Sidewalk Sale - Year Two

It is very exciting to be sharing "Year Two" happenings with you, the second of which was this year's Old Town Alexandria Sidewalk Sale.   This was the Third Annual Sidewalk Sale and was organized by the fabulous Cindy McCartney, who owns Diva Designer Consignment in Old Town.

You will be glad to know that no blood was shed this year (you may remember my crash to the ground incident in trying to save the clothing from rain during last year's event!) but there was some hair pulled out (more to come on that!)  We were SO fortunate to have beautiful weather the entire day, coupled with greater advertising for the event as a whole.

So what was different for Zoe this year?

1. We were asked to start at 9 am rather than our normal opening times (some stores open at 10, others at 11).  
2. I had a lot more pieces to offer for sale - there is a great difference in being open 4 months (last year) and a year and 4 months (this year)!  Karen brought her folding table so that I could have a better way of displaying the folded items (I don't think I had any folded items on the sale last year).
3. I did some of my own advertising for the sale by coming up with a "Top 10 Reasons to Love Alexandria's Sidewalk Sale" and posting two items a day (one in the morning and one in the evening) on Zoe's Facebook page.  By the time I go to #1, a number of people were following to see what I'd say next!
4. I had a large enough number of Zoe customers on my email list to offer them a private sale the day before the Sidewalk Sale opened.  I was delighted with the people who came to take advantage of this opportunity.
5. Last year, I managed to run the store and the sale alone - this year, I had help (thank goodness!)

On the morning of the sale, Jim and I walked in to Zoe.  The store felt "warm" but I quickly adjusted the thermostat to the daytime setting.  Within a short period of time, I realized it wasn't cooling off.  Uh oh.  (hence the hair pulling)  I contacted my landlord and asked if I could contact the company he had given me earlier in the year to get someone in to look at it.  He gave me the go ahead.  Turns out, that company was the one who installed the unit last year but doesn't have the contract to service the unit.  They did send a guy out to look it who told me "the problem is in your landlord's space".

In the meantime, I had a sale to get staged!  Jim helped me set up the table and the H-rack and get all of the clothing situated in the right places.  Even as we were setting up, people were coming up to take a look at what we had to offer.  Within a few minutes after 9, we already had our first sale on the books.

I am so thankful that Alexandra and Sarabeth were there to help me.  We took turns with one person outside (to greet people and monitor the table and the racks) and two people on the inside (to manage the dressing rooms and the cash wrap).  There is no way I could have done it myself this year.  Especially as I was on the phone with my landlord and the air conditioning people during part of the day!  Fortunately, the second A/C team (the ones with the contract) put a temporary fix in place to get me through the weekend.

Zoe has two dressing rooms and we repeatedly found ourselves in the position of having to ask people to wait until a dressing room freed up.  At one point, we asked someone if they minded using our restroom (which is not open to the public) as a dressing room!  It was a lot of fun to meet new people and see many of our previous customers.

Even as we were packing up at the end of the day, people kept coming in.  Two women with a baby came in at 6 and shopped with us until almost 7.  It was a long day but a successful one.  I did manage to get a sunburn on my shoulders since I'm never out in the sun!

Jim and I were eating dinner at around 7:45 when the rains came that evening.  We high-fived each other with joy that it had held off until after the sale was over!

Next up:  Some Days, I Get to Try On Lip Gloss

A Derecho? What is That?

Friday evening, June 29th, started like any other.  But as I caught up on my emails and social media that evening, I noticed a disturbing trend.  First, a weather expert (because I am obsessed with all things weather as a business owner) that I follow on Twitter noted that strong storms would hit Northern Virginia at around 10:30.  We're no stranger to strong thunderstorms in this area and the most I thought about it at the time was how long it might keep me awake.

As I perused Facebook, I started reading the statuses of friends from my hometown in West Virginia, commenting on the winds and loss of power they had just experienced that evening.  I remarked to Jim "I think we have a bad storm coming."  Still, how bad could it really be?

The storm hit our home shortly after 10:30 with wind like I've never heard before, despite having experienced Tropical Storms in Williamsburg and in Northern Virginia.  Our power went out within a minute of the storm starting.  The lightening was intense.  We kept asking ourselves "Where is the rain?"

Once the storm had passed, I immediately began to think about Zoe.  Would there be power?  Would there be phones/internet service?  Would there be damage?  My mind was racing with contingency plans.  I slept fitfully and got up early to try to find some breakfast and get ready for work.

As we drove to Zoe that morning, we did pass through several dark traffic light and by downed trees.  I was so relieved when I got to the store and found that we had power (that was big worry #1 crossed off my list).  But I found that I did not have internet connectivity and my alarm system was on the fritz.  I got the alarm stopped from random beeping and went to work on the internet situation - no internet, no automated credit card processing.

I sent a quick email to my landlord (via my phone) to ask if he had been notified by Comcast about an outage.  After trying to get through to their customer service line several times via phone (and having no success) I took to Twitter.  I tweeted to the ComcastCares account about service status in Alexandria.  Within a minute, I connected with a rep and sent him a DM with my phone number.  He confirmed that we did have service in my area and that a check of the router and modem would probably reveal an internal problem.  After reboots, I was back in business!  While I had the ability to manually process cards the old fashioned way, I was glad to have things back to normal.

With this out of the way, I did a check of the inside and outside of the space.  I did find a water leak at the window that faces Union Street.  I took a picture of the water pooled on the window sill to send to my landlord and then cleaned it up.  Fortunately, no clothing or wood was damaged by the water that had gotten into the space.

