It’s that time of year again–holiday sales are in full force, U.S. customers are emerging from a post-election sales halt, and Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales are on the horizon. Amazon is leading, ebay is fading, and lots of retailers whether brick and mortor or online are wondering what's next?

At Whereboutiqueshop, we’ve been talking about sales and marketing strategies for months. Now that we’re in the middle of it, we’re already asking a bigger question:

What will 2017 retailing trends look like?

We searched high and low; and analyzed retail experts to get their insights and predictions for the year ahead. Some of these experts have worked on marketing strategies with brands like Chanel, Macy’s, Marks & Spencer, and Sainsburys; others have 15 years of experience; one was named a Future 100 and Startup 100 entrepreneur. But aside from those name brands that we all love and adore, vendors or retailers like you and I want to know where do we get in?

Most importantly, we have picked out some key information that should help you get ahead of the curve in 2017. 

Mobile UI/UX Will Take Precedence Over Desktop

Everything for ecommerce and digital marketing needs to be executed with mobile at the forefront.

The growing importance of mobile marketing and apps is shown by these Smart Insights Mobile Marketing Trends statistics:

• More than 50% of searches are on mobile
• 91% of Facebook usage (Daily Active users) is on mobile
• 80% of Facebook advertising revenue is on mobile
• 90% of mobile media time is spent in apps

Mobile UI and UX design and upgrades need to be completed before desktop. Mobile traffic is doubling every year, and now, more than ever, consumers want a one-touch checkout. Make your mobile experience seamless and easy to navigate and purchase for the customer and your conversions will increase instantly.

Omnichannel Advocate Marketing Will Boom

Retailers have gotten really accustomed to the idea, if not the actual implementation, of the omnichannel purchase process.

They let customers start shopping on one device and finish on another, or buy online and pick up in-store, and so on. 2017 is going to see omnichannel marketing, and specifically, advocate marketing, 

They’ll need to be armed with quality technology, of course, but instead of just getting a good picture of which customers are sharing photos, referring friends, contributing content, and so on, on social or on your site or app, we’ll finally start to enable these sorts of actions in-store and get better visibility on them.

Bricks-and-Mortar Will Be Cool Again

While ecommerce continues to gain channel market share, offline retail still drives the majority of retail spend.

Ecommerce will still most likely grow at a faster rate, but what we’ll continue to see more of in 2017 is more retailers moving towards an integrated commerce model where the brand has multiple selling touchpoints for consumers to interact with.

For many currently pure-play ecommerce companies, this could mean bricks-and-mortar stores in the form of showrooms, pop-ups and possibly permanent locations.

Expanding offline presence–if done right–provides retailers with the opportunity to form deeper personal relationships with customers and help drive purchase behavior over the customer lifecycle.

 Experiential Retail Will Remain Crucial

Experiential retail provides the ability for brands to further engage customers through authentic experiences—whether they happen online or offline.

This has always been an important part of retail, but we are definitely going to see more of it in 2017 given the success integrating experience has had in retail to-date.

One offline example is Outdoor Voices using its stores to not just sell merchandise but also to reinforce the community elements of the brand by hosting running clubs and other active events that relate to the brand.

An online example would include a brand like Glossier who has had a ton of success featuring real people—including Glossier staff—using Glossier products in videos featured on its social channels. These types of experience-driven approaches will continue to evolve the retail landscape in the upcoming year.

Beacons Will Go Mainstream

If you live in a major city, you will know someone who will have interacted with a Google Physical Web beacon by the end of 2017.

I’m excited to see how Google Physical Web develops–it’s a system that makes it easy for your phone to access a specific URL based on its location.

You don’t need an app to access the content, and it’s expected to be the most accessible location-based content solution. Users can access information when they enter stores, they can request that their click and collect order gets prepared, they can buy from their phone in a few clicks after being inspired by a billboard.

You will also know someone who has bought something through a connected home device, like an Amazon Dash button or a device that reorders its own consumables.

Searchable Local Inventory Will Double in the Next 12 Months

It’s a safe bet to say it’ll double because (sadly) only a handful of retailers are offering this currently! There are a few reasons why this will happen.

Customers have more certainty and a better experience when they can see what is and isn’t in stock nearby. This influences customers’ decision over who to buy from, so systems like these pay for themselves.

