We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shannon Thomason a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Shannon, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
I was born and raised in New York City, so fashion has always been a part of my life. I would watch BET and other shows like America Next top Model or reality shows that would place fashion to the forefront, Fashion has always been my passion and its something that I take really serious. In 2018, I dived into the fashion entrepreneur world. I started with offering stylist session with friends and family who truly enjoyed my styles. They would call me for fashion advice or styling tips to uniquely enhance their outfits. After, I noticed how much I enjoyed that I begin my research for opening my own boutique. After about four months, I felt I was ready to take that chance. I used $500 and started my online boutique. I first went to godaddy where it took me forever to come up with a name that I loved and that was not taken. I took a few days to think about a name, and while in bed it came to me; Glamour Pose LLC. The name was created though taking the things that I love and placing them together. For example, I love going out and looking glamorous and I love to be in front of a camera. After developing my name, I went back to Go daddy got my name and then went over to the Secretary of State to file my business. After taking care of all the necessities for starting my business, I officially began to start purchasing merchandise for my boutique. I am proud to say that my business has been successful since that day and I opened my first brick and mortar called Glamour Palace located at 206 Forest Hills Rd, Walterboro SC 29488.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am 34 years old. I live in Walterboro South Carolina, but I am from Jamaica Queens, New York (Southside). Growing up in NYC, I’ve had the opportunity to see fashion in many different levels. Everybody was either trying to buy the latest sneakers or footwear and clothes to keep up with the hype, while others introduced to the world their own style, fashion was a big thing in NYC. I grew up enjoying to dress up and hang out with friends. We would always get compliments on how we were dressed, no matter where we would go. Fashion was always my passion!!! My boutique Glamour Pose specializes in womens clothes, sizes small- 3XL and womens accessories. We work hard to provide women with the hottest unique styles for affordable prices. We also provide afterpay on our website, and layaway in our in store boutique to allow all women to be able to shop now and pay later.
One thing that I am proud of about my boutique is that anytime you speak about us to a customer who has shop with us, they will tell you that we provide top notch customer service and will make sure every experience is better everytime. If a customer walks into my in store boutique they are greeted and asked if they would like to enjoy a glass of wine while they shop. My in store boutique also has a glam museum that allows customers to come in and take pictures in our content rooms. Our boutique provides an amazing experience and I love what I do, My boutique also succeeds because of wonderful employees. I want to make a special shoutout to Octavia bka Jamie who is my store manager. She is the absolute best.
We at Glamour Pose LLC look forward to meeting new people and gaining new customers. Please check out my websitw at www.glamourpose.com, follow me on social media and ill follow back; Fb- Glamour Pose, Instagram-glam.pose and Tik Tok- glambabe87.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
A lesson that I had to unlearn throughout my life as an entrepreneur is that your biggest supporters will be family and friends. I had to unlearn this because sometimes strangers will be your biggest supporters. I have learned to never focus on who does not support me, but focus solely on who does. Due to this, I am in the process of creating loyalty program that will provide unbelievable discounts and gifts to our biggest supporters. We truly appreciate you!!!!
Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?
During the pandemic, I truly almost gave up. I dealt with depression, and anxiety because business was extremely slow. I maintained solely on using my own personal assets to fund my business. I tried to engage in online shopping for my customers, but because no one was really going anywhere they did not want to shop. I hosted my annual Fashion Show in 2021 and it help me gain my confidence back to keep on pushing.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.glamourpose.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/glam.pose
- Facebook: Glamour Pose
- Linkedin: Glamour Pose LLC
- Yelp: Glamour Palace
- Other: Tik Tok- glambabe87 Google- Glamour Palace
Image Credits
Semaj King