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August is still very hot for us and we actually don't even go back to school until

September in most parts of the state.

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I know if you're in the South or a different area, you've been hot for a while, you might

be going back to school in July or early August.

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So some of this is going to depend on just where you are and knowing what your customer

needs and is going through.

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So August usually is when we see tax-free weekends because your state wants to give a

little bit of money back to the consumer to...

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Encourage the economy to encourage you to shop a little bit for that back to school season

So if you do live in a state where you're having a tax-free weekend promote it do

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something special, know again It's like sort of a benefit to you too because you don't

have to collect the sales tax But I would plan on maybe doing an event that weekend doing

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a party like letting people know like hey You're gonna actually save money this weekend

without me doing anything to my product Maybe I'll give you a little bit more of a

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discount because you know, I get to save on sales tax like

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dealing with reporting it for this weekend, that is a nice opportunity for you to do

something special for your customers.

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If you don't have a tax-free weekend, this is when we start to do back to school.

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Now, oftentimes people will say, what inventory am I doing?

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Like, it's still hot outside, but everyone's sick of their summer stuff.

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They already have their shorts.

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They already have these bright color things.

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This is where we start to shift the color palette, not necessarily the weight of the item.

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So again, we're thinking about who are we selling to?

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Where are they located?

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What is their daily life like?

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Now that's not to say you couldn't sell heavy, long sleeve items in the summer because so

many people are sitting inside with air conditioning.

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But I do want to be respectful of color palette changes.

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We are moving to a fall color palette, which is always inclusive.

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I like to think of fall leaves.

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So we're getting our olive greens.

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We're getting our yellows, our oranges.

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This is where navy blue and burgundy can come in and really enrich your assortment colors.

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Also we're moving materials.

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prints, fabrics is where we can do more tweed.

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We can do more chunky knit things.

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I also feel like fall is really amazing for plaids.

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In fall recently we've had like a lot of trends like the puffer jacket, the shack it.

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Some of those things are gonna trend differently this year because it's tending to stay

hotter for longer.

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Some of those heavier weight items you may wanna wait until September to put out even

October.

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Now.

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Again, like I said, people are in air conditioning.

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If you think you have items that are a good third piece, then yes, maybe you do offer

those in the summer.

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But again, I would be selective about what I do.

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I think that the biggest shift during August is color, print, and texture.

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Other than that, fabrics can still be pretty lightweight.

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And I do feel strongly that you can still sell summer dresses, summer skirts, like things

like that.

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But now we're in a fall color palette.

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So it's making that big shift color wise.

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August can be a great time still for transition, but we are looking at back to school.

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Like people are looking for things that they're going to wear to school, where to work.

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These tend to be less casual outfits and more like smart casual outfits, non-distressed

denim.

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Third pieces like blazers and vests start to come into play.

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Now again, it's gonna depend on your climate where you're located, but even as we shift

into September, Day generally marks the end of summer.

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Fall collections should start to gain some traction, especially around September 15th,

October 1st.

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Really by October 1st, we really want you to be like fall, fully fall.

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And if I were your business coach or consultant, I would tell you with summer, you wanna

be...

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done with summer stuff by like August 15.

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Knowing your customer, what they're looking for, what they're shopping for, and what your

brand represents all play into this as well.

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So my general overview is like, this is a transition time.

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We are ramping up, generally we see out of these three months, September be the highest

sales month, August is the next highest, and July would be the lowest.

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We are ramping up into sales, which means you do wanna ramp up your new inventory.

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And how you do that is by getting rid of summer and slowly transitioning into fall through

color and pattern and texture.

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Let's talk a little bit more about that tax-free weekend idea, or I have a lot of people

that will do sort of a back-to-school event or anniversary event in August.

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If you're gonna do this, and especially if it's a tax-free weekend, I want you to think

about, like I said, offering another incentive to get people in the door, whether that's

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adding other vendors, whether it is a discount, some sort of special event.

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I even have a lot of people that invite the radio station to come on down, you know?

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I think there's so many opportunities that we don't always think of where like, we're

gonna make an event on Facebook.

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That's great and like, yes, please do that.

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But also think about all the other places that you can advertise.

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Like whether you're online or brick and mortar, you have opportunity to really advertise

in a lot of spots where your cold audience, that ideal customer that you want to bring in.

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is hanging out already, where are they naturally gonna see that post?

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For these events, make sure you have good staff.

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I think it's important for you not to be the only person and to have someone bringing up

for you or have someone working the dressing rooms running back items for you.

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If you're doing any kind of pop-up event, bring someone else with you.

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Like have a little bit of help so you get a break.

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You can walk the event, things like that.

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This is also a great time to just introduce fall.

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Like this is your fall launch, you're gonna bring out fall items.

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Like it's a nice time to focus.

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I think so often we really just think we can bring new arrivals in all the time, but this

is an opportunity to have one big splashy new arrival and then maybe you update it after

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that.

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you wanna help show your customer that it's time to transition to fall.

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So you actually have to display that, reinforce it and promote it.

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In terms of other promotions that you can offer during this time, Labor Day is a

no-brainer.

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Because I said, it's like really the end of summer.

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This is that great time to just go really deep on anything leftover.

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Like if you brought something in in March, April, May, and it hasn't sold well or like you

still have lingering pieces by September 1st or 2nd, like it's done.

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Like just mark it 50 % off, 60 % off.

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It's okay at the end of season to take a big hit on some items.

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Now, you don't want to do it for everything and like I don't want to advocate everyone

just marking everything down, but like I don't want you to end the year with a lot of

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of summer and spring inventory left.

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This is the opportunity you have to really set yourself up for that end of year like you

don't have a ton of inventory.

