We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Karen Gallier a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Karen, appreciate you joining us today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

All Gussied Up is continuing to grow. When I first started AGU, I was experimenting with buying and had no real plan except to buy what I liked and see how it sold. To be more successful, I realized I needed to set goals and research what is currently in style so I could buy more competitively. I also want to offer a quality product, so I needed to find vendors who sell quality items at a good price point.

To achieve these goals, I got my business license so I could buy wholesale from a wider variety of vendors. I also research the trends for the coming seasons before I make a purchase.

I am an accountant during the day and All Gussied Up is my side business. In my previous interview, I explained how being a buyer for a department store was a long-lost dream. So, I never actually studied Fashion Merchandising in college. This is something I am now pursuing besides working full time as an accountant and running my business. In the Spring of 2021, I started taking Fashion Merchandising courses at Houston Community College. Since I work full time, I only take one course a semester so up to this point, I have only taken two courses. It will take some time to get through all the courses at this rate. However, my goal is to learn things that will impact my business and buying choices. The course I just finished was ‘Textiles’ and it really helped me learn about fiber and fabrics. This knowledge helps me make better decisions when choosing fashions for the coming seasons.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My business, All Gussied Up Boutique, started with a simple Google search for a Liz Claiborne wallet I was looking for to match a purse I owned. And I found one on a site called Poshmark, which is social commerce marketplace. I joined and bought my wallet and began to explore this new site. I thought it was so cool!

You can easily buy items at great discounts and sell your own items you no longer use or have sat in your closet forever which are brand new and still have the tags attached. After selling ten items, I took the Boutique training on Poshmark and began buying through their wholesale portal just as an experiment to see how it went. See in my younger days, I had to choose a path in college. My heart wanted to follow my passion for clothing and fashion. I wanted to become a buyer for a department store and get a Fashion Merchandising degree. But instead, I followed a different path and got a BBA in Business Administration with a degree in Accounting which is still my full-time career. But Poshmark has given me the opportunity to follow my long lost passion as well and I have high hopes my boutique will grow and expand!

After buying wholesale through Poshmark for a bit, I decided I wanted my boutique to be more unique and stand out from others so decided to get a business license to be able to purchase from other wholesalers as well. I chose the name for my boutique because that is great Southern phrase I used when I would get dressed up for a fancy event. After a DBA search, I applied for my license through the state of Texas and not long after I became an official business! I officially started ‘All Gussied Up Boutique’ in January 2018. My motto is ‘Fashion Finds at Affordable Prices.’ I believe women should be able to buy and look great in quality clothing without going broke and still be able to pay their bills! My boutique consists of new and gently used clothing, purses, accessories, jewelry and makeup tools.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I think many businesses can relate to the impact the pandemic has had on their business. My business was going strong, and the pandemic did create a setback for me. With the entire world being on lockdown and working from home, the type of items people bought changed dramatically. Customers now wanted leisure-type clothing for the comfort of working at home and so the more formal clothing items I sold decreased. Since my sales went down, I also did not have the buying power to purchase the items that consumers wanted. I did suffer a loss during the first year of the pandemic. Things have turned around now, and I now am enjoying profits again.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

Social media is very important in marketing a business’s product. This is not my strong suit. I opened an Instagram account for my business but struggled to make it look professional. I happen to have a daughter, Andrea Gallier, who majored in Journalism and worked as a Marketing executive for an international hotel chain. I enlisted her as my Social Media Manager. She took over my Instagram account and created a Facebook profile and Twitter account for AGU. She has created professional posts for me which frees up my free time to do the tasks I really enjoy which is buying for my company.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allgussiedup18/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=all%20gussied%20up%20boutique
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AllGussiedUp18

Image Credits
All pictures were taken by me and are my photos.