Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Deysy Hernandez . We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Deysy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What can you share with us about the story behind how you found your key vendors?

well, all our key vendors where located in the fashion district here in los angeles, and we had works with a few of these lines already in the past, just not with our own store, with other stores we worked with. With that, we knew where to go, but not necessarily who to talk to. We knew we were a new store, and did not have the biggest budgets to use for opening collections, we also knew that most designers would ask for a minimum buy in in order for us to officially carry their lines for example, we would have to buy 22 gowns from someone in order to officially have the collection at our store. My mom and I had called ahead of time to ask each vendor how many pieces we had to buy from each in order to start so we had a budget set aside going into that day. Striking a deal was a bit rough given we did not have a lot of money to spend on lines and we were brand new, but we also started right before covid so meanwhile a lot of other stores were not buying merchandise, we had no choice, we needed it to start up our store, so we knew we had a leverage there, like might as well sell to us or dont sell at all because none of your current stores are buying right now. We also made sure to show up very presentable to each showroom, very elegant and business casual. We knew that our mage would assist us in getting the companies to want to sell to us their lines, and that really did help us. Every vendor we found we heard of them through previous friends in the industry, however what we continue to do differently is maintain great relationships with our vendors, we go into their showrooms frequently and we give them our feedback and try to assist them with new collections, and we hand pick every gown we sell, it is very important to us as the owners that we select everything for our store with our clients in mind. I would advice people that want to go into this industry to always ask your vendors who else carries their collections in your area, that way you know who your competition is or if that designer is too saturated maybe its best to find someone more exclusive etc.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Le Boutique XV is a mother daughter ran business. We started in 2020 right before the pandemic hit. We are a formal store we retail items from Quinceanera gowns, prom dresses, affordable bridal gowns and bridesmaids. We are overall your one stop shop for all things formal, we also carry a variety of accessories from tiaras and crowns to handmade bouquets and many other event items that have allowed us to stand out in our industry and have allowed us to become very popular on social media. Speaking for myself, my name is Deysy Hernandez I am 31 years old and I have always wanted to own my business for as long as I could remember, I always knew I wanted to have a business with my mother, but I just never knew in what exactly, When I was in high school I got my first job at a bridal store in Beverly hills and I knew that I enjoyed helping women find their dream dress. I went to the university of California riverside and graduated with a degree in philosophy and a minor in law. The idea was to go to law school, but when I graduated I did not feel like that was my path after all and decided to take some time off to figure it out, so I started to sell BMW cars and ended up in automotive marketing soon after and then realized that I just liked being in sales, and I thought to myself what if my mom and I went into sales but with our own store in formal gowns. So I started to save my money for 3 years straight in order for us to have the money to start our business it was very important to me that we started this business with our own capital, I did not want to owe any banks anything in case we failed. Well one thing that makes us stand out from the rest is that we have a large selection of gowns in stock, versus our competitors who still only order via catalogue. We realized that Gen Z likes to touch and feel things and millennial parents are more open to spending more if they see the items before buying them. The thing about this industry is that a lot of people that own these stores are still very traditional and the wave of buyers now are not and prefer in store items so we invested a lot of money in our stock. We also have custom made items, and the community loves the idea of having unique dresses or unique themes bouquets etc, we have made of store a very flexible brand for our client base. whatever you want, if we are able to access the items we can do it for you. We also took a very hge approach in our social media accounts, we are very active with our accounts we have over 80k followers on tiktok, over 10k on instagram and we have never had to pay for social media marketing or followers etc, everything has been organically created by us, those are big numbers for a store that started in the last 3 yrs compared to other stores that have been on social media much longer than us or longer in business than us. social media has helped people also get to know us closer behind the scenes, i like to document our projects, long hours, successful days, bad bays etc. It really has build a loyal base for us too and has allowed us to gain trust from clients in different states and we ship items all over the US now. I like to keep everything within our brand as organic as possible. I am most proud of how fast our brand has grown, and how loyal our clients have been to us. Our first Quinceanera came back to us for her prom dress just last year, we had a girl that also got her prom dress 2 years ago from us and just last month came back for her wedding gown. these examples are just a small tribute to how loyal our clients have become to us and a gentle reminder that everything we are doing at Le Boutique XV is being done right. I just want our future clients to know that we take our business very seriously, Le Boutique XV is our home and we have worked very hard to put our home together for you all. Every day we walk into our home we are thankful that we are able to do what we love and give it every ouch of passion we can possibly give. We will never allow any item to leave our boutique if we ourselves are not 1000 percent satisfied with it. Everything we do in our store we do it with love and passion and all that work is reflected in our items because we genuinely just love what we do so it does not feel like work to us ever.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Social media is a very interesting game, it is always changing. It is very important to spend a good amount of time on social media on the bases of learning. I follow all my competitors on social media and this is a great way for me to keep an eye on everyone and what they are up to and doing. I would never say to copy what your competitors are doing on their social media and use it on yours because their location and their target audience can be very different from yours and your are just gung to end up wasting your time trying to pretend to be an account your not. Instead look at other accounts as inspo and creative, like what could I do differently, how could I spin this for myself etc. I also study what my audience is currently interested in trend wise. For example. my audience is 13-16 year old girls that covers Quinceanera and prom and formals for high school pretty much. So I look at the tags they are using on their videos, I want to remain on their algorithm. I also appeal to moms, and they are very important to me because they are the ones paying for their daughters, so I always want to start in their for you pages as well. My thing is to always sit down and research your audience, and the hash tags they are using and the songs and trends they are into and find a way to incorporate your items into those pages. Best tip, JUST POST! whatever it is, just post! remain active and engage with your followers, I always comment on peoples pages here and there or repost another small event business on my page so they can repost mine, etc. All this is FREE! it costs you absolutely nothing but your time.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Social Media. It has been the number one place we get all our clients, well we are also located right between a giant supermarket and a Hispanic ice cream store so we get free exposure from those individuals. Our main market is Latinos so we get a good amount of exposure from just the location however we are not a destination location for quince shopping like los angeles is, or hungtinon park or santa ana, so we have to work even HARDER on our social media to actually bring people to our city. We are big on tiktok, we do a lot of tiktok lives and try to connect with clients that way, we also have a good reputation on yelp and google reviews, those are very important to us and our exposure. But I would say most of our clients come from social media and how we market ourselves on that.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.leboutiquexv.com
• Instagram: @leboutiquexv
• Youtube: UR Quince Expert
• Yelp: le boutique Quinceaneras & Bridal
• Other: tiktok- Leboutiquexv1

Image Credits
alfredphotography – Instagram