Today we’d like to introduce you to Cecile Reynolds
Hi Cecile, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I have a background in nursing and healthcare management. When my children were young, I found a strong need to find more work-life balance and control of my own time. I took a leap of faith and stepped away from healthcare to pursue a passion I have always had in the back of my mind…to start my own business and build a legacy for my children. In 2011, I opened Brooke’s Boutique, named after my then-first-grade daughter Brooke. Today she is 20 years old and has worked at the boutique since she was 16! I’ve also had my other 2 daughters work with us over the years along with my husband and son helping with anything we ask. It’s truly a family business.
We have evolved over 13 years based on our clients’ needs and the market we serve. We learned to utilize social media to reach a wider population, pivot during Covid as the way people shopped shifted and even created a shipping department to handle our nationwide expansion of customers shopping our website, Facebook Lives, and Instagram pages.
We have learned to be laser-focused on the type of products, brands, and styles our customers are looking for and actively find ways to make consigning with us easy, including a new service we added called FabDash, where ladies who want to consign their great items reach out for a local pickup in the greater Houston area, making it convenient and hassle-free in times where everyone is so busy.
I believe one of the main things that keep our customers happy, coming back and referring us, is our authenticity. Not only in who we are as real people but also in our products. We sell a lot of luxury handbags, jewelry, and accessories. Through our authentication process and inclusion of third-party Certificate of Authentications with purchase, we have come to be a trusted and safe place to buy and consign luxury pieces.
The best part of what we do every day is connecting with the community we have created of wonderful women (and some men) who support us, love on us, and watch our Facebook Lives daily. We share the ups and downs of our days and get to know each other deeper than just on a superficial level. I like to say when we’re together, in person, or on our FB Lives, we’re not selling anything, we’re all just shopping with friends.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has been a fun yet wild ride over 13 years! As a small business, 13 years seems like 100 years! We are proud that we have been open this long as many small businesses rarely make it past 5 years. It hasn’t always been smooth, that’s for sure. At the very beginning, we hadn’t honed in on our niche yet so we were filled with so many different departments like home decor, children’s, along with our women’s line. To be clear on our vision, mission, and target audience, we slowly (and that means over years), streamlined who our customer was and what she wanted to consign and buy. That meant goodbye to home decor, goodbye to children’s, it even meant goodbye to specific women’s categories like pants. It also meant hello to faster moving, quicker selling items that made our consignors love us, shoppers appreciate the great inventory, and an aesthetically pleasing boutique!
Let’s not of course forget about our time during Covid as well as the time after Covid. This immediate hard stop and change in people’s routines had a huge impact on our business. Where we relied on social media less and more walk-in traffic before Covid, now was the complete opposite during and post the Covid years, even up to now. As a small business, we were able to make decisions quickly and try new ways to draw our customers in if they couldn’t physically get to us. How do we sell to people if no one is leaving their houses? How do we sell to them if no one is going out and doesn’t wear anything but pajamas? How do we get new inventory if customers are scared to go out in public? Or even how do we get their attention when they’re now working from home alongside their kids who are virtually learning? We are grateful that we were able to navigate those challenges and even thrive during that time by quickly adjusting to our customer’s needs and finding out what they needed most. What they needed most was a connection to people outside their house. And that was us in the form of our daily and very authentic Facebook Lives.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Since 2011, Brooke’s Boutique has been a family-owned designer consignment shop where women can enjoy quality designer items on a budget. We offer a means to recycle gently worn and gently loved items through resale while providing additional cash to our consignors. We specialize in luxury and designer items from popular brands from Tory Burch and Kate Spade to Louis Vuitton and Chanel. We also help keep closets fresh for our customers and consignors, focusing on in-season, on-trend wardrobe pieces from mall brands, including Banana Republic, J Crew, and Loft to Zara, Lululemon, and Veronica Beard.
We are most proud of the community we have cultivated with our clientele near and far over the years, making authentic, lasting, and personal relationships. We do an average of 4 Facebook Lives a day where we chat with our customers from all over the country. We are not just selling amazing pieces to them or for them, we become part of each other’s lives and support each other individually through the real relationships we’ve developed. As a small business, each relationship is important and special to me. I know without their support, we wouldn’t be here. Trust is important and knowing there’s an actual person to help them sets us apart. Many customers have direct access to me via social media or my direct phone number and know I will always respond. In terms of our products, in particular the luxury items, each item comes with a third-party certificate of authentication. Not all resale boutiques provide this and this sets us apart. There is no doubt that we have vetted and authenticated each luxury piece we sell and that is what makes shopping with us so easy.
Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
We offer additional services such as Luxury Authentications, an at-home consignor pick-up service called FabDash, in-store group shopping parties, and online shopping through our website. We also offer payment plans through companies like Affirm, Sezzle, Afterpay, and ShopPay as well as traditional in-house layaway options.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://BrookesBoutique.com
- Instagram: @lovebrookesboutique
- Facebook: @brookesboutiquepearland
- Other: TikTok @lovebrookesboutique
Image Credits
We have taken all the photos ourselves.
