Change Shop: A time Trick That Turns Old Into Fashionable

Dong Xiuxia's change shop opened in Beijing Changan shopping mall near the high-end shopping places, do not underestimate her that less than 20 square meters of change shop, the monthly turnover can be stable in more than 30,000 yuan, net income of more than 15,000.

Change for the costume

In 1991, DONG Xiuxia entered a clothing enterprise to work, seeking progress from the day she entered the factory for their own set a clear goal: learning technology, the future with the technology platform to do business.

A few years later, Ms. Dong struck out on her own, opening a clothing store in a Beijing shopping plaza, dealing in ordinary clothing but making little money. Dong Xiuxia found that the professional change market is very prosperous, so she gave up the clothing store, specializing in change. She rented a room in the basement of Beijing International Trade to set up a dressing shop.

Tailoring shops are doing brisk business, but the money is still meagre because most of it involves hemming, slimming or other simple sewing.

Later, Dong read in a magazine that a Japanese brand called Paper holds a "makeover show" every year in the most popular place. It takes secondhand clothes and pants and washes them, bleaches them, dyes them and cuts them, and turns them into fashionable clothes.

Dong Xiuxia thought: "A new dress costing hundreds of yuan will be outdated after a season. It will be tasteless to wear and a pity to abandon it. If you change the collar and add a rough edge to the outdated clothes... There is definitely business in transforming clothes and reusing old clothes from the bottom of the box."

At the end of 2005, Dong Xiuxia transferred his "embroidery pavilion to change clothes workshop", from the basement to Changan shopping mall nearby, a change in the past low-end image, made "obsolete into fashion business".

Change your clothes and your way out

A girl took a dress that had not been worn much. The material was very good but the style was long out of date. Dong Xiuxia changed the style of the collar and changed the loose waist into a waist style. Another male customer, after receiving the modified trench coat, marveled: Did the boss buy me a new one?

Early success, Dong Xiuxia full of confidence. After that, more and more white-collar workers sent their outdated clothes to Dong Xiuxia's shop. With more than ten years of experience in the clothing industry, Dong Xiuxia can basically see the effect of clothes that can be transformed at a glance. If the effect that customers want cannot be achieved, Dong Xiuxia will directly explain to customers, and customers can choose to change or not to change. Dong Xiuxia introduced, she received the work can be roughly divided into several categories: one is the fabric of low grade, but the change of larger fashion; One is the fabric is more advanced, need to be carefully processed clothing; There are small holes in clothes, clothes that need to be handled subtly; The most common is a change in the wearer's body shape and the need to get the clothes fitted.

'It's not impossible to make a big change from a small one,' Ms. Dong said. 'Design is crucial, and sometimes customers need to provide additional fabric.' But if the stitching is not right, one old garment will be changed into another old garment. Embroider CRAFT CAN MAKE THE DRESS AFTER MAKING A CHANGE ADDS NEW THEME, HAD UNIQUE INWROUGHT PROCESSING, THE CLOTHINGS AFTER REFORMING CAN BECOME A UNIQUE, NEVER OUTDATED PERSONALIZED DRESS VERY LIKELY.

Running a high-grade change shop, to achieve customers, in addition to excellent cutting and sewing ability, but also have a unique aesthetic vision and design level. Because most customers are the pursuit of fashionable consumers, the core of the design is fashion, a change in the process and technology may be very simple, but in the design of the shape may produce a different style of effect.

Dong is still studying and studying fashion to understand trends, because if clothes aren't new or fashionable, it's hard to sell a business.

Walk the path of less but better

Dong once tried to expand the shop to 11 employees, but there were management problems: "It was hard to manage with more people, and the expenses were much higher, so I couldn't make much money." Later, Dong Xiuxia resumed the small-scale operation, cut back the staff to 4 people, each with a division of labor, especially difficult technology by herself.

Although professional dress modification is a new industry in the market with a bright future, Dong believes that it is easy to invest in the business economically, but hard to invest in the technology. Lack of professional "tailor" is the biggest bottleneck of development, reform of brand clothing is necessary to have a certain skill, otherwise a thousands of yuan of famous brand clothing in the poor tailor's knife cut damaged will be worthless.

In addition, it is difficult to receive large single business, is also the bottleneck restricting the development of its scale. "The transformation of clothes is different from selling clothes. Every piece of clothes is changed in different places. Even if we have long-term cooperation with top-tier brands, it is difficult to get a big order at once. Then again, even with the big deal, there's not enough manpower. Because the clothes they are changing are high-grade, each piece requires a lot of time and thought."

Accumulated so many years of experience, until now, Dong Xiuxia summed up a business principle: "rather than do big, do small do fine, with quality characteristics to win."