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The Gifted Retailer

GDA Staff -- Gifts and Dec, 4/26/2011 1:52:11 PM

From spinal chord injury nurse to gift retailer, Diane Silverstein, owner of Absolutely Fabulous in Huntington Beach, CA, finds that both careers are rewarding - in very different ways.

Gifts & Decorative Accessories: What do you like best about being a retailer? Absolutely Fabulous
Diane Silverstein: My first career lasted for 30 years. I specialized as a spinal chord injury nurse and how ironic I should end up with a back issue myself putting an end to my career. Nursing was exciting, humbling and infuriating all at the same time and I loved it.

As a retailer I find it as rewarding even though it's entirely different. Nothing is an emergency! No life or death issues; just people - sometimes happy, sometimes depressed, sometimes drunk, sometimes in the darndest hurry, sometimes wanting to stay all day! I have a three-year-old customer named Lucia who insists that her mom or dad bring her in the store every week when she attends My Gym next door. Priceless!

We serve champagne every day, and Thursdays have become the greatest thing on my social calendar. All of us girls, and sometimes the guys, sit outside, talk, laugh and share our trials and tribulations

I love to travel and walk the shows. Sometimes I take employees with me. And even though it's exhausting we can have so much fun seeing all our old favorite vendors as well as new resources: Dallas, New York, Las Vegas, Atlanta and of course L.A. which is only 30 minutes away. What's not to love?

G&DA: What was the most valuable piece of business advice that you ever received?
DS: Find a niche and fill it. Provide something that people want. Always follow your passion and know your limits; delegate.

G&DA: What is/was your most successful promotion?
DS: A local, very well-supported church had a fundraiser at the school promoted as "A night in Venice, A masquerade ball." I noticed the announcement on the church gates just before the Atlanta show in January so I went on a quest for masks of varying degrees of sophistication with great price points that would fit all the family. We gave 10 percent Absolutely
Fabulous of sales from February through March to the church. It was a huge success for everybody concerned, resulting in lots of new customers and great sales.

G&DA: What three products/lines are you best sellers?
DS: My best-sellers are both local entrepeneurs. KK designs jewelry, especially the earrings made of Indian silver and Swarovski crystal, are my top sellers. They have flown off the shelves since day one. Another local vendor is Hipzbag, an updated version of the "fanny pack." I'm the only store carrying these products so far which makes them very unique.

The lines I carry are numerous, and hard to pick only three front runners. Katherine's Collections, Mud Pie and Creative Gifts would be my best selling lines.

Different than most gift and home decor stores, I also carry very rare art so our prices can range from $1.25 for a glitzy pen to $17,300 for a Kush painting. Rare Disney treasures are also scatted in between

G&DA: What are you doing to attract new customers?
DS: We are in the visitors' bureau maps and guide books that go in every hotel room around all the beach cities. We have a web site, Facebook, Yelp and are just beginning to Twitter. We advertise in just a couple of magazines and have been featured in several newspapers both print and online because of the numerous awards we have been winning.

Three or four times a year we have art nights where various artists come and display their work. Randy Cooper has been our most successful to date. We use the nights to support the charity Children of the Night which rescues kids from human sex trafficking.

I have taken product like Poo-Pourri,(especially Trap a Crap) to the local police station and that brought in multiple people. Next will be the firemen.

Our greatest asset to bring people in, however, is our windows. We have four of them that are SPECTACULAR. Up to now we have had four fender benders outside the store because of drivers being distracted!

We do vendor booths at some Orange County and L.A. fairgrounds. So much fun.

G&DA: What was your most effective display?
DS: Our first display was quite effective, as it told the neighborhood that something new was in town. It was an upside-down Christmas Tree filled with Asta Glass martini glasses...quite different!

Our most effective display, however, was also our most controversial one. It was nude wire figurines made out of wire mesh that make "shadow art," by Randy Cooper. He is an internationally-known artist and a lovely person. Only one person complained about the window, but the complaint brought in the police and an inspector from the county who looks at alleged breaches of decency. Nothing came of the indecency charge except great press, however! The art night that we were promoting with the window was a huge success, and the coverage in the Orange County Absolutely
Fabulous Register is the type of publicity that you just can't buy!

Last year, I discovered awesome turntable and flashing LED lights for my windows. WOW!!! I have the most talented staff when it comes to visual display. Our bridal windows, mermaid windows and seasonal windows all bring in the customers more than any other marketing we do - especially the seasonal windows. I can't wait to see this year's window, because I know what I've bought and visualized, and Brett will make it look 10 times better than I would have ever imagined!

G&DA: How do you find your best employees?
DS: I call my employees "sent from the twilight zone." When I first saw the store for lease I had six weeks to do everything. Impossible you say, but not with my staff!

Ian Souter and Brett Richardson have been with me since the beginning. I had known Brett for five years. He worked one of the showrooms at the L.A. Mart and so we would laugh while going through the serious matter of shopping. When I told him I was opening a store he was the first one to offer his services for the opening displays. I wasn't going to let a talent like that go once I saw what he could do to make good product pop. Brett would come and help change displays about every six weeks after that. One miserable day I had just fired an employee when Brett phoned the same day to say he'd been laid off... twilight zone.

Wendy and I met outside the store. She is not only from the same city in England that I am from, Manchester, she is from the same area in Manchester, Wythenshawe, and her best friend grew up in the same house that I did until the age of 16 years...twilight zone, right!? She was hired immediately and is our ray of sunshine. Wendy happily takes on any task needed and loves opening all the boxes that arrive here on what seems a daily basis. She says it makes her "giddy."

Ian Souter is my son and has saved us all from "computerland" on many occasions. He is a published photographer and accomplished trumpet player. Ian does the photography for and design of our ads, designs & updates the web site, keeps us on the top of Google searches and he is incredibly talented at ensuring that whatever visual merchandizing looks great is then transcribed through the lens.

My husband is an unpaid CPA and financial whiz. Ronald Silverstein. He does everything I don't like to do and he does it extremely well.

Last but not least, my employee Riley works for doggie treats. He is our official greeter and "cute factor." Riley is my dog. His breed is some kind of terrier mix (we are thinking maybe he was crossed with a cat or rug). Many of my customers come in just to pet Riley. He is also our unpaid model who allows us willingly to dress him up in anything for ads.

Absolutely
Fabulous G&DA: What was your biggest retail problem and how did you solve it?
DS: When I opened the store, I was stuck on the outside corner of our shopping center. I only had one entrance and one window, so I missed much of the foot traffic from the larger, indoor part, of our shopping center. When the business next door to us sadly failed, we were presented with the opportunity to expand from 1,100 square feet to 2,700 square feet, and to expand from one window to four, also adding an entrance in the all-important interior of the shopping area.

I geared up preparations for the expansion to 2,700 square feet. Product ordered, display cases purchased, space planning completed, workmen lined up, and our budget re-worked. Our excitement was palatable.

We were delayed for multiple reasons for seven months, so that blew our budget! I now had to locate to a larger warehouse to hold the product we purchased for the expansion. The risk and increased cost was well worth it, though, because our growth has been exponential since.

Now I have four large windows, two entrances, and am right next door to a toddlers' gym, so I have expanded into several children's lines. So much fun! (I have two grandchildren, you see, so this part of the shopping is extra-fun for me!)

Going into the business venture, I had always envisioned owning the whole space to showcase treasures for people to find, and Absolutely Fabulous is now "on the map," as it were. Our profit picture shows that all of the hard work and rumination was worth it.

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