Retail, Reimagined: The Story Behind Pre Loved Geelong with Lou Hammer

In this episode, I sit down with Lou Hammer, the powerhouse behind Pre Loved Geelong—a thriving secondhand and consignment store that started as a pop-up hustle and now boasts a bricks-and-mortar location, thriving online sales, and a fiercely loyal community.

Lou gets real about:

• 💼 Starting from scratch while juggling life, kids, and a side hustle
• 🛍️ How she scaled from eBay to Instagram to a full-on retail store
• 🧵 Why curation and customer avatars matter more than ever in fashion
• 📈 The systems that save her 10+ hours/week in admin
• ✨ The mindset shift that helped her thrive through Covid chaos
• 🔁 Why “done is better than perfect” is her north star

If you’ve ever thought about opening a retail space, selling pre-loved products, or you just want the behind-the-scenes of a heart-led, data-backed fashion business—this one’s for you!

🔗 Resources & Links

• 💻 Shop or consign at Pre Loved Geelong: https://www.prelovegeelong.com.au
• 📸 Follow Lou on Instagram/Facebook/TikTok: https://www.instagram.com/pre_loved_geelong/

Transcript

 Hello and welcome to today's podcast. Super excited to have a special guest here today. I have Lou Hammer from Pre Love Geelong, which is a vintage and consignment store based out of Geelong, as you can imagine. And who also sells online as well. Lou started her store as a popup and has now had a permanent retail store for the last few years.

So cannot wait to have you share your journey on here, Lou. Hi, Mel. Thanks for having me. Super excited. We managed to get our, conversation going and coordinate our timing because we've had a bit of, back and forth, haven't we, all in life and running your own business and children and the like.

Yeah, that's exactly right. We're currently doing this during school holidays too, and I'm shocked that we made it. 

Tell me a little bit about your background and what led you to, in this. To pre love Geelong? 

Yeah, sure. I have a varied background career background.

I have owned my own business for close to 10 years now. But I had another business prior to pre Love Geelong. And prior to that I worked in all different kind of roles. I worked in pubs and bars and marketing and events, and got a lot of experience doing a lot of different things.

So Pre Love Geelong was born out of a prior business I had, which was called One Day pa and we were a home organization company. So we'd go into people's houses and help them declutter. And what ended up happening was working with a lot of women who had a lot of beautiful clothes, and they no longer needed them, so they were like, whoa.

I don't know what to do with them. I said why don't I just try and sell it on eBay? So it all started just selling, these beautiful clothing on eBay. And after a couple of months, actually it was probably in a couple of weeks, I ended up having so many items of clothing. 'cause these women would tell their friends, I found this girl who can sell you stuff for you.

Yeah. So I decided that I had so much stuff. My kids' wardrobes were full, my wardrobe was full at my house, that we'd start holding popup sales. So every quarter, I'm talking going back in 2017. We would host a popup sale. So we'd rent, a hall here in Geelong. And we'd host a popup sale for the weekend.

Pack it all down, take it back to my house and do it all again in a couple of months. COVID hit Exhaust. Yes, it was exhausting. It was fun and it was a very much a side business to one day pa. But it actually became like in a very short amount of time, it actually became its own business and I ended up having a team working with me.

I wasn't brave enough at that point to open a bricks and mortar store. But Covid happened and we actually got shut down during a popup, so we had a popup happening and, the, communication came out that in 48 hours we're going into lockdown, so we had to pack everything down and I thought, what am I gonna do?

So one day, PA was. Put, in lockdown, pre loved, we couldn't do popups, so I decided, you know what, let's test the market and do it online. So we did these popup sales via Instagram. It was so successful that, we decided once we freshly came out of. Lockdowns and Covid and it was safe to enter the retail space again.

I was gonna open a bricks and mortar store. I had enough of an audience that I knew it was gonna work. So in 2000, I keep getting it wrong. I feel like it was 2021, the end of 2021. Pre Love Geelong retail space opened. More than three years later, we have. Pretty much tripled what we've got.

We've now got, women's, men's and children's wear, so we just started off with women's wear. We're a team of, three, sometimes four, depending on the season. And we've now also got our own very own online Shopify store, which in six months is generating sort of 35 to 40% of our total sales.

Yeah, that's amazing. 

Yeah. 

And so tell me a little bit into more detail though. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, let's go into that.

