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Is E-commerce Something You Could Do?

January 6, 2012 By 1 Comment

I am seeing the twinkling of a trend among small independent wedding vendors. E-commerce is beginning to come into play more and more as either an additional service or product or a full on pure play. Monday I’ll start my third E-commerce site in the last 2 months.shopping carts and ecommerce for wedding vendors

How, you ask, are wedding vendors using Ecommerce? They are using it in a variety of ways. I’m not going to give away their ideas, but I can tell you that it runs the gambit from hand-crafted products, to personalized design services to gift cards.

This all ties into what I have been saying about really thinking about what makes you unique and how you can use that to enlarge both your offerings and your niche.

Capitalize on your reputation to expand your business.

Think about what you can pre-package, so to speak. Suppose I were still baking. Now my wedding cakes were all one of a kind designs and not something I could have sold on the internet, but my hand made truffles would have worked. For that matter, if I had really wanted to go for it, I could have sold just the designs, cake blue prints, if you like. Brides could have then taken them to their auntie or local baker to bake and decorate.  Do you see where I am going with this?

Put on your thinking cap and go for a walk outside the box. 

One of the amazing things about the internet, is that you can try these kinds of things out relatively cheaply. Put a page on your site with your products and a simple shopping cart for a small investment. If it works, then you can think about really investing in it. If it doesn’t, take down the page off your site and you are out a couple of hundred buck, tops.

Next week, I’m going to take you on a tour of what I think are a couple of the best sites to emulate to market both your current business and an eCommerce play.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Ask Christine, Blog, Building Your Business, Trends, Website Design, What's Hot Tagged With: , , ,

Hire a Photographer!

November 29, 2011 By 3 Comments

I hear it and see it all the time: wedding vendors that do fabulous work but have lame photos to show for it. They spent hours sweating over the perfect food display or those gorgeous tissue paper pom-poms hung perfectly from a tree or the centerpieces on top of the perfect linen. Then after the fact, often months after the fact, the wedding photographer, after much arm twisting and begging sends them a file of stunning prints of the B&G, the wedding bands and a picture of shoes! Wow, score!

Now whose fault is this? Well it damn sure isn’t the photographers. They were hired to shoot the B&G and the list they sent them, not your details. (unless they were on the brides list, that is)

Here is a tip: 

Hire your own photographer!

Then they are working off of your list. You should get the images in a timely fashion and have just the shots you want.

OK, here it comes…

I am about to get hit by photographers that forbid other shooters at their weddings. In this instance, get over it. These vendors are hiring their own professional so they get the marketing materials that they need and have every right to own. Besides, you obviously aren’t shooting what they need in a way that helps them. Your client is the bride. You need to find a way to work this out. I mean come on, 9 times out of 10 this outside shooter will be done before the guests arrive and you won’t ever see them.

But WAIT! There’s more!

Hey you photographers just starting out…

I am always asked how you can break-in with the top designers and planners. How about you start hitting them up to shoot their details? Do a good job over a period of time and they may just add you to their roster.

In my outsider, twisted opinion that is a win for everybody.

  • The vendors get exactly what they need.
  • The wedding photographer doesn’t have to worry about shooting for the vendors.
  • The new photographer gets some real world experience and some new contacts.
What’s not to love?
Oh, and I get great images to work with when marketing my clients.
Filed Under: Ask Christine, Back to Basics, Building Your Business, Marketing, Outrageous Marketing, Website Design Tagged With: , , , ,

Some Companies Get It, Some Don’t.

September 1, 2011 By 2 Comments

One of the keys to continuing to be successful in business through the ups and downs of culture changes and economic upheaval is to stay focused on what your customer wants. Customers evolve with time, businesses have to as well.

Two very different articles crossed my path this morning and they highlight this better than anything I could do or say to convince you.

(Essdras M Suarez/Globe Staff)

 

First was an article in the Boston Globe talking about David’s Bridal’s decision to close their Priscilla’s of Boston division. Started in 1945, Priscilla’s was the epitome of high end gowns for many, many years. It salons were upscale, gorgeous and exclusive. The purchase of Priscilla’s by David’s in 2007 was their attempt to tap that market at the height of the wedding bubble. Unfortunately, the bubble burst, the economy tanked and the culture changed but the business model didn’t. The market for high end gowns sold in a slow paced pampering environment all but dried up.

This quote in the article from Yolanda Cellucci, once the reigning queen of the high end bridal salon says it all

“I used to carry Bob Mackie wedding dresses that cost up to $25,000,’’ Cellucci said. “We had a baby grand piano in the foyer with a pianist. There were models, and we served champagne. People don’t have time for that anymore. Everyone is rushing.’’