Customer expectations are being set by the retailers that do offer this service–and the retailers that don’t offer it will start to lose out.

There are also plug-and-play systems that make it easy for stores to make their inventory searchable from smartphones. NearSt is one of these. The area it serves and the number of categories it caters to will grow rapidly in 2017.

 In the End

These are just some major things that will change for the new year to come. The rate of change within the industry is speeding up, and newer processes like these will help retailers keep up and stay afloat as some retailers fall by the wayside. 

At Whereboutiqueshop, we’re also looking forward to 2017. From beacons to better marketing tactics, we’re excited to see how the retail industry adapts to today’s connected consumer. Use this insightful information to adapt how you will prosper in years to come and stay steps ahead to catch the traffic.

Until Next time thanks for reading

We have searched the web high and low to gather the best tips to achieving this chic and trendy look everybody is "Ahhh-ing" for.. Distress but in a good way.. Check it out! 

 How to achieve the distressed look for less

Distressed boyfriend jeans are the key ingredient in achieving that "Oh,this old thing?" chic, off-duty look. But usually, that "old thing"—in particular, a pair of beautifully destroyed jeans—is not truly old. You'll have to make a trip to at least one store, or maybe a dozen. Which brings us to our next point: Those jeans are hardly easy to obtain.

First, finding a pair distressed to your personal liking can involve a tireless hunt. (Curiously resembling swiss cheese? Looking as if a bear had initiated a wrestling match? No thanks!) Then, once you do spot your perfect pair, the price tag immediately forces your eyes to widen in disbelief. Despite holes galore and thus, less fabric, the dollars and cents have noticeably increased. Catch-22, much?

Yep, it's time to take matters into your own, fully capable hands.

Materials 

• Denim of choice—how about the faded jeans you couldn't bring yourself to toss when you cleaned out your closet? We also recommend going to your local thrift store or purchasing an inexpensive pair of jeans. If you decide to shop for denim but aren't having any luck, get creative like Kathleen did: She found this pair of cheaper denim in the men's section of Forever 21 (and prefers the baggier "boyfriend jeans" fit, anyway)!
• Cheese Grater (2)
• A sharp, brand new pair of scissors more specifically, sewing scissors (3) or seam ripper (6), or serrated knife (8)
• Tweezers (4)
• Sandpaper (1)
• Ruler (7)
• Pencil/chalk (7)
• Washing machine and dryer (optional/not shown)

Why go on the treasure hunt for all of these tools when you can purchase the DIY Distress Jeans Kit.

Directions

Step 1: First, try on the denim to have an idea of what areas you would like to distress. If you would prefer to make a mark rather than simply eyeball where on the jeans you intend to distress, use the ruler and then use the chalk or wax taylor chalk to mark the spot 

Step 2: Cut straight, horizontal slits over the areas you want to distress. The slits should be 1/2-inch to 3/4-inch from each other, which will make pulling out the indigo threads (i.e., the synthetic thread of the dyed and manufactured denim material) even easier. You can use different mediums to create different textures when cutting. ( scissors , seam ripper, or serrated knife)

Step 3: Then, sandpaper over those areas for an extra worn look. Skip this step if you'd rather keep the distressing to a minimum.

Step 4. The cheese grater works especially well. To use one of these tools, begin by rubbing it horizontally or vertically across the area of your jeans you wish to appear distressed. The degree of distress you want on your jeans will be determined by the degree you rub them with the distressing tool. More vigorous rubbing will produce more distressing.

Step 5: Use the tweezers to pull the indigo threads, but only in the areas you've cut. It's OK if you can't get them all, or if you have blue fuzz in certain areas. It'll all even out in the wash—pun intended!

Step 6: Once you've cut several areas (and don't forget about those back pockets for an all-over distressed look) and have pulled most of the indigo threads out, toss your jeans into the wash. Ensure that you have selected wash on cold, not warm or hot. You can always hand wash/air dry if you don't have a washing machine or a dryer nearby; however, the step does add fantastic further distressing.

Step 7: Afterward, dry them (in the dryer or via air drying) as much as you can before wearing.

                                                Pull on the rest of your outfit and voilà! You're ready to rock n' roll.

Thank you for tuning Stay tuned for more fashionable sense.

