Is Your Brand Authentic?

Finding A Voice Through Your Business

Recently, I attended a virtual Posh & List host by @bellanblue_jen, @lilian.barillas, and @mkaaykaay. It was a great event with lots of awesome speakers, but the person that really got me thinking about my business in a new way was The Cursing Ballerina (@cursingballerina on IG).

She talked about finding authenticity in your branding and business. The clothes you sell need to represent who you are! She said to ask yourself, do the items you sell represent your brand? Do they make sense together? The majority of your marketing and branding comes directly from what you sell. If your items aren't cohesive, it'll be much harder to market your business!

That was a hard lesson for me to learn at the beginning of my reselling journey. I spent a lot of time when I first started only buying brands that other resellers told me sold well for them. I picked up a lot of items that I would never consider wearing just because they were a brand I'd heard another reseller mention and left behind plenty of adorable pieces that I wish I go back in time for.

I never bothered to pay attention to what those resellers were actually selling these items for or where they were sourcing from either. I didn't even pay attention to styles! I'd see a certain brand on the tag and would just grab without looking up comps or doing any serious research. I figured the more brands I had the better, right?

Wrong. I ended up with a list of inventory that was impossible to market (like this Nike top, Armani Collezioni blouse, and Lauren by Ralph Lauren sweater). I was attracting a million different types of customers which made it so much harder to find ones that really wanted to come back to my store over and over. If I had a more cohesive closet, I'd attract a certain type of cliental and they would be more willing to return because of the consistency of my listings! It's important to have variety, but quality over quantity definitely applies here!

So how do you fix this if you have this problem? Well, I've decided to make a big list of all the items that I just don't believe represent The Hippy Edit. The plan is to drop the prices drastically to see if I can make back some of the money I invested in them, and then anything that doesn't sell in 30 days is going back to Goodwill. I'm looking forward to having space to fill with pieces I'm actually excited to list!

Part of why I've decided to do this is because I've recently expanded to selling on Depop! It's a platform that I'm having a lot of fun with and the sellers on there are inspiring me to step up my game when it comes to what I source. It's also encouraging me to hone in on my voice in my business by pushing me to engage with the community in new ways! Depop is quickly becoming one of my favorite platforms to sell on!

So going forward I'll only be sourcing pieces for you all that I really, truly love and am excited about. That means lots more vintage and quirky pieces will be coming your way very soon! Be sure to follow me over on IG @thehippyedit and @thevintagehippyedit for sneak peaks into the latest listings!