Since opening the shop, I keep it very low-key on Thanksgiving. It has everything to do with Black Friday. Black Friday has been the biggest sales day of each of the four years that we have been open. I am going to walk through those doors early tomorrow morning with a goal to have the day and weekend add up to our biggest ones ever. It’s just that important.
I fret about how much to market to you today, but deep down I want you to come shopping at JOY tomorrow, this weekend, and well, always. It’s a strange juxtaposition this wanting to communicate with you, but not wanted to be in your face on Thanksgiving. I cut a video announcing our gift with purchase for the first 20 customers tomorrow, but I’m not going to post it. There’s so much marketing coming at your face today. You don’t need me all giddy “Hi, it’s Joy!” about free scarves or duffle bags wearing yet another pair of pajamas or a bra. Sometimes I’m even sick of myself.
I read all the articles about online shopping and the see websites offering sweet deals. Competition for your hard-earned dollar is fierce. I scrambled to get a little online shopping site up earlier this week. Compared to the whiz-bang websites out there, our site sucks. It’s not pretty, and it’s not complete with every item we sell; it’s just something I thought maybe would help drive some additional revenue. Call me crazy, but if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I didn’t sign up to be an online retailer. But hey, we are in the game if you want to check it out.
JOY is a lovely shop with comfortable chairs and big dressing rooms and a mission to help you find your joy from the inside out. We have an incredible staff: Julie, Lila, Connie, Kim, Katherine, Dorie, and Holly. We choose everything that you see at the shop…every bra, every robe, every pair of underwear, etc etc etc. As a team, we’ve had our most disciplined year. We’ll have some deals this weekend on underwear and robes especially, and yes, some bras are on sale. (but we all know that’s not a reason to buy a bra…). And gift with purchase while supplies. And free bagels and coffee on Saturday morning from 9-10. And, gift wrapping. Really good gift wrapping.
I signed up for this…this business pressure to have a big weekend, this knot in my stomach on how much promotion is too much promotion, and yes, this low-key Thanksgiving day. My day is actually not going to be that quiet. I signed up to work at a local restaurant. It’s blossomed into an afternoon shift at one and an evening shift at another. I’ll be bussing tables. I’m excited to be with people, learn something new, and help out another business on what just might be one of their busiest days of the year.
When I signed up to open a bra shop, I had no idea it could be this cool.
Blessings to you. Blessed to have choices. Blessed to have signed up for this.
Thank you.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Joy
