Shops going bust - please read

I think bridal shops have a right to air their opinions, let's face it we have heard plenty of the bride's opinions.

I absolutely love the vast majority of my customers but as always, the minority spoil things for the majority. I also feel that bridal shops could offer to pay the brides to turn up, give them flowers, cake, do their laundry for a week, and pay their mortgage for a year and they STILL wouldn't turn up for appointments because people are just plain inconsiderate and rude. When you work with the public, giving an incentive would make no difference at all because some girls (and I mean "some") will always be rude

Wow that is a HUGE sweeping generalisation. Maybe it is time for a new job.

Debs is so right - it dosen;t matter what u give people for free, items or advise it will not stop them not showing - their is no value put on the appointments because they are free to people.

Someone mentioned about going into shops and trying on clothes and not buying - yes that is ture but ur not booking an appointment with an expert in thier field - you are trying on the clothes yourself and ur not there for an hour!! or more in some cases.

Marc - don;t know what buisness you are in but it must be alot easier than ours - and believe me 1 day in a bridal shop would not give you a good idea of what it is all about.

And lets be honest 98% of our customers are just fantastic but we are no different than any business - we tend to dwell on the bad ones - it is exactly the same the other way round - that is why bridal shops all get tarred with the same brush - which is awful as brides read name and shames, reports etc.... and have built up a defensive wall before they even get to us and takes nearly all the appointment to brieak this down and get a bit of fun going !!

I do believe I said "some" people will always be rude

Working in menswear which I'm guessing you do is totally different to running a bridal shop, and it's all very well to say that the brides you meet at usually lovely but you don't deal with them in the same way we do. When you deal with a woman and her wedding dress which she has been thinking about since she was 5 years old, it is an extremely emotional thing. I don't think most women think about the suit hire since they were 5.

With some brides ( and again I'm saying "some") logic and common sense fly out of the window when you're talking about their wedding dress. Normally intelligent and rational women can become totally irrational and unreasonable when it comes to a loose thread on the hem of their dress. And as glitzy hib says, one day in a bridal shop does not give you a faintest clue what it's like.

Speaking briefly as an ex-bride and not a HIB, I would never have paid for an appointment to go try on dresses but then I always turned up for any appointments I made. Weddings cost enough with out having to pay to try on dresses!! That would have marked that shop off my list of potentials I'm afraid.

The 4 people thru' the door who don't buy are more than made up for by the one who buys a £1k dress no?? Likewise the 4 samples I send out which aren't taken forward are outweighed by the one person who books every conceivable stationery requirement with me and therefore buys my undivided attention for months on end.

I don't believe for one minute the bridal shops of the the world have it any harder than the rest of us out there. I'm quite surprised at some of the posts on here now - makes the bridal shop industry sound like the worst place on earth to work when the rest of us just float thru' life happy as a cloud!!!

I've just had to get rid of a member of staff in my 'day job' - we only recruited her 3mths ago but she's gone due to cut backs and she's devastated ... Brings it into perspective a bit let me tell you.

No one is suggesting we do. It just so happens this conversation is about bridal shops - that's all

I am a tailor mostly, but I am also a small business owner. This is my business www.jackbunnneys.co.uk we hire, sell and make suits etc. Before I took over here, I worked for the second biggest suit hire company in the UK. I worked as a consultant creating the brand and setting up the West End and City of London stores. (That is kinda besides the point)

I must admit I never thought selling wedding dresses was that difficult ( I realise I will get flamed for this). You simply buy in a years samples, A customer comes in, you help them try them on and select one. You then order the product and then when it does not fit you charge the customer for alterations.

In my business (the tailoring bit of it) we have to help the bride and groom select the choice without samples (its not been made yet so nothing to see other than fabrics), then decide on styles, fit etc. You measure the customer and then order the fabric in, cut out the garments make them into a fitting. You then fit the garments and re-cut on at least 2 more occasions. You then have to make sure the garments fit 100% perfect before you get paid. Its about 40-50 hours hand work and between £200.00-£300.00 cost of materials.

All business's are different and I do have alot of respect for what you do, and I know I could not do it.

Marc

Oh Marc you make it sound so easy !!

Yes we spend at least £20K on samples of wedding,bridesmaids and accessories ( and still there are lots of brides & bm who come in and say oh that is awful!!, horrible!! etc...) - and I spend about £15K a yr on advertising and believe me it just dosen;t happen that easy - buy dresses, advertise them get a bride in and sell them a dress - the ratio of appointments to sales are no way as good as you would assume.