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I don't think enough people are thinking what can I do today so that on December 31st I

have like no inventory left.

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Remember we get taxed on the inventory that we have remaining at the end of the year so

you really wanna get that inventory level down so that you don't pay extra taxes on it.

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That sounds crazy, but in a lot of places we've seen people have to pay extra taxes

because they've just like, they have so much inventory, they bulked up that year.

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So I do wanna give you that heads up that that is coming and yeah, it's September, but we

have four months and that's not a lot of time, especially when you're gonna be crazy busy

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from like September 15th right through Christmas.

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You might wanna do something also where you bundle new and old together.

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So let's say you've just launched your fall assortment, but you still have summer

clearance in the back.

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You could offer to customers, hey, you buy a new arrival, you get an extra percent

discount off on that clearance style or grab something from the sale rack for an extra 50

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% off that.

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At a certain point if you have a ton of inventory it really is about moving units not

about making money at that point like again I want you to be profitable But so many people

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sit on inventory for so long and it's just like it's not helping you We've got to get rid

of it and we've got to the cash in the bank so that you can make those new buys So this is

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a really nice time to naturally do it I find when people do really deep discount sales at

sort of off times of the year customers will say no, are they going out of business?

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This is not one of those times Labor Day

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like there's certain times of the year we know things are just gonna be a lower price and

everyone's accepted that so play into that because you don't want people to think that

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something's wrong in your boutique even if you think something's wrong you don't want to

let other people know right you want that perception to be yes we're in line with the

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retail calendar we do kind of what everyone else is doing in our own way of course but

Labor Day and July are probably your two biggest opportunities to really go deep discount

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on items that have just been lingering and frankly you're sick of looking at

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Even if you don't have a kid's store or a bookstore or something that like sells back to

school supplies, you can still market the back to school freshness.

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Like I loved in the movie You've Got Mail, Tom Hanks says, I'd love to send you a bouquet

of freshly sharpened pencils.

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And that just to me exemplifies September.

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It's like that September, it's a little bit chillier.

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You feel like, ooh, there's a freshness in the air.

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Everyone wants to start something new in September.

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And so I think if you can play into that new wardrobe, fresh look, how are you going to

start off this new season?

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Those are great ways to market to a customer that might not really be going back to

school.

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But we've all had that feeling in September, going back to school.

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So I think it's important to tap into that nostalgia.

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and give your customer a reason to focus on themselves and feeling their best for this new

season.

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Overall, with this summer to fall transition, I want to be so clear.

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If you don't get anything else from this other than please watch your weather.

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and please watch when back to school starts.

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Those are the two big things that with timing, you got to get right.

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I've seen so many people put out puffer jackets in September, not sell them, and it's a

disaster.

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Or I've seen people hold onto summer inventory for far too long, and then it's September

and they're like, I have no money for fall.

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It's like, well.

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You gotta be getting your summer stuff and getting the cash in the bank timing is

everything in retail and I hate to say that but timing especially during this shift is

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super important.

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You don't want to be stuck with on the inventory.

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You don't want to bring out things too early.

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You want to be ready to pivot and that's why being a boutique owner

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or an independent retailer right now is tricky because the weather is a little bit funny.

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We don't know what's gonna happen when.

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So we've just gotta be really aware and plan our launches around that.

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We don't necessarily have to like not buy things.

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We can still bring things in, have it ready to go, but also make those game time decisions

like, okay, I'm gonna launch this this week and this next week because the weather is

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looks like it's gonna shift.

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We have to be okay pivoting through all of this because that's what we do.

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That's what business owners do.

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Hopefully this series has really helped you transition from summer to fall profitably.

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If you wanna learn more about how to do this specifically with your own buying plan, your

own data, I do have a product, very low cost digital product that you can go get right now

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and.

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work on right now.

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It's called the 90 minutes to plan your fall inventory.

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It does what it says it does.

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It's 90 minutes to plan your fall inventory and I walk you through everything in more

depth that I have over this series.

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So if you like this three part series, you're like, wow, I've gotten like a lot of really

good information.

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Now I'm ready to dig in deeper on my data, my business.

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This fall plan session is going to be absolutely perfect for you.

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So if you want the link to that, all you have to do is type fall below and we'll post the

link so you can grab that and get going.

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It's not as hard as you think it is.

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I love to break things down into easy Digestible bits for you, and I hope that this

three-part series has really served you understanding how this time can be really tricky

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But giving you the tools to navigate it at a professional level for the retailer that you

are and that you want to become listen I'm here trying to help more boutiques thrive

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survive Even independent stores whether you're selling stationary or books or kids or

gifts or toys.

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I don't care what you sell

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I want you to stay in business.

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I want you to be profitable.

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And it's not that hard.

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So don't let not knowing these professional standards or feeling like you're good at math

or any of that stuff, don't let that hold you back.

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Like this is your time.

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I'm gonna challenge you too with this back to school time period.

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Learn something new, understand something different and challenge yourself to realize

that.

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Things are shifting in the retail industry.

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We're gonna see a big push towards sustainability.

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Inventory, if you can't get a hold on your inventory, it's gonna be really, really tough

for you going forward.

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But we can always change it.

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We can always affect it.

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We can always work on your business.

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And if working on your business to you right now looks like ticketing, steaming, and

posting on social media, I'm gonna challenge you to shift that to be working on your

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business as looking at your data, creating buying plans, and planning the next four

months.

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of sales.

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That's what a boutique CEO does.

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That's who I love to hang out with.

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And I hope you can have a profitable boutique with me as soon as possible.

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Thanks so much for watching.

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Here's to making lots of friends and making lots of money from spring to fall.

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I'll see you on the next one.

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Bye.