Another blog that has great tips for DIY Distressing

High-Converting Displays

Whereboutiqueshop likes to encourage it's customers with handy tips to enhance their product's creativity and inspiring visual displays. When you're diving into the world of retail either through a pop-up shop or your own boutique retail store, one of the key sales metrics you're going to want to focus on is "sales per square footage," which is the average revenue a retail business generates for every square foot of sales space.

Essentially, your "retail space" has to be your most productive and most efficient salesperson, and how you go about optimizing your sales space for maximum revenue is to employ the art and science of visual merchandising.

I can already imagine the grimace upon some of your faces upon seeing the word "visual," thinking to yourself that you're not creative, artistic, or stylish enough to make your retail space look good enough to lure customers in and persuade them to hand over their money for your products.

Yes, the discipline requires a sense of aesthetic, but remember that it's also a science, which means that it's a tried and true method that has been studied with results to show for it, results that you can replicate and recreate for your own store.

However, it's also important to recognize that the field of visual merchandising encompasses a lot of distinctive retail design topics and covers everything from creating the window display a prospective customer first sees, to the signage you put up and the layout you decide on to direct your traffic and a whole lot more.Our customers take time to feature our products, whether it be in a trinket box display cabinet, or an assorted collection of jewelry stands in their boutique's visual merchandise to creative a vision worth pursuing. 

In this post, I'll be covering just enough on how you can go about creating effective merchandising displays in your store that not only catch your target customer's attention, but gets them to make a purchase as well.

Let's get started.

Begin with Your Target Customer In Mind

Knowing your target customer inside and out will help you tremendously when it comes creating effective merchandising displays. I'm not just talking about being familiar with demographic data like their age, income, and education level, but digging a little deeper into their psychographics and behaviours. In other words, targeting not just individual customers, but their lifestyles. 

Find Some Inspiration

Courtesy Of The Jewelry Box 

Thanks to the Internet you no longer have to wait around for that brilliant idea to hit you when you're thinking about putting together your next merchandising display. Instead, there are a number of invaluable resources available in the form of blogs, boards, and more. Some of the ones I recommend checking out are the following:

• Retail Design Blog
• Creative Window
• Pinterest

Group Like with Like

Grouping like products with like products will give your customers additional reasons to buy more items from you, but it also has a more utilitarian reasoning behind it, namely saving them time from looking around and trying to mix and match things. It’s one of the reasons our boutique owners put earrings next to jewelry stands, right beside their trinket boxes, or rings with ring holders.

You can also think of it as creating categories, but you don’t need to limit your creativity there, you can also create “groupings” within categories. That means having merchandise that might be the same color, price, size, or type together.

Let Light Dictate Mood and Attention

This again ties into engaging your customer’s senses (see above) and guiding them to experience different moods and emotions based on your store’s lighting. Whether they feel like they’re in a nightclub, a fashion runway, or right at home will depend largely on how you decide to use lighting.

Using spotlights to highlight certain products is also a surefire way to direct attention and make sure people pay attention to your top products.

Lastly, Don't Forget to Change It Up

Remember that when trying to optimize your square footage for the most amount of sales, a scientific approach of formulating a hypothesis, executing on your idea, and then testing for results will put you in the routine of trying out new ideas and sticking with what works.

With these tips in mind, go out and give them a shot on one of your merchandising display to see for yourself how you can increase sales through the way you display your products and create a more engaging experience. 

Thanks for tuning in, I hope this has been helpful untill next time

Information Sourced from Shopify

Some Photos Courtesy Of The Jewelry Box

Hermes scarves are a one of fashion’s most recognizable accessories. But not practical when it comes to budget. Right!! But you can still achieve the same look with our designer silky scarves. With two scarves a minute being sold around the world, these fashion-icons have become more popular than ever before. Designer Scarves can be seen on women and men from all walks of life, all around the world including celebrities, royalty, ceos and politicians but can be worn by anyone.

What makes these scarves so popular? The unmatched quality and breathtaking designs of the silk squares can be worn by anyone with practically any outfit. There are countless ways to wear a Designer scarf and no matter what design you choose or how you wear it, they are always at the height of fashion.