Cellucci saw the writing on the wall and closed her famous Boston salon 2 years ago. This was a woman that was smart enough to have an ATM installed in her parking lot. She never missed a trick.

David’s, also a very savvy player, hooked up with Vera Wang to go the other direction. Wang’s moderately priced line for David’s, White has reportedly been a tremendous hit. Know thy customer!

On the other end of the spectrum is Chicago’s House of Brides. I have listened for years to bridal salon owners call HoB every nasty name in the book because they saw the writing on the wall and opened an online store in addition to their brick and mortar operation. Originally opened in 1929, HoB could have continued to plug along with one little store but they jumped online and stayed ahead of the curve.

Today’s press release announced the opening of their 10th store, The Quinceanera Boutique . Something else that the article highlighted was it’s Diva Bridal Boutique, a shop exclusively for Plus size brides.

The Diva Bridal Boutique is the first salon in the nation dedicated to plus size brides. The Diva Bridal Boutique showcases fashion-forward designer wedding dresses exclusively in sizes 18 – 40. All wedding dresses are available in Women’s sizes only including the samples. Plus size brides can try-on dresses in Women’s sizes instead of the industry’s standard sample sizes of 10s and 12s. Diva Bridal Boutique features dresses available for immediate purchase or special order.

Talk about listening to your customer and giving them what they want.

Now you tell me, is it better to continue to do what has worked in the past or to continue to evolve as your customers do?

Filed Under: Back to Basics, Blog, Building Your Business, Trends Tagged With: , ,

Shane McMurray on How to Price Your Product

March 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Nobody knows how to sweep away the fairy dust with a GIANT broom of numbers, facts and statistic like McMurray.

Shane has been the undisputed champion of honest numbers for as long as I have been in the market.  Every day we face the major media in the wedding industry sprinkling their peculiar brand of fairy dust to convince you that the world and the economy is a big bowl of cherries. McMurray’s honest numbers and analytical approach has a way of pointing out the pits in that bowl.

In this video, McMurry takes that same analytic approach to show you what you need to do to price your business to dominate the marketplace and your bottom line.

Pour a cup of coffee and learn something.

Filed Under: Back to Basics, Building Your Business, wedding marketing Tagged With: , , ,

DIY Your Niche

February 14, 2011 By 4 Comments

My friend Sheryl shared a press release she ran across about how Micheal’s is upgrading their wedding section to add more upscale designs. It just so happened that I had the opportunity yesterday to poke my head into the wedding aisle at this mecca of DIY. What I found got me thinking.

It wasn’t the products that intrigued me, but the shopper. Here stood a lovely young women, looking flustered, frustrated and not at all happy. Such is the truth about DIY.

To read the forums, the blogs and the magazines, crafting and creating all the details of your perfect wedding are a pleasure and a joy unspeakable; something akin to walking barefoot through a field and picking daisies. Well, as a life long crafter, I am here to tell you that is about as far from the truth as it gets. Then you go and add a deadline, a million other tasks and the looming presence of “The Biggest Day OF MY LIFE”  and you have a recipe for a major meltdown. I wonder just how many weddings have been canceled by grooms witnessing an overload of DIY?

I know, just make them stop doing it and we will all be a lot happier. Sorry kids, that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

But…

You can use it to your advantage.

How you ask?

Trust me, when they finally cry “uncle” the person that picks them up, dusts them off and helps then finish is going to be their hero and they will pay handsomely. You have to have the right attitude about it, you can’t be all “I told you so” you have to be the kindly big sis/brother that just wants their day to be perfect. You will want to explain ~gently~ that you do of course have to pay your staff.

Business success has always been about finding a problem and then solving it. I am here to tell you, this is a problem!

Filed Under: Blog, Building Your Business, Horror Stories, Trends Tagged With: , ,

How to Tap High End Brides for Fun and Profit

January 31, 2011 By 7 Comments

Sometimes you have to watch closely, sit silently and just listen to know what is coming.

I am watching what happens when the White by Vera Wang line debuts at David’s in February. I am curious as to whether her couture line will become simply a marketing tool. If it does, what directional signs will that portend for the rest of us?

The gap between the wealthy among us is growing at an ever-expanding pace. In 2008 it was already on a par with the gap during the Gilded Age; this according to the Economist from a study by economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty

America’s super-rich (0.1%), they found, were earning about 8% of the country’s total income at the end of the period—the same share as during the Gilded Era of the 1920s and up from around 2% in the 1960s.

You read that right 0.1%, one tenth of one percent, that is a tiny amount of people.

