We talked with The Resale Secret owner Kim Warder about what it takes to develop a digital following built on customer trust.
Editor's Note: As statewide rules and regulations continue to change, please contact retailers for their latest store hours and delivery capabilities.
We’ve probably all experienced the thrill of finding that perfect second-hand piece of clothing or jewelry on a shopping trip and know how great it can feel. The Resale Secret has perfected the art of retail treasure hunting to ensure customers get that thrill often—with one-of-a-kind finds from shopping both in their stores and even online through the store’s active social media presence.
2020 was a crazy year—what does your 2021 business outlook look like?
2020 was a disruption for sure, but we were able to work with it and increase our presence on social media. In particular, Facebook—upping our offering of live sales to well more than offset the difference we lost through our walk-in traffic from COVID, and 2021 has started off to be no different. We have continued to grow and increase but we’ve done it through necessity. We were able to work with our presence on Facebook and it’s just turned out to be extremely good for us.
Did you face any challenges during the 2020 push for digital presence?
We really didn’t because we were doing it anyway. We just started doing more of it and it really paid off. We were able to focus on it actually more, and [do] more advertising from that perspective: less local advertising, more social media advertising.
How have your digital strategies changed throughout the last year?
Our association with Cowboys & Indians was helpful in that transition also because we were able to use Cowboys & Indians printed advertising to promote our social media and maybe bring some people in that wouldn’t necessarily have been there to see it, but are Cowboys & Indians subscribers.
What is your best tip for online growth/engaging with your audience?
More is better. More engaging, more continuous, daily, multiple times a day, engaging with those customers keeps you in their feed and it keeps you on their minds. It’s got to be a continual effort—you can’t ever stop. If you stop, you lose momentum, and it’s hard to regain. Sometimes we’ll be doing two [Facebook Lives] at once, my girls will be on at the store, and then I’ll be on at home doing the jewelry, but we’re on almost every single day. I even do Sunday, so it’s about anywhere from five to seven days a week.
What is up next for The Resale Secret in 2021?
Our big focus for 2021 is our new retail location. It’s our second retail location in Hudson Oaks, Texas, and we’ll be open sometime around the end of the month. We have a much bigger presence in the Native American jewelry spectrum than we’ve had at our other location. We’ll be hosting Native American artists and trunk shows. We have a lot planned for 2021—It’s going to be an exciting year for us.
Are you expecting to see a return to in-person shopping this year?
I think it will just be a continual growth process throughout the year, and I think by fall at the latest we’ll be back to as good as ever or better than ever for us because of that new store and those events that we’re hosting. We think the pandemic will be in the rearview mirror and the future will be bright.
Tell us about your store style—what does style mean to you?
In my Weatherford store that’s probably going to be more of a Western classic [style]. We sell a lot of Native American turquoise jewelry, so that will be at both locations, but at the Hudson Oaks that will be a little bit less Western. I think it’s going to be a different [style], because we’re getting closer to Fort Worth, to the city, so I think it’s more of a modern contemporary [look] but still designer brands.
Give us your best style tip!
We always fall back on things that are classic. The artists that we tend to use, they are very classic. We highlight classic with trendy, but I think if it was a statement of what we do, we try to pick things that are timeless. If you have your audience trust you, believe in you, you can sell anything. We have a really good following, so whatever I show them, they trust me that that’s a style that’s in. It’s just my style, and I like to share it with others and help them feel their best.
This interview is part of an ongoing series that W&E is conducting with retailers. Click here to peruse more stories and interviews from the retail industry.
