While generally slower than the rest of the year, the winter season is peppered with dance events that present huge opportunities for retailers. Everything from studio picture days to auditions for spring shows create a big demand for dancewear essentials like tights, shoes, and bodywear. For Jessica Jaber, owner of Your Dance Closet in Washingtonville, NY, “having relationships with studios and schools who know and trust you” is essential to leveraging these moments and “pulling through those tough months.”
How can you be sure that buyers think of you first for their winter dancewear needs? Here, Jaber and three other veteran retailers share practical strategies for collaborating with studios and schools to drive sales during their events, even the smaller ones.
Building Strong Studio Relationships
“It’s all about the relationship with the teachers,” says Geralyn Milazzo, owner of Dancer’s World in Hamden, CT. Her retail store has been serving studios in the local area since her mother opened it in 1969. Over the years, Milazzo has learned that one of teachers’ biggest bugbears is parents not being prepared, no matter how many emails with uniform or costume lists they get sent. To do her part, Milazzo keeps an up-to-date “Dress Code Bible” in store. This serves as a comprehensive guide for parents and students on what they are required to purchase.
Lisa Roderiques, owner of Body & Sole Dance Supply in North Dartmouth, MA, adds that it’s important to focus on the individual needs of each studio you partner with. “You can’t always have the same procedure for every studio,” she says. While she too keeps studio dress-code requirements up-to-date for parents shopping in the store, she also works with studios that prefer to place group orders for tights and shoes.
The best way to start and nurture relationships is through outreach and communication. Roderiques sends emails to new studio owners to introduce herself, and Milazzo checks in with local studios year-round to give them product updates. She also finds out any changes they may have made to their dress codes, and gets information about their upcoming auditions and performances to share on the store’s social media. When studio owners prove hard to reach, Roderiques will form connections through the parents and dancers who shop at the store. “They take my cards and bring them back to the studio,” she says. “The studio owners who didn’t answer me back initially will usually reach out as I get to know more kids and parents.”
Jaber sets up meetings with studio owners to learn their needs, present options from her suppliers, discuss budget, and coordinate ordering and delivery times. “We work with a studio who travels to Europe every two years [to perform] large group numbers,” she says. “We work with the school’s choreographer to find shoes that suit each of the pieces and that run in children’s, women’s, and men’s sizes.”
Boosting Sales With Picture-Day Pop-Ups
Picture day is one of the most exciting moments for young dancers preparing for their year-end recital, and it often generates more errands for busy dance moms. Specialty shoes and hair accessories are often required. Roderiques adds that by this time of year parents often call to replace a missing dance shoe or ripped tights.
Working with local stores to stage pop-up events in their spaces during the weeks prior to picture day can help capture these sales. Don’t rely on studio owners to market the event for you, however. Milazzo, for example, creates advertising fliers for teachers to distribute to parents and students. Pre-event marketing can also include announcements on social media.
Amber Wisniewski, owner of Relevé Dancewear in Monroe, MI, runs a lot of pop-up sales events. For her, picture-day sales usually encompass two types of customers—the seasoned dance moms who have a long list of requirements and the new dance moms who need a little extra guidance on what to buy. “I always [bring] things like hair accessories and toe pads for those dancers who forgot them,” she says.
The timing of your event can play a role in its success. Roderiques found that sales were higher at a studio-wide open-house event. “Every student who attended got entered into a raffle,” she says. “We got a lot of traffic.” You may not always have a studio-wide opportunity for your pop-up, but you can work with studio owners to find days and times where the most people will be passing through the lobby.
Roderiques also asks teachers to encourage parents who can’t attend events or make it into the store to call her to place orders. “Then I deliver them to the studio, sorted with each kid’s name and the day of the week they dance,” she says.
If sales at a pop-up event are dismal, that’s OK. Merely “showing up and being present is important,” says Milazzo, since you will have made an impression on attendees for future sales.
Partnering With Musical Theater Groups
Look around your community to see what other performance groups are doing and what their dancewear needs are. School plays, local musical theater groups, and colleges and universities all have built-in groups of potential customers you can serve. In the Monroe area, there are several groups that Wisniewski can partner with. In fact, her shop is located inside a building that houses a huge performing arts school. “Musical theater is a demographic who wears dancewear that’s often forgotten about,” she says. “They may not all be wearing it every day, but there are performers who want dance shoes and athletic wear for rehearsal. Plus, musical theater has a huge range in ages.”
Wisniewski likes to set up pop-up shops during musicals’ tech weeks. “Depending on what the show is, we will have different products,” she says. Instead of ballet and pointe shoes, she packs jazz and character shoes. Things like tights and undergarments are always required, and she’ll check in with the show director to confirm any costuming requirements. Other items that come in handy for performers include stage makeup and hair accessories.
People always forget to purchase something, so Wisniewski fields phone calls from frantic parents looking for last-minute dancewear. “I will deliver to them,” she says. “People love that service.”
Turning Events Into Long-Term Sales
Don’t forget to follow up after each event you run. Turning new customers into repeat shoppers will lead to long-term success. You can encourage repeat business by reaching out to people via email or text with a personal thank-you—it may get them excited enough to visit your brick-and-mortar in person! You can also use this opportunity to remind them to enroll in your loyalty program or send a bounce-back coupon.
With a little strategic planning and strong studio relationships, your business has the opportunity to capture more sales and new customers. Don’t forget to check in with studio owners and directors to find out what they have coming up and if their requirements have changed. The slower months of winter are the perfect time to start implementing some new strategies that will help you capture event-driven sales.
Libby Basile is a former editor for Dance Retailer News and a specialty-retail storeowner based in Cheshire, CT.