We recently connected with Sandra Resch and have shared our conversation below.
Sandra, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
Growing up I always dreamed of designing beautiful clothes for women. This is probably because my Mother, Jessica Resch is a fashion designer. She got a start designing dresses by doing bridal alterations first. When I was a kid I got to go to her shop all the time after school and I would see her work with brides on their wedding dresses and even design some from scratch all on her own. It was like getting to see Cinderella in real life watching all these gorgeous brides try on their wedding dresses. She designed one wedding dress that was a full on ball gown. It was adorned with lace, hand beading and even feathers! I thought it was extraordinary and I that’s when I knew I wanted to do something, anything with fashion.
I had the idea of opening my own boutique for years and always thought it would be something I would do for fun when I got older and was done with some sort of ‘career’. But when 2020 happened I realized just how badly I wanted to do something that I could be in complete control of. My Mother and I decided to launch Bond Boutique as a jumping off point for our future clothing line. It may sound a little strange starting one business with the goal to make it something different but we felt like we needed to really understand the retail side of the business before investing the money to manufacture clothes. We have been asked over and over why we didn’t start with the clothing line first but its because we already know the design side. We understand the process of sketching, sourcing, pattern making and manufacturing much more in depth than the actual selling of a product. So, we wanted to ensure we were building a brand and learning as much as we can before investing in a huge risk that is our own designer label!
Let me take you to the day we decided to open a boutique though. We were hot off a photo shoot for our formal dress line, Jessica Resch Couture when we were discussing ready to wear garments. My Mom brought up starting with just a little boutique like we had always talked about. ‘What if we just do it?’ I remember she said. All of the sudden it was just a big yes! Within a month we had logos, business licenses, an LLC and everything else you can imagine for starting a business. We started shopping, bought product, built the website and launched the boutique in October. We knew from the beginning that this was worth while for us and knowing that this was something we had always wanted to do it took alot of the fear out of the process for us. We talked very openly about investing money into this and not expecting a return on it for a couple of years. Because even if things were slow or not working out how we want them to at first, we were going to stay consistent and keep the end goal in mind.
Our main focus during those months of set up was the shopping. And it was so much fun! We really tried to blend our styles and find pieces that women of all ages would love. My Mom and I are both in different generations obviously (a lady never tells her age though). So, we shop for clothing and accessories that a women of all ages can identify with. We also shopped with certain situations in mind like quality for the price and what would I want to wear to the office without breaking the bank on it? Or what would I want to wear to happy hour that’s trendy but also will work for a few more seasons? It proved to be much more difficult than we thought to find quality clothing that was still under $100 and you could build a great wardrobe around. As we shopped we also kept in mind our own experiences as a customer. SO many times do we go out together and find retail clothing finds short for what women are looking for. Neither one of us wants flimsy tops that we could wear maybe three times but are spending $75 on and we also don’t want to be so on trend that we would not want to wear it again next year! We wanted to fill this void in our hometown shopping scene of timeless and chic style that was attainable.
To show how our clothing fits the age range we are shopping for we have worked with models and influencers from high school age to women in their 30s. We love making content and try to have 2-4 photo shoots a month with new models. We haven’t worked with anyone over the age of 35 yet but we are planning shoots each month with new faces. This part has been one of our favorites! I usually post in local facebook groups and our Instagram for model calls and the out pour of interest we get is wild. I have met so many women who are all going through different stages of life to model for us and it leaves me energized and excited! I try to make it a point when they are modeling outfits to ask them what they might wear this look to. The answers are always so different and gives me insight to their daily lives at work and school which is great to have in mind when we are shopping for our customers.
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?
I got into the fashion industry just by opening my boutique! I have only ever worked retail in high school for a seasonal job at a women’s boutique in Downtown Charleston. I cleaned and organized mostly and helped wrap gifts for the Christmas season. I also didn’t study fashion in College. I attended College of Charleston where I got a B.A in Business Administration and a B.S. in Political Science. I always knew I wanted to be in the fashion industry but I decided to focus more on learning how to run a business instead.
At Bond Boutique we sell women’s apparel and accessories. Some of our items are designed and made by us like jewelry and small fashion accessories. All of our other clothing and jewelry comes from Women Owned Brands! We hope that by providing quality clothing at affordable prices we are helping women make smarter purchases. Our main problem while shopping was finding good quality clothing at a just as good price. It’s so hard to find clothes that aren’t cheaply made and marked up 1000 times.
Finding clothes that represent our brand and are something I would buy for myself is what I am most proud of. I am happy and confident when I know that out boutique is selling pieces from women owned companies that have taken the time to ensure safe working conditions, better business standards and environmentally conscious practices. Its more work and it is more expensive, but I know in the long run many of our customers want quality and that’s what they will get at Bond Boutique.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
Success is not over night and may take a few years to even obtain. When I was building our social media pages I tapped into a lot of other boutique owners or retail business coaches pages. I was constantly seeing videos like ‘How to Turn Your Boutique into a 6 Figure Business Overnight!!’. I gave these way too much view time and I truly thought that if I could just get 1 Tik Tok to go viral we could be millionaires by the end of the first year. Well, we just hit our 1 year anniversary and I am still far from 6 figures. The truth is consistency is key and whats meant to be will happen. There is no good get rich quick business and I had to learn to stop being so disappointed with our social media views. Plus the answer is not always social media! I personally have to get better about pop events and markets so I can meet our customers in person! We are far from our overall idea of success, but we will still consider it a huge win that we were even able to open up shop!
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
About 6 months into our first year I decided to not put myself or my business partner under so much pressure. I didn’t necessarily lighten my workload but I made a conscious effort on how to work smarter and not harder. For me, my struggles are with running our social media pages. Sometimes I will forget to upload content or I won’t make that content work for us for more than just a day. Managing the books and placing orders has been a breeze to me so I decided to take online classes on digital marketing. I have also downloaded or read just about any free material I can get my hands onto for social media. Since doing so out engagement is through the roof. We may not have thousand of followers but the amount of our followers who are actually viewing our content has increased over 40%. Instead of dreading Instagram and Tik Tok everyday, now I look forward to it.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.shopbondsc.com
- Instagram: @shopbondsc
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shopbondsc
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandra-resch-2b5915208/
- Other: Tik Tok: @shopbond