The Digital Dress Hunt:
Trying
to plan a wedding is ridiculous and for anyone looking for
advice…elope! But the one thing I am really looking forward to is the
shower - the one event where you can see everyone before the wedding
that YOU DON’T HAVE TO PLAN! The only thing you need to worry about, or
should worry about, is getting there (knowing the date in advance) and
picking out a dress/outfit for it – WAIT….I don’t have a dress yet!
As
a full-time working woman, I don’t have time to comb through the malls
and stores of Toronto to find the right dress. So I asked myself: how do
I normally look for a dress? Well, I usually go to the stores where I
know I’ll like the fashions and search the racks. But I don’t have the
time for that.
I
get home Monday night, take Paige (my dog) for a walk, make dinner, do
laundry and hopefully get to the gym before my roommate gets home, so I
don’t think browsing is going to work. Instead of wasting my time doing
nothing while I do laundry, I grab my laptop and start rifling through
the digital racks. I Googled all the stores I know and trust, pull up
mall directories, and start looking through the dress selections. I take
the ones I like (that are in my price range) and pin them to a special
Pin Board on Pinterest. Once I’ve compiled a sizable selection to choose
from, I head to my Pinterest page for a final vetting stage before
sending the link off to friends and family for their feedback. I ask
them to ‘like’ or comment on the dresses they suggest and tell them I am
heading out Friday to try them on.
While
I’m on my way to work Friday morning, I pull up my pin board, where
I’ve also allowed a few friends the ability to add items. When all is
said and done, I see I have three stores and 5 dresses to check out when
I get off work.
Why is this important?
Well,
because I vetoed stores, dresses and whole locations before ever
stepping foot outside my door. I had decided what dresses to try on,
what store to choose, and what location to go to. The Yokdale Mall
didn’t have a chance since I knew the same dresses were available at the
more conveniently located Eaton Centre. The sales staff didn’t
influence whether I came in or not, just whether I purchased in the
store or checked eBay when I got home.
My advice:
1.
Make sure I can find your website on Google; search words for this
particular hunt were “blue dress”, “Alice inspired dress”, and the
company name if I knew it.
2.
Have your products professionally shot and easily searchable/sharable
online, prices listed, and display location-by-location availability.
3.
And have the most user-friendly site you can manage. Some were so
difficult to navigate that I gave up and went somewhere else.
Last
thought – the traditional shopper isn’t dead, and as much as I love
window shopping and wandering the mall, sometimes I don’t have time and
still have a need to buy something specific by a certain deadline. The
online vetting process works best for my lifestyle, especially when the
mall isn’t open at midnight when I’m finally free to browse.
Thanks and get digital - @mandamwright
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