So you opened your bricks and mortar store, which is amazing. And so where did you decide to open? Did you, how did you go about finding that space and all those things? People who are thinking, oh, I wanna, open the retail store. What are some important things that you think for picking that location and, or, like the amount of rent you have to pay, all that sort of thing?

Yeah, sure. Great question. I had actually been looking for a space. For 12 months. And I opened what I've got now, I actually opened it in the area that I was living. And that was simply, there was a couple of reasons. The demographic that we were targeting lived in that area. It was a safe area for me to open because I knew the neighborhood, I knew a lot of people in the neighborhood.

My kids went to school there. So our target customer is women my age, who like the things I like. So they were my friends I guess. And just by chance my best friend, also decided to open a retail space and she had managed to get this. Old, Westpac bank building. It was this big, beautiful brick building, but it was huge.

Like it is huge. And she couldn't occupy the whole thing. So she said to me, do you want to sublease part of it? And I was like, oh, okay. This is safe one, I'm doing it with my best friend. So it feels a little bit like, I've got someone to hold my hand. It was where I wanted it to be. The rent was perfect.

So I, jumped at the opportunity. I'm pretty sure it was only an eight week turnaround, so she was already in the, process of fitting out and she approached me about it. And I thought I didn't actually at that time have any locking with her, so it was just a sublease agreement.

And I just went, what have I got to lose? Let's just be brave. Do it. I was pretty confident it was gonna work and within three months I had to hire my first staff member. So it was just me to start with. And then another couple months later, I hired a full-time store manager.

That's amazing. 

Yeah. And so what is her business that, was a compliment to yours? 

Her business is called Good House Co. So she does sustainably made furniture and homeware, so the alignment was there as well. So obviously with Pre Love Geelong, it's all about the circular fashion economy.

Shopping sustainably, shopping secondhand to try and have an impact on, the reproduction of new textiles. Sherry's business, Goodhouse Co. She only brings in suppliers who have ethical, sustainable, processes and, use ethical and sustainable materials. So it was a really good alignment.

Our customers and our target audience aligned. Yeah. Had that not been the case, I probably. Wouldn't have done it, despite her being my best friend. It probably just wouldn't have worked, but it's actually worked really well. 

Yeah. Amazing. Yeah, and one of the thing, it's not easy to find the perfect retail location or the central space.

I know that clients I've worked with, we've talked about, or even when I had my retail store as well, the things you notice are, yeah, being able to park is definitely one thing. Depends on, how walkable. Being able to park, having other things around you that bring people there and that, could just be that other store that you are sharing with could just be one of the reasons.

Yeah. But even if it's the, like it's the hairdresser or it's the fruit store or the baker, having things around you in a retail strip, can be really helpful and beneficial that people visit all the time because then you. Having those been around those things as well.

Yeah, absolutely. So we are quite lucky in the sense that our, premise is boarded by a supermarket. So we've got Kohl's next to us and so we've got access to a very big car park. We've got Aldi across the road, so we are on the main shopping strip in Belmont, Geelong. Yeah. So rent is a little bit higher, but that's the trade off.

You pay a little bit more, but you've got access to all of this. Passing traffic. Now my space is actually located within this big building. We're at the back, so I don't actually have street frontage. But people walk past and see the big sign and come in and go, oh, I didn't know you were here because they've just been at Kohl shopping or whatever.

So unless I guess you're a destination store, which we are as well, like people. We'll see us online or social media or whatever it is, and they'll find us, but we do also get a lot of that passing traffic. So I think in terms of a retail space, it is important to consider that.

Unless you're a destination store and somebody's gonna want to find you then you've gotta keep in mind that you're probably gonna need to rely on a little bit of passing traffic. 

Yeah. And I think that's the thing, like it's that balance between Yeah, paying extra rent and or having to spend more on your marketing to actually get people to come to you, which that's exactly right.

The little less you can do, the better. Yeah. Exactly. So how do you go about curating what you have in store? Like where do you start? Do people, obviously word of mouth is a huge thing for you in terms of people, other people who have sold things with you, then, they recommend to everyone else to come and, 

sell in your store. So how does it work? 

Yeah, so we're a consignment store basically we take possession of people's unwanted clothing, shoes, accessories, and sell it on their behalf, pay them once things have sold. It's important for us to curate the range to suit our target audience.

It's been a little bit of a trial and error over the last three years. It probably will evolve even further in another 12 months. But we, track what we're sending back, the percentage of items that we're sending back to people. So we only hold things for 12 weeks when I say sending back.

And we track the brands that we're sending back mostly. With. That data, then we refine our brand list every season.  