Versatile

Designer scarf fashion is so versatile that no matter what your personal style is, you can wear a scarf and be at the height of fashion with this timeless trend. There are so many ways to wear a Designer scarf that you could wear one all year long without ever wearing the same look twice! The scarves can be tied a wide variety of knots, in bows or even just left untied, draped around the neck. Scarves can be worn over your head, tied into hair, as headbands or wrapped around the forehead. They are often tied around the waist, used as belts, or even worn as a summer-time shirt. Designer bright colors are frequently tied on as statement arm-pieces or tucked under collars for a subtle pop. Scarf collectors even hang their Designer scarves to display the exquisite artwork on their walls.

Designer scarves are one of the worlds most popular fashion accessories. These beautiful pieces give any outfit that extra special something with their effortless fashion and exquisite artwork. With so many design choices and ways to wear a Designer scarf, once you have one you simply can’t resist shopping for more.

Here are some more ways to wear a Designer Scarf:

Thanks for tuning in!!

Links- http://dress-trends.com/womens-scarves-trends-2016...

     http://kledingstyliste.nl/lookbooks/sjaals-dragen-...

1, More savings. On average you save an extra 20% discount when you purchase these pre-selected sets. 

2, Easy shopping experience. Instead of searching the entire store and click on each item, you can simply add multiple items to shopping cart with one click 

3,  Effortless display in your boutique. The presentation from our photographer in our photos springs imagination for the items.

Convert wholesale inventory to consumer shipments even easier with the lots. Get more, make more!!! There is a wide array of WBS (whereboutiqueshop) top selling items compiled in collaborated lots, whether it be the trinket boxes, leggings, accessories, scarves and more also themed collections such as Esquestrian (Horse lovers), Audubon (Bird lovers), and Holiday lots. Check it out !

We here at WBS Wishing you a Happy Holidays...

Similar to scarves, wraps and hats, the Kimono top is one of the few fashion items that is ‘size fits most’, meaning women of all ages and body types can wear it comfortably. Offered in a variety of styles, the Kimono features a relaxed fit, with an alternative open front variation.

Take a look at the pictures below, taken at a jewelry wholesale store in Dallas. These few pieces of colorful kimonos gives this jewelry store an entirely fresh and new look. It’s the Kimono’s eye catching prints that draw customers in everyday.

Displays are easy to set up no matter your store dynamic, whether it be a mannequin in front window or some hangers on a rack in your pop-up shop. Once you’ve setup the new display, your business is instantly set for Summer shoppers.

Don't forget the accessories! If you’re already selling jewelry, the Kimono top is the best way to cross selling. Because of the Kimono’s free flowing style, it’s ideal for a layered look – just add a few necklaces at varying lengths including multi strand long necklaces or beaded necklaces for that boho chic look (think Coachella). Statement Necklaces or bib necklaces as some call them, are another great option for Kimono tops as well. Whatever the occasion, the Kimono is the perfect addition to any collection this Summer.

We hope you find this blog helpful. Feel free to drop us a line if you have any suggestions or recommendations. Till next time! 

There’s an unspoken inventory of fashion paraphernalia that has become synonymous with women of the 70-plus age bracket—seamed stockings, a hobble skirt, cashmere crewneck sweaters in varying shades of lilac—and, of course, a brooch. So it came as quite the surprise when various iterations of the granny-like pin started cropped up all over the runways.  Making appearances in several spring and fall shows this year for high fashion lines like Celine, Prada, Oscar De La Renta, Dulce and Gabbana, and in Vera Wang's yearly "Resort" show, this versatile little gem has been proving over an over that everything old can indeed be made new again!

Vouge has recently been seen to call brooches one of "The Top 12 Accessories Trends for Fall 2015", and to say in their January issue that "...the brooch is making a surprisingly chic comeback." and saying that it's once again "..the cool versatile piece we can't wait to pin on.".  Wow!  In light of all this attention that brooches are getting these days, can you really not be a part of such a big deal comeback?

Even if jewelry is not the focus of your establishment, brooches can make a great display near the register - try it, and see how many become your next big impulse buy item!  Never underestimate the power of things that shine!

Luckily, Echomerx is your brooch headquarters!  We've got brooches of all types ranging from the wild to the classical looks, and they're ready to be shipped out immediately!  Need ideas to provide your customers on how to wear them?  We can help with that too!  Make us your one stop shop for everything brooches and all jewelry!