Today we’d like to introduce you to Noura Senno and Anna Mangondaya.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Noura and Anna. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
We have been friends for over five years now, we met while working together. We are both immigrants with similar backgrounds, so we just clicked. We had always talked about doing more than just our corporate jobs, and we both love to online shop and were having the same issues finding dresses for work that were also stylish enough to wear going out. We are both in our mid-30s and it felt like all the online boutiques (as well as many brand stores) were targeting a younger demographic. So the idea came to start our own online boutique where we could cater to busy women like us who were looking for the same type of shopping experience. We put our financial accounting backgrounds to good use and made a business plan, and then decided to just go for it! It has been a valuable experience to build and run our own business, and we have both realized that it is more personally fulfilling for us and for our need for a better work-life balance. While we both still work our corporate jobs, running our boutique is our pride and joy and we look forward to serving the women in our community and beyond by helping them feel confident in what they’re wearing!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
So far, the building process has been pretty smooth considering we didn’t know much about opening a retail business going into this. We have definitely learned a lot and any bumps we’ve had along the way so far, we’ve been able to work out together either through alternative plans or compromises. Since we launched our website however, we’ve realized just how big a challenge it is to get your brand in front of people and get them to trust you enough to make a purchase. That is something that takes time and the right marketing strategy so that is what we are working towards right now.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Dress The Day Boutique – what should we know?
We are an online women’s wear boutique specializing in dresses and accessories. We offer a curated collection featuring versatile dresses that can work from day to night, in a wide range of sizes. We wanted the shopping experience to be quick and easy for busy women like us, so we offer a smaller array of dresses while also bringing in new items on a regular basis. We are using ourselves and our friends to model our dresses so customers can get a better idea of how a dress will look like on someone more representative of them and their size, rather than just on a model. We are aiming for and pride ourselves in being inclusive in our sizes, styles, and representation.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
We feel that being in tune to our customer’s needs is the most important characteristic to have in order to succeed because we are our customers. The whole reason we started this company was to fill a gap that we saw in terms of online shopping for women like us. So listening to our customers and making sure we try to address what their needs are is very important to us and a key for differentiating ourselves from other boutiques.
Pricing:
- Price points for dresses are $50-$75
- Earrings are $15-$25
Contact Info:
- Website: www.dressthedayboutique.com
- Phone: (210) 595-0579
- Email: info@dressthedayboutique.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/DressTheDayBoutique
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/DressTheDayBoutique
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