'We're selling the service of making our clients' lives easier'
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By Marcy Medina | for The SKUpe
San Francisco native Emily Holt opened Hero Shop, a women's luxury store specializing in emerging and independent designers, in 2016 after hearing for years that the Bay Area lacked style and never being able to find in local stores the labels she was writing about as an editor at Women's Wear Daily, W and Vogue.
“I opened it because in my heart of hearts I love stores. It's what led me to a career writing about fashion, but after 12 years in publishing, I was ready for a life change,” she says.
Here, she shares what she’s learned after moving Hero Shop from the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood to Marin Country Mart in Larkspur, Calif. and weathering the pandemic.
What are your top 3 actionable tips for SMB retailers?
Nurture relationships. This applies to clients and vendors. Were it not for connections I'd made with clients prior to the pandemic, Hero Shop wouldn't have survived. Our clients wanted to see us stay in business and chose to support us. And with vendors, especially if you end up in a tough spot, you want to already be in good standing with them so that they can partner with you toward success. If you can, pay them on time. It amazes me when I hear about stores (small and massive) not paying vendors.
Sell a service. At Hero Shop, we're not selling commodities. We're selling the service of making our clients' lives easier. That starts with helping them navigate what to wear for work, a trip, an event, but it can extend to suggesting and making dinner reservations for them, recommending a show, store or point of interest here or anywhere they're traveling, connecting them with people who may help them find a landscaper or a job, even shipping their Amazon returns.
Be there. Your clients have a lot of options when it comes to where to spend their money; they'll want to support you specifically, so be on-site to visit with them and show them that you care about the business.
How do you build community with and within your store?
It starts with being nice so that people want to come in and see the team and being flexible and reasonable with clients. From there, we often introduce clients to each other if they're in store at the same time. The store itself builds community through our social media and newsletter. The voice is individual and grounded in reality, so that if there's something unavoidable culturally, we'll address it in our messaging. We also communicate our interest in areas other than fashion, including politics, art, philanthropy, food and sports. I think of it like a magazine, focusing on fashion but covering other things that are important to us or that we think are worth spotlighting.
What are the top currently trending or soon-to-be-trending items you are selling? High Sport kick pants in any color or pattern, The Row's Hugo slide, Juju Vera's metal shell pendant.
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The SKUpe is curated and written by Marcy Medina and edited by Bianca Prieto