Lots of us have to see a bridal anywhere up to 6 times before they make thier decison and usually if a bride tires on more than 2 times u can be sure she dosen't choose that dress!! If we where to work on a hourly wage - OMG it would be awful!?

In our little business here, we (there are only 3 of us) have all all been working 7 days a week for about 7 months. It is only in the last couple of weeks we have had days off. It is hard work. But no harder than any other small business owner. My brother is a dry cleaner, he has just started out in business and he works long hours all day, hard physical work for not alot of money, 7 days a week.

I just think when posting on a 'Wedding Planning' forum we should all have a more positive message for our potential clients. Rather than moaning about rudeness, haggling, no-shows etc. These things are a fact of life in any business, it us upto the business person to deal with them the best way they can. After all thats why we are working for ourselves, so way can solve these issues OUR way. The credit crunch in 2009 is going to make all of our lives VERY hard, and I think it will be upto the small business owners (as usual) to think of creative solutions to generate more business.

I for one am looking forward to 2009, and I am looking forward to all of the new customers i will meet. I know some of them I will NEVER forget.

I can see where the HIBs and B2Bs etc are coming from - and the general state of retail is v. depressing at the minute.

Having said that I just don't understand the point of the OP's original post. The only thing you seem to have gained is a rather heated debate - and a slightly more *them* and *us* feeling. I would never be so rude as to miss an appointment - and I always call additionally if I am running late etc - which when you are trying clothes on and people run late, this does happen.

It just seems that the minority of B2Bs are rude - just as many people find the general public when you work in retail (I have worked for a large clothing chain and a big book retailer). And I think this is just something you have to accept as part of your job (generally speaking, not directed at you personally).

Re: paying for an appointment, this is also something I disagree with, partly because money is tight enough but also because (for me) going wedding dress shopping was very nerve-wracking for me (due to various irrational insecurities!) and so the added pressure of knowing I'd paid for the appointment would have driven me mad. Some brides are not girly-girls but they still want a nice dress.

It's fair enough to have a rant on here when someone's been rude etc - god knows we all do it on here, but this just seemed a little thoughtless IMO.

I don;t think most shops want to charge for appointments I know I don't but I would like to beable to charge for missed appointments - after all if you go to a dentist you have to pay !

I know a shop that was charging for appointments for a few mths and they never had 1 missed appointment - and then due to credit crunch they decided to stop for a while and guess what the first Sat they didn't charge they had 3 missed appointments !!

I think what has happened to bridal retailers over the last while is that the industry in general is getting harder, brides are more demanding now than ever and sometimes it is hard to stay postive and upbeat - it would be the same in any kind of business not just ours.

I love what I do and you really have to love it to bits are you really wouldn't or should I say couldn;t do it - it is the most rewarding and also the most stressful job you have ever done in your life?

Marc, I totally apprecaite that you are trying to be positive on here and I'm assuming that you in your first year of business. I come from a background in bridal, so I knew exactly what I was letting myself in for. I've been running my own business for 3 years now, and I love it. What I've been trying to do with my OP is encourage girls to see things with a little more perspective. I'm afraid you can't possibly understand after one day in a bridal shop what it is that we do, and the service we provide. Brides are very different to grooms!!

I had a bride in my shop today who told me that she had been charged for an appointment at a bridal shop in a very large shopping centre. Because of the debate I've induced on here I was really interested to get her take on it. She told me that that shop charged for every appointment, so if she went back 3 or 4 times she would get charged £25 each time, this of course put her off going back. She went on to tell me that my shop had been recommended to her by 4 different people, for our ability to make brides feel amazing. This made me very proud, I know you all on here probably think I'm a grumpy cow, but let me tell you I'm really not. I've said it in earlier posts and I will say it again, I wanted to open up a debate, I wanted to make brides think about where they buy their dress from, and how they treat the retailer, and if I've pricked the concience of even one bride who has not showed up for an appointment, or gone to a shop to be professionally measured so they can order online, then my post will have been worth it. It really pains me to read stories of brides having bad experiences in shops. There are a lot of us good shops out there, and I'd like to think that we will stick around for a long time yet.

Hello again Loopyloo,

My business was established in 1958, I have been running it since 2001.

Marc