So we have a brand guide on our website. So if somebody contacts us and says, oh, I've got a, wardrobe full of clothes, we firstly send them to our website and say, can you just have a look on our website?

Make sure that the brands, are aligned with what we sell. Yeah, we don't really want anything that's, older than three years. Again, we just know what our customer's looking for. And we just keep that in mind with everything we do. 

Come up with a customer avatar. So you know, the woman, she has a name, we know where she lives and we know where she shops and where she hangs out and meets and everything like that. In terms of how we curate the range, we keep that person in mind and go wood. This person wear that. And if it's a no then no, it's not coming into the shop.

And look, the comments we get from our customers about how beautiful the shop looks and how beautiful the range is, is testament to the hard work that we put in. 

Yeah. And you have to be brutal, I'm sure. Like you have to just be, it doesn't feel aesthetic, it doesn't fit this, vibe or who our customer is.

So you really have to. Keep that tight to make sure that you have the, pick for who your customer is. 

Yeah, that's exactly right. Fashion is really personal. It can be a bit tricky saying to somebody, oh, sorry, that dress isn't suitable for our shop, because that could be quite offensive.

But that's not to say it's not a beautiful product. There are a number of other consignments. Stores in Geelong that we refer to, that we know suit different demographics, which is so amazing. There's three of us in Geelong and we are all different and we all have very different, demographics. We cross over a little bit.

But that's not a one size fits all model. And for us it's important that our customers walk in the door, know they're gonna walk in. And find something that suits them. And then secondly, it's also important for our customer being the consignor to be able to sell their product. That's right.

So we don't wanna be handing things back. Our target is under 10% to be handing back. So as long as we can stick, I think we sit around about 7%. So there's no point in taking product that we know is not gonna sell. 

Yeah. And how do you price a product? Do you do that with the customer or how does that work?

Yeah, look, yes and no. So we can be led by the customer. I've been doing this for eight years I know the resale market fairly well. If it is a brand or a product that's. Quite rare, we will do some market research around it. But when you're doing it day in, day out, you pretty much know what something's gonna sell for.

If a customer gives us a price that they want and we don't agree, then we just politely decline and just tell them they might need to seek other avenues. That very rarely happens. And, very rarely do we have to mark anything down as well. 

Yeah, and you don't have to answer this, but, how does it work in terms of markup?

Like what margin do you get in for those products? 

So we actually work on a commission basis. We take, 55% of the sale price, and that's XGST. So whatever the product sells for, take the GST off, give that to the government, and we split it 55 45. 

Which is a great model for, generally in retail 

you struggle to get that margin, so you really need at least that to cover your costs and expenses, for buying Girl Store. 

And look, keeping in mind that, we're not high-end luxury. We do have some luxury, pieces in store, but our average, our average, item price sits at around $120.

So a kid's item might be $10. So the margin, when you're talking 55% plus, you've got range and everything. The higher value items counteract the very small margin we get on the lower value items.

Yeah. And what do you, oh, so you mentioned before that you don't take anything more than three years old, but does that exclude vintage or do you have vintage as well? We do, yes. 

So we're pretty, selective with the vintage things that we stock. Simply because there are vintage stores around and that's all they do.

I personally don't know that vintage market well enough to confidently have vintage in the store. So just because something's 20 years old, it's classified as vintage. Doesn't mean someone wants it. Do you know what I mean? We, however, have had vintage Burberry trench coats in now.

They never go outta style. Like a trench coat is something that you will have in your wardrobe forever really. We've had vintage wool coats, wool jumpers, those sorts of things. But in terms of, cool vintage teas and things. That's not our vibe. That's not where we're going. 

But yeah, we our customer really wants those modern brands, modern Australian brands. Our customer's sort of 35 to 45, 50-year-old. And they're looking to dress on trend. Look great. So they want the pieces that are out there right now. And that's not to say we don't have stock that isn't on trend.

In fact, the majority of the store isn't, aligned with what's trending in the stores at the moment. However, the brands that we're stocking are the on trend brands. 

Yes. Yeah. And so any particular pieces that you're like, oh my gosh, this has been amazing, that you know, this has come through the store, or these particular brands, or anything that sort of stands out to you?

Oh, ev almost everything. So my personal style is so varied. It depends on what mood I'm in, what the season is, if this, like the sun's shining today. So I've got this pretty floral dress on yesterday. Yeah, it was a little bit miserable, so I had sweats on 

very different, but I am a sucker for a boot, a Kneehigh boot. So the boots are all coming in at the moment and I'm really trying not to, take them all home. 

