We recently connected with Kiana Malekzadeh and have shared our conversation below.

Kiana, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the story of how you went from this being just an idea to making it into something real.

It was a long time dream of mine to open up a yarn store and needlepoint shop. I had fantasized about it for years. More importantly, I had fantasized about having the shop in the space we are in now, since I live above the shop! The timing was never correct, or financially it hadn’t made sense in the past. This is my absolute silver lining covid story. The rent prices dropped, the space was empty and I knew the opportunity was never going to come along again. Once I had made the decision to go for it, everything else really fell in to place naturally. I wrote a pretty lengthy business plan, in lock down, submitted that plan to friends, family, accountant, attorney and everyone was on board. I signed the lease and put together the whole store with 2 current staff members, a good handy friend and my extremely encouraging husband.  We opened the door 10 weeks later. We had our soft launch on December 14th of 2020 and opened to the public on January 2nd, 2021.

Kiana, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I had always been obsessed with any type of craft since I was a child. From, macrame to silk screened t-shirts, to knitting and crochet, which my mother and grandmother taught me at a young age, I couldn’t get my hands on enough arts and crafts. Much to my delight, both of my parents encouraged me in every way to enter the art world, even though they were a physician and mathematician. After I received a BA in Art History, I received a MA in Gallery Retail and Art Administration from The Fashion Institute of Technology and the obsession with any fiber art grew from there.

I had owned and operated a contemporary art gallery in Chelsea from 2004 to 2006 and due to family circumstances, I had to close that gallery down. I like to think of West Village Knit And Needle as a Fiber Arts Gallery. We showcase artists handpainted  canvases for needlepoint and independent yarn dyers.

The West Village is still very much an artists community and we have a strong sense of that. We try to learn peoples names, get to know them, have free events in the evenings where people can socialise and make friends with other people in the community. We offer unlimited guidance with any project! We encourage customers to come in, seek guidance, ask questions and we help them every step of the way. We never want a customer to feel like they are stuck on a project or can’t move forward.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

The most effective strategy for growing our clientele is getting to know them! We try to learn everyones names, their favourite fiber art and how we can help them. 82% out our customers are repeat which is huge! I think the personal experience you receive when you come in makes all the difference.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

Keeping in touch with our customers is what it’s all about! We have a loyalty rewards program, which I definitely feel helps. But more importantly, we have free events, twice a month, send out marketing emails, post all of our new products on Instagram and just general communication. We also listen to what our clients want. They wanted more classes, we added more classes! I believe it is a combination of all of these things that result in repeat clientele.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.wvknitandneedle.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wvknitandneedle/

Image Credits
Photo By Ricky Freudenstein and Bleecker Street Beat. https://bleeckerstreetbeat.nyc.