A recent quote by the master of all things wedding data, Shane McMurray of the Wedding Report ties in to this;

I’ve been saying this for years that 71% of couples spend at or below the average,

As the number of people in that category of top income earners continues to shrink and the rest of us continue to see our tangible income dive due to inflation, will that 71% that McMurry mentions grow even larger?

What you see in the magazines and on shows like Platinum Weddings are a tiny microcosm of what is actually going on in the real world of weddings. Even at 29% that is a small number of weddings. If you really crunch the numbers you will find that only a small part of that number are throwing $100k weddings and above. Tiny.

This also from the Economist,

as people get wealthier they tend to devote more discretionary income to what are called “positional goods”

“positional goods” that translates to brands and labels

Let’s take all of that and look at what Wang is doing.  Her brand is undoubtably a market leader in the wedding world, but the market for that product is shrinking. If you read further into the Economist article, you will find that there are real chemical changes in the brain tied to Keeping up with the Jones’ . By creating this lower priced line that will be available to a much greater part of the market Wang is tapping into that chemical release associated with keeping up with the Jones’.

The problem is, that chemical fix will only work as long as the main brand, her couture line, continues to be a beacon of style, money and power. With fewer and fewer people buying the couture gowns does that part of the line stay profitable? Probably not.

The result becomes that she has to continue to create each season a line that will most likely not be profitable just for the sake of magazine shoots, freebies to people on red carpets and the buzz created on the runway. In short, the line becomes a marketing tool to keep the lower priced line selling.

Now isn’t that interesting.

How does that translate to you?

No one will really dispute that Wang has transformed the look of bridal gowns, nor can you dispute that she is one savvy business women. Who better to take your cues from?

Continue to create the magnificent over the top designs that most of us thrive on creating, use it for PR, buzz and press. Then create a line of product that is more attainable for the masses and tie it to your brand. Then sell the shit out of it.

Draw them into your website with the mesmerizing sparkle of the unattainable, then lead them to the line that they can afford.

It might not be as glamorous as shifting all your efforts to doing only Platinum weddings but I bet it does a better job of feeding the kitty.

Food for thought, gang, food for thought.

On the upside, you still get to create the gorgeous stuff you love to create, who cares if it sells, it’s job is only to create buzz for  what does!

Filed Under: Blog, Building Your Business, Marketing, Trends, wedding marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Why What We Do Is Expensive

December 16, 2010 By 2 Comments

The next time your client want’s to know why they need a professional or why it costs what it does, show them this.

Time lapse photography by Whitney Carlson of Dove Photography,

Courtesy of wedding planner Angela Proffit

Location, Cheekwood Botanical Gardens, Nashville TN.

Filed Under: Blog, Building Your Business, Inspiration Tagged With: , ,

The Affordable Bridal Market

October 5, 2010 By 3 Comments

What do J Crew, White House Black Market, Ann Taylor, Vera Wang know that you don’t?

They know how to capitalize on the current trends. They have seen the handwriting on the wall and are making adjustments. Business is all about giving the customer what they want, not what you want and these companies are doing just that. They are offering bridal gowns that are more affordable to the majority of brides.

What does that tell you? For one thing, these companies aren’t going to sit on the sidelines and hope that the bridal market rebounds. They are re-inventing and targeting todays more fiscally conservative brides.

I dare say that the companies above have spent the time and money to deeply analyze the market and current trends. Seriously, if Vera Wang thought that in a few more months  the couture bridal gown market would come roaring back to life would she have sold her soul to David’s?  That’s pretty doubtful.

Here is something else, Ann Taylor’s wedding line is exclusively online. Hmmm, do you think they have done any research on that? You can bet your bottom dollar on it. The marketing team behind Ann Taylor after all are the ones that have done such a remarkable job of getting Ann Taylor Loft so much traction in social media. In terms of fashion, they have mastered Facebook. This gang knows where the market is and knows how to target it. Good quality, fairly priced and easily accessible. Wow, what a concept.

What about JCrew? Yes they have some up market gowns hitting close to $3k but also a lot of gowns under $800. Again, this line is online and in the catalog. JCrew is a trusted brand to our target market, so they would have no problem ordering online. What’s more, they are sized like the rest of their clothes. Not the freakishly odd sizing that most bridal gown manufacturer use. You wear a size 8 in JCrew street clothes, you will most likely wear a size 8 JCrew wedding gown. Gee, that just makes too much sense.

So what do you have to learn from all this?

Well for one thing, if this wasn’t a smart play, I can bet they wouldn’t all be doing it. Companies of this size make the occassional mis-step but I can’t imagine that this many would be doing it if the reasearch wasn’t there to back it up. Afterall, I don’t care who you are, launching a bridal line is no cheap thing. Heck, the research we have is saying the same thing. (Hat tip to Shane and the Wedding Report.)