Lucky there's probably not, no, they're not. 

Thank goodness. And just beautiful gowns. So like really extravagant.

Leo Lynn do the most. Extravagant, beautiful ball gowns. Unfortunately, my life isn't that exciting that I get to go to balls. I'm a sucker for a sequin. I can't say I. Wear sequins a lot, but I, in my wardrobe right now, I've got these sequin pants. I'm like, I don't know where, when I'll wear them, but I'm sure the opportunity will arise.

So anything that's got a little bit of a point of difference, yeah. For me. Yeah. Yeah. So like I'm for a sequin, but then I don't feel brave enough to wear it out. The good thing about the store and the staff that I've got is we are actually all different in terms of our style.

Miana, who's our visual merchandising and inventory management staff member, she is very tailored and she has a very classic, capture wardrobe and she just nails it. Now, I could never dress how manna dresses comfortably for me personally. And then we've got Peggy, who's. Super cool.

She'll do like sweats and a blazer, but she can also wear a pretty floral dress, what I'm wearing. So we're all very different, which works really well because every customer's different that walks in. Every woman is different. So it's nice to have those different opinions on.

The stock that comes in as well. 

Yeah, that's good. And also I imagine because you are getting, one of things, yeah. You need to be able to, as you said, you had 30, 40% from your online store. You need to be able to get that product up quickly. So you need to. Get photos in the store, get staff wearing the dresses or wearing the items, taking the photos quickly and not be, overly precious about, getting that imagery up because you wanna probably move it quickly.

Yeah, I love that you've actually said that. So we, it's funny 'cause we put the online store on hold for so long because it's an effort, right? It's a huge effort. It just seemed like it was just too hard. I'm like, we've only got one of everything and oh, it's not gonna look perfect.

So we had a couple of cracks at it, and then I kept pulling it down because I'm like, oh, the lighting on, that's not great. Now it's not like I don't want to sound like I don't care, but it's like. What we're doing is fine. It's working, it's generating up to 40% of our total sales. Yeah, that's huge.

We don't need it to be perfect. Like we don't need to be that high end boutique who have a whole e-com team. Like it's literally me trying the clothes on and then the girls, if they've got time in the store, helping me upload it, for the moment it works. So if it ain't broke, we're not gonna fix it.

Yeah. But I will say for anyone who's thinking of giving it a crack, just do it and then tweak it as you go. Because we wasted a good 18 months going back and forth going, oh no, that's not right. We've gotta pull it down 'cause that's not working, and we just fix the problems as they arise. 

And if you are spending the time on your socials and your, the reach that is going out to more people, you wanna be able to have them have an option to view your range too.

I'm not far away. I'm in Melbourne, but, I'm might be able to just to pop into the store and have a look at it. So to be able to look online and see what you've got, it also helps people make a decision whether they want to come in. It's not just your online sales that are impacted.

It could be actually people going, oh, I'm gonna look there and now I'm gonna go into store. So it's gonna impact their sales in store as well. 

Yeah, definitely. Our online store, the strategy around it was not just to reach a larger audience beyond Geelong, it was to also drive traffic into the store because we do only have one of everything.

The brands are all very different fits, are all very different across brands. It can be tricky for some women to shop online. Personally, I don't love doing it. My waist size is different to my hip size and my bus size. So shopping online is really tricky for me, and particularly when you are shopping across different brands.

So the strategy around it was to bring people into store and look, we have people driving from Bendigo, Melbourne to come into the store. They like, oh, send you online or social media we just had in and. I guess the beauty also of where we are is that the shopping street we're in, the high street that we're in, there's actually four op shops within a two block.

We are not an op shop. But if you wanna go and do that thrifting, then you can go from, one end of high street to the other and hit five of us and hopefully pick up a bargain. Now obviously our price point's gonna be a little bit higher than an op shop. But we're lucky in the sense that people do come from outside of Geelong just to do that shopping strip.

Yeah.  

Yeah. 

And that was one of my questions yeah. How has the local Geelong community supported Julong embraced, pre-life fashion in general, but sounds like with the three of you there, in pre loved in general as well as you say, people coming from far away, it's really supported.

Yeah, look, it's been, I'll admit, pre love shopping, or buying something that somebody's worn before, I guess was seen, when I started, was seen as, oh, I'm not gonna buy something that somebody else has. So when I opened the bricks and mortar store, it was really important for me to have the store look like a boutique.

