BASAL Connor Childers Mallory Krugman Alex Murphy
COMPANY Nature Basal is a women’s boutique that specializes in high quality basics, including tank tops, t-shirts, camisoles, and long sleeve shirts. Our basics will offer a simple design aesthetic, while seasonally collaborating with different local artists.
Location Basal’s headquarters will be located on 843 W. Armitage in Chicago, IL. This will be the only permanent Basal store in the world. After a year of strong business in Chicago, our business will begin to pop-up in cities across the United States, and eventually the world.
Unique Aspects This will be the only boutique on Armitage that focuses solely high-quality basics. We will also be one of the few boutique-owned stores that will have a strong national presence, as well as a true pop-up quality. I’m each city we visit, we will collaborate with a local designer, which gives Basal an exclusive and special presence in the market.
Intended Customer Our customers are women between 25-35 years of age. They will come into Basal because our basics are comfortable, new, fresh, and reliable. Our customers enjoy feeling special, know what they want, and shop for the experience just as much as the actual clothes.
Market Penetration Basal understands the importance of having an online presence these days. One main feature that we will establish is a strong, informative, and open website. Social media will also be the key focus of our marketing. We will utilize Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. This will help consumers stay up to date on everything Basal, especially once we start popping up. At Basal, we want to make our customers feel special and appreciated. Our brand’s personality paired with our keen marketing strategies and techniques are how we plan to dive into our market.
Mission Statement To provide women with essential modern clothing pieces that they can build their wardrobe off of.
Vision Statement To be the best and highest quality luxury basics brand.
A Day In The Life Of Charlotte Charlotte epitomizes our company’s target customer. She is young, energetic and lively, while remaining focused and driven. Charlotte is not a risk taker, but likes to be adventurous to a certain extent. Her style is modern with small hints of trendiness. She likes to keep up to date on pop culture, but also enjoys reading classic novels and business publications. Charlotte resides in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. She just moved to a quaint brownstone home where she lives with her French bulldog, Lilly. Charlotte has recently gotten a promotion, which leaves her with a little extra spending money. She is using this money to redecorate her new house, update her wardrobe, and of course to spoil her beloved Lilly with organic treats and wool dog sweaters for the winter months.
She received her both her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Northwestern University, where she studied Public Relations and Communications. Charlotte is extremely career driven, at this point in her life her profession takes precedence. Although she wants to settle down and have a family eventually, her main priority right now is her career. Although Charlotte places a high importance on her career, she still maintains a social life and loves to indulge during her free time. She has a core group of girlfriends that get together three or four times a month. Charlotte loves going out to eat at restaurants such as the Pump Room or the Gage in Downtown Chicago. After hours, she spends her time in wine and champagne bars like Pops for Champagne. Charlotte also loves live music. She frequents small venues and jazz clubs to hear acoustic music. remaining educated and relevant. She watches everything from documentaries to light hearted romantic comedies. She also makes a goal to watch Oscar winning blockbusters. Charlotte knows all of the Top 40 hits, but she also listens to classic rock, jazz and classical music. She reads magazines such as Elle Décor, Glamour, and InStyle. Charlotte loves to relax and pamper herself. Her ultimate relaxation destination is her family’s beach home in Cape Cod. Charlotte is very tech savvy. She just ordered her iPhone 5; Apple products are her favorite. When it comes to shopping Charlotte is extremely quality-focused. She pays close attention to the quality of the shopping experience as a whole from the atmosphere of a store, to the helpfulness of associates, to the quality of the products she purchases. She wants to be treated as a high-end client. She is price conscience, yet willing to splurge on “must-have” items. She loves designer and luxury goods, but is not frivolous with her spending. When it comes to splurging, she does so on designers such as Alexander Wang, Philip Lim, Theory, Rag & Bone, and Stella McCartney. She shops at major department stores such as Nordstrom, Saks, and Bloomingdales. She also picks up apparel from J. Crew, Zara, and Anthropologie. She also shops at Jonathan Adler and Crate and Barrel for all of her home accessories. Also, she never fails to pick up a treat for Lilly from Tails in the City, a luxury dog boutique.
