Lou Spagner, a 43-year retail veteran, explains why boutiques thrive by filling gaps large chains ignore with personalized products. He highlights live selling as an emerging growth channel and notes that successful boutiques blend e-commerce with physical stores. The Boutique Hub provides training that helps newcomers launch, assuming they have a solid concept.
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Hi, I'm Lou Spagner. I'm the, the chair of the board of advisors here at DigitBridge. I'm a 43-year veteran in the retail industry, having run companies from 20 stores to 1,000 stores, and I thought I knew a lot about retail, but I've— the past 2 days I've learned a lot about the boutique side of retail, how important it is to the total retail landscape by offering products and services that the larger chains like the ones I used to run would offer. It's been very, very interesting from our standpoint at DigiBridge. We learned a lot about the boutique industry, learned some business opportunities for our company, and learned what a great job the Boutique Hub does in nurturing talent to enable people who want to go into the boutique industry to become successful at it. The Hub provides all the tools you need Just like DigitBridge provides all the tools you need to become an omnichannel retailer or wholesaler.
And where do you think the boutique, where does the boutique fall now? And from your perspective running major corporations, what do you think the role of a modern boutique plays in the commerce ecosystem and in the retail space specifically?
I think it provides the type of products the bigger chains are not going to do. Most of the successful specialty store chains today are vertical. They manufacture all their product and they have a model and they stick to it and they execute it well. But if you want something different or something very special, whether it be a gift or, or just if a lady wants to look different from everybody else, the boutique offers her an opportunity to find unique product and she's serviced in a more personalized way than the bigger chains can do.
Was there any top things that you learned today or this week working with the Boutique Hub here at the summit that you want to share with the audience? The top, some top takeaways that you—
The things that I learned that I liked, I had some idea of the average annual revenue of a boutique store. So we got to learn that. We also got to learn that the people that do e-commerce well do more on the e-commerce side than they do in their physical stores. But they both work well together. That was a surprise to me. And then live selling was something new to me. I haven't been that familiar with it, and I am going to go home and research it, but it looks like an exciting new area of revenue growth.
And if you had a message for any person who is interested in getting into the boutique business, or perhaps a boutique owner, what would you say is a reason why they should consider joining The Hub and becoming a member?
If you were not an experienced retailer joining the Hub, they provide all the fundamentals to make you successful. It's not only a buying group, it gives complete management training, marketing training. If you go through all of their courses, the syllabus is very encompassing. And really, if you pay attention to all of that, it will increase your odds of being successful in a boutique retail business. retail environment, provided you have a good concept and that's your idea. That's something they can't teach you.
Any lessons that you would also impart just from your many years running the Beaver Boy and running Eggert? Any other just business lessons you want to impart with the audience?
Well, know your customer. And something I learned a long time ago from somebody smarter than me, your associates, your team, is your most valuable asset. If you hire right, train and develop right, you'll have a team that will take care of your customers better.
All right. Well, Lou, thank you so much for this brief message. We're super happy that you had such a positive experience here at the summit. And obviously we look forward to continuing to develop our relationship with the Boutique Hub and with boutiques generally as we move forward with DigiBridge.
Thank you very much.
Hey guys, thanks so much for listening to 5 Minute Friday. I love getting to hang out with you here on the podcast. As always, if you love this episode, send me a message, AJ Alderson on Instagram or @theboutiquehub, and I would love to chat with you, hear your feedback, and hear what you're doing while you're listening to the episode. If it was impactful to you, please share it with a friend or subscribe and leave a rating and review wherever it is you're listening to podcasts. You guys, I appreciate you being here. Thanks for showing up. Have a great rest of your week, and I'll see you next week on 5 Minute Friday.