How do you translate this to your business.

First what you don’t do:

You don’t start dropping your prices. Look, you don’t see Vera Wang doing a slash and burn on the price tags on her Flagship line, do ya? Heck no.

What you do is create an entire new line that hits the price point and delivery system that your new brides want. No on wants you to lose money.

Just like Wang, your flagship line carries the cache of your brand but the new line puts it in reach of the fat, juicy middle of the market. The flip side of this is that as the market does start to uptick again, you’ll be among the first to know because your flagship will start pulling the weight again. Is it just me that thinks this is a no-brainer?

It’s October, the wedding season for 2010 is just about over. You are going to have some down time coming up to get your house in order.

Here is my challenge to you. By the time the January push rolls around, I want you to have a new budget friendly line in place. The January Bridal shows will be the perfect place to roll it out. (You have bought the book, right)

I really don’t care what category you are in, from stationery to floral to catering, there is a way to do this. You just have to put on your thinking cap.

If you have put in the time and really tried to think this through and aren’t getting anywhere. Give me a shout. From now to the end of December I will be offering my one on one consulting in one hour only blocks just to help get your juices flowing. Just put the word Re-invent in the subject line of your email.

Filed Under: Building Your Business, Trends, wedding marketing, What's Hot Tagged With: , , , , ,

Why Are The Number of Weddings Down?

September 21, 2010 By 1 Comment

Did you catch today’s story on eWedNews.com?

For the first time, the number of weddings has sunk to the level of 1968. This is from a peak of 2,477,000 marriages in 1984 now down to 2,077,000 marriages in 2009. This is even though we have the largest birth population ever moving into the average marriage age.

So what’s the deal?

Well, here’s my take on it.

There is plenty of blame reason to go around.

  • Part of it has to do with the stigma of living together and the stigma of babies out-of-wedlock having disappeared.
  • Part of it has to do with the economy. Some couples may simple be waiting for an economic uptick. Although what I am seeing for 2011 doesn’t lend much credence to this.
  • Part of it has to do with so many of this generation being themselves children of divorce. “It was a nasty time, why would I want to risk that.” “My mom was a single parent, I turned out OK.”
  • Part of it has to do with the wedding industry itself. Weddings in the media have gotten so over blown that I think some couple are avoiding marriage just to avoid the wedding.

There are probably more reasons then these few, but, with over 25 years of analyzing this industry under my belt, this is what I see as the big ones.

All this is coming at a time when the wedding industry is becoming over crowded with “professionals”.

As a true wedding professional what are you going to do?

You had better be nimble. Face it, one of the best things about being a micro-business is the ability to move quickly and with agility. So start looking at the options.

  • Reinvent your business.
  • Consider rebranding to something less Platinum and more friendly and warm.
  • Readjust your packages.

Just a few ideas, you have to come up with the ones that are right for you.

Business has always been about one thing:

Find out what the market wants and how they want it delivered and give it to them at a price that you can both live with.

It’s just as simple as that!

Filed Under: Blog, Building Your Business, Rants & Raves Tagged With: ,

Re-Invent Your Business

July 7, 2010 By 1 Comment

How are you re-inventing your business?

Last night I was at a networking event and had the opportunity to speak with quite a few wedding professionals in a wide range of categories. I saw an interesting pattern emerge.

There are a lot of very smart people either in the middle of or in the beginning phases of completely re-inventing their businesses in light of the new economic realities in the wedding market. Instead of continuing to do the same old thing they are reading the market and rolling with the punches.

Two different photographers are seeing the light, one is fairly new and the other is a seasoned pro, but both are no longer putting their emphasis on shooting weddings. Instead, both are moving into the portraiture market but in entirely different ways. Both are using their established connections and unique skill sets. Very Cool!

I spoke with a new linen company that is completely re-inventing the wheel. I am interviewing them later to get the skinny for an in-depth article on this topic for the members content side of Think.

I also got to check in my florist friend that is placing her emphasis on rentals to both brides and florist. She is in the unique position of having ‘things’ that other, new florists haven’t had the time or treasure to amass.

I also met the owner of an invitation company that is branching out into event planning. (OK, don’t get me started on new planners but at least they are re-inventing)

What I want to know is how you are reading the market and re-inventing yourself? You all know what I did six years ago to re-invent brand “ME”. What are you doing?

I am putting together an article and if you would like your unique story included, just leave a comment of send me an email.

My readers are some of the smartest wedding professionals out there, I can’t wait to hear your stories.

Filed Under: Blog, Building Your Business, Inspiration, Marketing, Personal Coaching Tagged With: ,
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