Store Location:
Armitage Boutique Area
Cross Street and Exact Address:
843 W. Armitage, Chicago, IL, 60614 at Fremont and Armitage
Dimensions of Space, Total Square Footage: 2850 sq ft
Location of Entrances/Exits:
Main Entrance: North side of building, facing Armitage Side Entrance: West side of building, facing Fremont
Locations of Windows: Windows face the storefront on the North side of the building. There are also windows facing the West side along Fremont. Monthly Rent:
$3500/1500 sq ft
Terms of Lease: Yearly
We selected 843 W. Armitage as the retail location for our store. Basal was founded on the principles of quality goods for consumers who appreciate high end garments, superb customer service, and an all around supreme shopping experience. The neighborhood in which Basal will be located exudes the personality and qualities of the company. Basal will be neighbored by retailers such as BCBG, Lush Cosmetics, Intermix, United Colors of Benetton, Kiehl’s, and American Apparel. Our corner location will be easily accessible by the Armitage Brown Line stop readily available for our customers who choose to drive to our location. We predict that many of our shoppers will travel to our store by foot as they shop along Armitage Avenue, which is highly populated by other to shop at Basal, and we will also have consumer who are just walking by and are drawn into our store. We also predict that those who shop at Basal will also shop at American Apparel, Intermix, and Kiehl’s. We were initially blown away by the location of our store. It is perfectly located in the heart of a great shopping area of Chicago. Our location’s demographics are perfectly suited for our target market, and the store that will surround Basal are competitive, but will also draw more consumers to our location. We have a really great gut feeling that 843 W.
LOCATION
SIGHT
You will notice our clothing as soon as you walk into our store, which will be an open and spacious layout. We want to avoid having unnecessary and closed in spaces. Everything will exude modernity, simplicity, and minimalism. Our walls will be a warm white color and feature multiple rooms or sections. We will and/ or walls that have black, white, and gray chiffon inserts and panels. This will into clean, crisp, and modern lines. Our display tables will be faced with black textiles such as leather and suede juxtaposing the hard and soft elements of our store. Natural lighting will take over most of our stores illumination in order to avoid to create a comfortable and inviting feeling to our consumer. As for seating, we will offer comfortable black benches that feature clean, modern, and crisp lines and are upholstered with the same black suede and/or leather that is featured on
Sound
As for music, we really want to excite customers to shop, yet at the same time, we want them to feel comfortable, calm, and normal. We immediately eliminated top 40 blaring music. This is not our consumer and not something that our consumer would enjoy even slightly. We started thinking of genres and what we really wanted to convey with our music and mood. We thought about what we are: modern, updated, sleek, fresh, and minimal. It is then that we thought about Alternative New Age music. We really like the more calm rock that soothes yet energizes. Instantly we started thinking of instrumental focused alternative music. We came up with a sample playlist of what one might hear when visiting our store:
“Fences” by Phoenix “Lights Out” by Santogold “Phantom Limb” by The Shins “So Sweet” by Johnathan Rice “Saturday Morning” by Eels “Empty Room” by Arcade Fire “The Summer” by Coconut Records “Each and Every Day” by Best Coast
Floor Plan The ultimate goal we are trying to achieve in characteristics of the product line and emphasize them in the way our store is laid the simplicity and clean lines that are present in our products. The comfort of our customers is one of our main priorities, so we will provide a lush seating area to make shoppers feel at overpower the merchandise. It will aid in displaying our basics and draw customers to our product. The front of the store will feature our new arrivals and our designer collaboration line. Our limited addition collaboration line is Basal’s unique selling point. Displaying this line in the front of the store will draw consumers in and make them excited about what the rest of Basal has in store. The large stone table will feature the folded merchandise, while the surrounding hanging racks will display pieces such as dresses, skirts, and tops. Maintaining the same display Basal’s regular product line. We will have small stone tables to use as display tables, each holding no more than 5 pieces of merchandise. The hanging racks will be designated to display our signature basics. On the hanging racks, garments will be assorted occur on the racks, beginning with white and then fading to back, with gray in the middle. the beginning and looser more relaxed styles will be towards the back-end of the racks. While shopping at Basal, our customers will extract feelings of comfort and ease from simplistic features and the lush materials of our product line will create a sensual shopping experience. We aim to achieve comfort, quality and simplicity through our have a unique and well rounded shopping experience.
SALES Classification Sales Per Month (%) Jan.
3%
Feb.
4.5%
Product Sold Annually by Fiber (%) Pima Cotton
31.3%
Organic Cotton
28%
Mar. 11.3%
Silk
14%
Apr.
10.7%
Sheer (Blends)
9.7%
May
13%
Rayon
17%
June
6.6%
July
6.6%
TOTAL 100%
Aug. 11.3% Sept. 13.9% Oct.
9.8%
Nov.
4.3%
Dec.
5%
TOTAL 100%
BASAL