You're gonna walk in, you don't know, you're walking into a pre love store. And we actually get comments so often from people saying, you wouldn't know this was a secondhand shop. And that, I think, makes the biggest difference. You want women, men, whatever it is, to walk in and feel like they're shopping in an exclusive boutique, and then that takes away that.

Idea that they're buying something that somebody else has worn. And most of the time when you're shopping in a consignment store, you're buying products that still have tags on it. 

Yeah. Or they've been worn once from someone 

Yeah.

And so in general, people, retail gets a bad rap of, it's, retail's terrible. It's so hard to do, why would you ever wanna open a retail store? What would you say to that? What's your, feelings on retail in general? 

Yeah. Look, everything's hard. My, the business I had prior to this was hard.

But if it wasn't hard, everyone would be doing it. I would say in terms of retail right now, yeah, it is tricky, but we try and cancel out all that noise that's going on around us about, the economy and retail's dead and blah, blah, blah. We're still here. I've got two staff members and I've still got employed.

So we just try and hone in on the things that we are doing really well and we just be consistent. We're not trying to like, be the best in the world or take over the world or anything like that at the moment, we are just doing what we know we do well and we're being consistent around it. 

Just being proud of the fact that we're still open and we're still here and we're still trading. I think if you get too wrapped up in all of the noise about how bad things are, that can give you a really negative mind shift. And, I feel like people can make paniced decisions based off that. Whereas if you focus on the things that you're doing really well.

And keep being consistent and doing them consistently, then the trade off is gonna be worth it. So I'll go back to this story about, how I opened the bricks and mortar When Covid hit and we had to shut down that popup sale, I could have gone, oh, this is the worst. This is terrible. I don't know what to do.

But I went, okay, what are we gonna do? Because at the time I had staff, we had to generate an income somewhere. Yeah, so I was like, everyone take home a rack of clothes and we're gonna photograph them. And throughout like however long this lasts, we're gonna put it online Now, a lot of businesses I know, they went, I can't afford marketing, I can't afford to do this, I'm not doing this.

I went, you know what, we're not gonna be locked down for. Let's just be in people's faces and actually show up so much that when we get out of this. They're gonna know where to go. And that's exactly what happened. So once that covid and all that became a bit safer to open business again.

And I opened the bricks and mortar store, so many more people knew who we were because we were online and in their faces every day, so that's similar to what we're doing now. We're just still doing what we do.

We're being consistent around it. And we are not trying to be something we're not. 

Yeah. And I think there's a few things that I wanna touch on. First of all. At the start you talked about, it choosing your heart, I think as well is everything has got elements to it that are hard and you choose your heart.

Is it hard going to a corporate job? Where you've got no control. And I know last week you had, kids who are sick. Yes. And so it's but you have that flexibility in this business to do things differently than what you would if you're in a different job. So yeah, there's all elements that can be hard.

And it is choosing your heart on what works for you. Retail is always, and I've been in this, for over 25 years in retail and wholesale and products there's always fluctuations. And if you think that everything's always only ever gonna go up, then you're in for, a big shock because there's always fluctuations, there's always change, there's always external factors in play.

Being able to control the controllable, focus on the things you can do. You can't control what else is happening around you, but you can control the actions you take. And being scrappy and being really like, let's just get out there. Let's be visible. Let's really get to know our customer and understand what needs they have or what.

They get excited about or things that they respond to. So really knowing who your customer is and making sure that they are at the center of what you're doing all the time. 

Yeah. That's so true. I love that you just said that. 'cause that's one of the things we do so well, we know our customer, like I said, we've got a picture of this person.

It's not a real person, but we've created this avatar. We've named her like she exists. In our business, in our team, and everything we do revolves around this woman. So I think that's why what we do works so well is 'cause we never shy away from that woman. And that's the consistency I think people need.

Don't go and open a retail store if you don't like it. If you don't like people, if you don't like product, don't do it. If you don't like, you don't have to be a business owner. But, yeah, also I'd say just have a crack, have a go. Be brave, do brave things.

And if it doesn't work out, that's. 

That's right. And yeah, it's always, and I think that's again, being a business owner, being an entrepreneur, you have to be prepared to fail. You have to be prepared for things to go wrong. How are you gonna iterate? How are you gonna change?

How are you gonna. Twist and turn and add something new. Obviously you are always refining even just what you're talking about, your numbers and your data, what you're sending back. Editing that list of brands that clearly keep going back to people if they're not working. 