Shortly after I opened, I met a couple visiting from Houston who had come to town for a wedding.  The wedding location had no power and no plumbing!  They told me that the bride was scrambling to find a new venue for the wedding that afternoon!  Later that morning, I met another couple attending the same wedding who confirmed that the bride had found a hotel in Old Town to accommodate her.  Even though I didn't know her, I was so pleased to hear of the happy ending!

The storm created so much damage, loss of life, loss of power, and severe impacts on businesses.  I was  so thankful that the effects at Zoe were so minor.

Next up:  Summertime Window Decorations

Some Little Surprises From The City

I really love it when good things happen that you aren't really expecting.  Especially when you've just paid property taxes on your business and wonder just where that money is going.

On the night that I had Zoe's Fall Fashion Party (the night we got 10 million inches of rain), I noticed that the street light was out at the corner of Union and Prince.  I hadn't been at the store quite that late (and in the dark) before that time.  The next morning, I looked on the City's website to see how I could report the issue.  With my technology background, I tend to be very picky about how easy (or hard) it is to do things on line.  Imagine my delight when I found that the City had a very easy to use online form/questionnaire that made reporting the problem a breeze!  I was even given a confirmation number so that I could track the reported issue.

When I looked outside the store on this past Saturday's VERY rainy and dark day, I found that the streetlight that I had reported was beautifully lit!

I know...I know...it takes so little to make me happy.  But that will be a really nice thing as our days are getting shorter all the time.

Moving on to the second happy event, Friday was one of the few really nice days we've had in September.  I had had some nice customer traffic in the morning despite some workmen grinding out the lining of the fountain in the courtyard.  As the afternoon wore on, the grinding got more intense and dust was flying.  I finally had to close Zoe's door because it was so awful.  As I stood at the window of the store, stewing and wondering how much longer it was going to take, I saw a Code Enforcement SUV drive down Prince Street and park.  The Inspector got out and came over to the workers and shut down the operation!  Turns out the City had some complaints from some other businesses about the dust!  The Inspector came in to see me (thinking I was the one who had called).  I told him I wasn't the person who had placed the call and that he should probably also check in with my landlord to explain the situation.

It turns out that the workers needed to have either scheduled the work in off hours (when the businesses aren't open) or have a tent set up to catch the dust.  What a relief!  I was never so happy to see the Code Enforcement team in my life!  With the challenges from the recent weather and the economy, none of us need anything that dissuades people from visiting our stores/restaurants!

Rain, Rain Go Away

I was chanting the words to this old nursery rhyme every day during our horrendous 4 days of rain last week.  The personal side of me finds rainy days calming and peaceful.  The businesswoman side of me can't stand them!

When I looked at the weather forecast on Labor Day and it said rain through Friday, I thought surely they had to be mistaken.  We'd just finished with the rains from Hurricane Irene the week before.   Weren't we "done" for a while?

Tuesday wasn't quite as bad.  I had started planning Zoe's Fall Open House over the weekend and the rainy day gave me time to finalize the schedule, determine the sale items, prepare the computer system, and send the email announcement.

Wednesday was a little worse.  I did get one bright spot in the day when my favorite Connection Newspapers photographer, Louise, arrived to take some pictures at Zoe for their weekly "Talk of the Town" feature on Fall Fashion.  Working with her and picking the items to be photographed was a nice break in a very quiet day.  I did have a woman come in who had been walking her dog in the rain.  I am always very welcoming of dogs at Zoe but I had to politely ask her is she had a towel and, if so, would she dry off her dog?  I could just see the dog shaking off the water from his coat all over the new Fall clothes!

Other favorite moment on Wednesday - a small sparrow came into the store (I don't blame the bird, probably wanted out of the rain!)  But, a very funny chase ensued as I tried to shoo my new tenant back out the door.  After about 5 minutes, the sparrow finally found the door again and departed.

Best attitude of the rainy week has to go to UPS Deliveryman Freddie.  He dropped two boxes off for me as he dragged a dolly up two sets of stairs to my landlord's space.  I told him that I hated that he had to be out in the weather.  He had a smile on his face and said "I already know I'm not going to be dry today so I might as well just enjoy it!"

We did get a short reprieve on Thursday and a few people ventured out.  I felt most sorry for the woman who came in my shop who had been visiting from Ft. Lauderdale.  She had traveled with her husband on Monday evening (he had a business meeting in DC).  She had not really been out of her hotel room the whole time due to the rain because she didn't have a car and had planned to walk everywhere!

The mini-cupcakes and champagne arrived for the Open House and I had Zoe ready to go.  Previous customer Carol and her husband Rob stopped by on their way home from National Airport to do some Fall shopping.  Just as they finished their selections and departed at shortly after 4 pm, it started to rain. Hard.  It got darker and worse as the evening went on.

Friends Mike and Maggie braved the rain to come to the Open House (afterward, it took them an hour to get home after all the flooding).  And friends Janice and Karen and their husbands came (risking life and limb driving up the GW Parkway from the Mt. Vernon area)!  Thankfully, everyone ate some cupcakes!

One customer and local resident told me that she was on her way (walking) when it started raining so hard that she had to turn around and go home!  I'll probably reschedule the event for another evening later in the month.  I don't want to complain too much.  Yes, I was disappointed but other than being inconvenienced driving home that evening, I did not experience any flooding at home or at Zoe.  Many other people in our area were not so fortunate.  Hopefully the money that Zoe will donate to the American Red Cross (the charity recipient for the evening) will help some of those people.

Friday, it was pouring again but finally stopped around lunchtime.  What was that warm, bright thing in the sky that we hadn't seen for so long???

Next:  Spring 2012 Fashion Shows (Don't Shoot the Messenger)