oc gay pride festival.
come celebrate diversity at orange county’s gay pride festival in irvine, california! go to ocpride.com for details. annette and i will be running buffalo exchange’s booth on saturday, august 14th. come visit!
fun at work!
who says you can’t mix business with pleasure? work is supposed to be fun and that’s how we get down at the buff ex. i bought this 80s-’sweet sixteen’-old school dress in the other week and annette decided to play dress up! the funny thing is, with her crazy-fun style, she could totally pull this off as everyday wear!
$14.00 and in stores now ::
one of our newbies, ren, came out of the dressing room looking like an italian gondolier…thanks to the fake mustache courtesy of annette made out of hanger grippies. ”when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore…”
come find other awesome nautical styles just like this one today…perfect for summer beach bums.
ella moss.
ashley asked me to help her with her shopping assignment to savvy. i absolutely fell in love with the ella moss spring/summer 2010 collection. they totally stepped it up a notch. more like 10 notches. check it out.
earth day sale!
all buffaloes are participating saturday, besides costa mesa :: we will be having our sale on sunday, april 25th. doors open at 11:30!!! all 1/2 priced merchandise will be available for $1 each and proceeds benefit the humane society’s “don’t trash wildlife!” fund. come early! limited merchandise.
EAC.
i leave tuesday for buffalo’s ‘employee advisory committee’ conference in tucson, arizona. i’m super psyched…for many reasons. one: i get to see one of my besties, lauren from the philadelphia store 
two: i get to fly with cami, one of my ex-coworkers from fullerton three: i get to see mina after many, many months of ‘no see’ four: i get to meet the heads of the company and employees from every other buffalo exchange in america! i was supposed to go last year, but with my big move in the works, i wasn’t sure if i was staying with buffalo (in case i moved to a state without a location) so i missed my opportunity with the philadelphia store. fortunately, i landed a second opportunity with costa mesa. can’t wait! i still have a lot of prep to do: projects, shopping and packing. tomorrow will be a busy day!
who is your customer?
ca12: costa mesa, ca
since we’re located at the lab, the anti-mall, our store automatically gets lumped in with the ‘hipster’ stereotype, unfortunately. we’re in the process of debunking that myth. it’s never a good thing when a store has a certain reputation for catering solely to one audience. if we only bought from and sold to one genre of people, we’d seriously hurt as a business. our revenue would only generate funds from an infinitesimal number of people. the only way to survive is to appeal to all audiences.
i was a little taken aback a few weeks ago when i was buying from a customer. we got to talking and i asked her whose things she was selling. they were her boyfriends’ and family members’ things. i asked her in the end if she wanted cash or was planning on shopping around. she kind of snickered and replied with the assumption that we don’t really have anything for her at the store. she has a preppier style preference, not so hip and fashion forward. i stopped her right then and there and explained that while our store often gets that reputation, we are trying to make the necessary changes to bring people like herself in to shop and sell. we have tons of j.crew, banana republic, ann taylor loft, limited, etc. and definitely don’t want to give the contradictory impression. she was astounded to hear it and left with a positive outlook saying that she’s happy to know she can sell her more ‘conservative, lady-like’ items next time she comes in.
that’s just the thing i want to hear from our customers. i think those of us currently employed at ca12 are doing an amazing job informing our clientele about what we want to see from them, as well as asking what they want from us.
of course, we do have those hipster kids coming in, shopping and selling. we’re in a very ‘young’ area and the lab’s stores create the kind of ‘cool’ atmosphere. most employees in the lab are all extremely fashionable. most are tatted up with swanky haircuts. i mean, american apparel is right across the street. it’s totally understandable why we get lumped in with that kind of feel.
however, that little crew is only a small part of our customer base. we have young moms and dads with their kids coming in (like stroller-baby young to toddlers). we have older moms and dads bringing their teenagers for back-to-school or spring break shopping (and boy do they spend a lot of money!) we have old men and ladies (like 70+) perusing the racks for anything of their fancy or for their children/grandchildren. i’ve found a lot of old men and women love our hats (like the old vintages for the ladies and stetsons for the men). we definitely have tons of college kids. they’re our bread and butter, i’d say. there are many local colleges in the area, such as uc irvine, calstate long beach, orange county community college, long beach community college, etc. they vary from the frat boys and sorority girls to tight pants, fedora wearing hipsters to dirty skaters to clean skaters to silly oc housewives with their bedazzled chihuahuas to motorcycle dudes clad in leather and boots even when it’s hot outside. we have vintage time-warped guys and gals. we have our regulars like robin and janice who LOVE their discounted high-end designer merchandise. we have our business men and women who are looking for awesome deals on blouses, dress pants, button downs and the like, in addition to things they can wear on the weekends for a relaxing day off and after hour cocktail outfits. we still have those customers that want the current ed hardy and affliction t-shirts. we have industry reps selling their skate and surf goods while they shop. we have a very diverse clientele where nearly every ethnicity in america is represented. it’s very cool. i’d say, for the most part, the majority of our shoppers and sellers are the 20 and 30 somethings, college kids varying in styles, but all have a pretty good fashion sense, whether it be the trendy forever21 cutesies, the a&f/hollister/american eagle lovers (we don’t have as many of these kids, so we always have to provide them with the most current in styles), the gap/banana/j.crew basics, the urban outfitters/american apparel hipsters, the anthropologie/free people ladies, or the surfers and skaters. a unique tidbit of information that i’ve found rare to buffaloes is the fact that we have about an even split of guy vs. girl shoppers. our store is a pretty even split between the two.
we have many regulars and new people coming in daily. our store is in a transition period, but i’m super excited to hear the positive feedback from our regulars and hope to continue in that direction.
buffalo blog.
i’ve decided to update the latest in fashion intake for buffalo exchange, costa mesa specifically. i may have to start separating my blogs a bit. i don’t want to bore readers tuning in for specifics on skate, fashion or my personal day-to-day brouhaha. stay tuned for more info.
valentine’s day 2010.
or single’s awareness day, as courtney likes to put it (even though she has a boyfriend.) i’ve been collecting some fantastic entries for my book. tonight, we’re goin’ out! it should prove to be an interesting night.
b.t.dubs, i’m slowly updating my blog’s professional characteristics. i’m trying to figure out how i want to go about uploading my skateboarder edits. plus, i need to gather all of my past files from my old computer. it’s pretty beat. the usb plugs don’t work. neither does the cd drive. and it won’t hold a charge. unless best buy’s geek squad can help me out, i’m shit out o’ luck.
soon to be book.
i’m writing a book. the contents thereof will remain a mystery to those i don’t reveal personally. ain’t no one rippin’ off my ideas…for those i’ve told hold quite an interest in the idea (which gives me the grand impression that it will be a huge success…hopefully.) keep those drunk texts comin’ and you just might make headlines. (a little intuition into the contents of the elusive publication)
