Laurie Roe's Blog

Post-Christmas, No Blues for Me!

The store is quiet right now... it's raining cats and dogs, and when you're in a strip mall, there's a low likelihood that you'll have much business during a rainstorm. I say that, but I've been proven wrong. Like last Friday when it was raining and the store was full. Of course, when it was sunny (the same day), the store was empty. Go figure, you just never know.

This sums up the theme for me: "You just never know."

How many times this year I've said, "Hmm. Who knew that?" or "Hmm. I never would have guessed." or "Wow. I had no idea..." It's been a year of surprises, lots of learning, and so much growth. I'll save my "what I've learned this year" post for later.

Today's post is simply to let everyone know we survived Christmas! In fact, with the exception of two days last week, we were really quite slow. Those two days helped make up for the slow days. Even on Christmas Eve, we were moderately slow. Or moderately busy, I guess. Depends on how you look at it!

But the surprise has been post-Christmas. We've been really busy. I've been super-duper surprised and more than thrilled. Yesterday was one of the best days all month, and even though we have some great sales, I'm always surprised that women still pay full-price for the majority of their goods.

Our one last big unknown of our first year will take place this weekend when we do our year-end inventory. Lori has been diligently trying to figure out a new gadget we bought to execute the counting, so Sunday afternoon, we're all geared up for counting, counting, and more counting. We have decided to close the store on both Monday and Tuesday, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. The sign on our door says, "Spending time with family."

And after 11 months of being here nearly every day, spending time with my husband is exactly what I intend to do!

Eric Volz Freed, But Not Completely

Many of you may remember the story of Eric Volz, which I first wrote about last year. Eric has been wrongfully imprisoned for over a year for the murder of his ex-girlfriend... in Nicaragua. Not only did Eric not commit the murder, the individuals who confessed to being involved in the murder were released.

Yesterday, the Appellate court ruled that he was free - but he is not free yet. You may read about his story and the updates at the Friends of Eric Volz website. His mother, Maggie, was on The Today Show this morning discussing the latest developments.

We attend church with Maggie, and Eric's step-father, Dane, and prior to Eric's imprisonment, Maggie was the interior decorator for Petite Boutique.

Please keep all of them in your prayers.

Open House a Huge Success

We had a great time this past Sunday at our first-ever Petite Boutique Holiday Open House. We aren't normally open on Sundays (hey, if it works for Chick-fil-a, it can work for us!) but we made an exception for the open house, and it was a great day! We gave clients 20% off of the entire store, including sale items, and we had a great response. Lots of people turned out - probably more than our client night - and we were busy the entire afternoon.  We even stayed open late for the post-Titans game shoppers!

We're definitely seeing the shopping crowd come out more now. For this, we are grateful. I never thought about how many bills a retailer had, but trust me, there are many, many bills to pay... inventory being #1. So don't get me wrong, just because we see sales doesn't mean we have lots of money to go vacate in Cancun! We are just grateful - and grateful doesn't even touch the surface - to pay our employees, our lease, and our other debts.

We are officially 2 weeks from Christmas Eve. Onward we go! Here's the irony... our spring goods start shipping any day now ... despite the ice in Oklahoma, and the sea of red sweaters we see everywhere we go, I am looking forward to opening boxes of pastels and seersucker! How can this be?!

First Annual Holiday Party for Petite Boutique

Sunday evening our entire team at Petite Boutique, plus spouses/significant others got together for a very fun evening of celebration and good eats! Sara, who was our first employee, graciously opened her home to our gang for the evening, and we had a blast eating all the fun food people brought, playing games, and just getting to know each other so much better.

Lori and I wanted to give our employees something really special for Christmas. We wanted them to have something they could look at for years and remember fondly, "This was the gift I got the first year Petite Boutique was open... way back when!" So we decided to have one of our local jewelry artists make a necklace for each woman, something that would reflect the unique mix of her personality and style. Lori and I also wrote individual notes of appreciation to each lady, expressing just how much we appreciate them as individuals.

Which is why I'm writing today. In writing these notes, I came to realize just how incredibly wonderful each woman that works with us is, and how much I appreciate them as individuals and as a team. For reasons I will never understand, they each have chosen to take a risk and work with a start-up business; they have believed in our concept and our philosophy of how we treat women; and they like and actually sell the clothes we've chosen to buy for the store! That they would work for us is the epitome of a compliment, and for this, I cherish each woman, grateful to God that He's brought each of them along at the exact moment we needed her, and that each of them has unique gifts they bring into our business.

May every business be blessed to have such amazing employees!

Confession for Delayed Posts

Posts have been scarce lately because I've not known for sure what to write about. We had expected a huge rush on Black Friday and it turns out, it wasn't that huge after all. We've spent the last 2 weeks trying to figure out exactly where our business is going to come from during the holiday season because we're beginning to learn that the core customer of our store basically buys what she wants when she's in there, and doesn't leave much room for anyone to buy anything from our store for her for Christmas.

I faced this hard fact last week when one of our client's boyfriend's came in to buy her some gifts... I was thrilled to help him and confident we could find quite a bit for his lovely woman. Turns out... everything I wanted to recommend he get her she had already bought for herself, including pajamas, and jewelry. I couldn't believe it! I literally had nothing to sell him. (fortunately, there was a piece of jewelry she'd eyed and I knew she liked, so that is now under his tree for her, but I am to call him immediately when something new comes in she will like!)

Don't get me wrong - many women come in and don't buy the entire store! These are the women we thought would send their "Santas" in to shop with us... so far, the Santas are few and far between, and for this, I'm very frustrated.

Which is why I've not been posting lately. I'm a little embarrassed that during what should be the busiest time of the year, we're not so busy. Now - I got my confession out and am moving on.