You are always evolving and changing.

Yeah. I don't know. It's just Riverside in general.  

Okay. 

So Lou, what would you say to people, and you've, shared lots of insights already, but what would you say to people as, to get started? Where would you, begin?  

Would write down just a one page kind of business plan.

What are your goals? Why do you wanna do it? What's your why? Why do you actually wanna start a business? And yeah, list some goals and then just do a little bit of a timeline. So that's literally what I did with my first business. I did a bunch of research. I reached out to people, I asked questions.

There's no stupid questions, and I guess once you've got a clear indication around your why and, goals and, like really easy, manageable goals. Just start. You just gotta start and you'll work things out along the way. Like obviously the legalities and accounting, those sorts of things you really need to have set up straight away.

Yeah. I feel like most things just tweak and work out along the way. 

Yeah, absolutely. And what you start with is probably not what you're gonna end up with. Like it is gonna look different over time and it's going to evolve and it's going to hopefully improve. And yeah, you're gonna remove things that are barriers or that you just don't like doing, you can get help with or, and as you said, you started out by yourself, but then you added staff to do particular roles.

So what do they do actually? What are your staff different roles that they have in the business? 

Yeah we've got Miana, who I mentioned before. She does all the visual merchandising, so her job for the week is to change our mannequins. The shop layout will change depending on the season, the shop layout will change.

She'll change our windows up, and she does all of our inventory management, so she manages the flaws. We've got a pretty robust, inventory management system that we use so it can track all of our data and give us really robust, data around what we're sending back and the percentages of what brands are selling really well.

We can have a look sort of 12 months ago and say, okay, in April, how many mins did we sell? Or how many coats did we sell? So this year, for example, based on last year's data, we decided to bring winter stocks. I'm talking coats and heavy knitwear in a month earlier than we did last year. It's just flying out the door like women are buying up.

It really hit that cold period in Victoria now.  

Always does last.  

Yeah. We go, oh, it's really warm. And then we go, oh, hang on. It's really cold at night now. So that's what Miana does. And then I've got Peggy, who's, our casual, and she is retail assistant, so she does customer service.

She does a little bit of our content, so Instagram, and Facebook posts. And then myself. So I pretty much manage the online store, so I'll do the try ons, try the stock on, manage all of the products online. But on top of that, I've also outsourced, the pay advertising to an amazing woman called Belinda, who's got a business called Brand Tales.

I outsourced my accounting and bookkeeping. So there's parts of the business I know I don't like doing. So numbers, like accounting, those sorts of things. I'd rather jump in a freezing cold lake than have to deal with accounting. So I outsource that. And then the paid advertising, like I love.

All the marketing. I love all of that, but when it comes to the paid ads, I just, it swings in my head. I've got no idea. So I've outsourced that as well. We are a small team, but everybody's role is really important and everybody's really clear on their, KPIs and they know what they need to do when they get in each day.

It's actually a really fun team, fun business to be a part of. They get to work with beautiful clothes every day. 

Yeah. That's amazing. Do you have what El what is your marketing strategy in terms of, actually, sorry, before that, you mentioned your inventory management.

What is the system that you use? Is it called? So we actually had it custom 

created for us. Okay. Five or six years ago when the, it must have been in 2020 when we started. We were actually like getting so much stock through Covid because nobody was doing anything but buying online.

So uses a bunch of different programs. So the main program is Airtable, and then there's a bunch of automations that set up. People sign up. Oh yeah. That's using Jot form and yeah. So it was custom built for us by this. I love that. Amazing automation expert, but we're now moving on to a new software program that's a little bit better managed by our consign, so they can actually go in the backend and see what they've sold, how much their payouts are.

Just to take off another element of admin from us. So at the moment there's a lot of admin back and forth between our insiders and us, because they actually can't see. Our program, they can't see what they've told. So we are looking at investing in a proper consignment software. 

Yeah.

That will definitely make a huge difference to your, admin. That'll really, 

totally. And look, that's like what we spoke about before, about evolution of a business. So I couldn't, we couldn't afford to do it two years ago, or even a year ago. But we're at a point now where.

We absolutely need it. I know that the cost, it is a big cost, but we're gonna save so much time. I think we'll save five to 10 hours a week in admin. Yeah. The return on the investment's definitely gonna be worthwhile, but it's taken us a couple of years to get to the point where we can afford to do it.

Yeah. And that customer journey of your consignee is gonna be huge different, make a huge difference as well, 

so much better for our customers, for us, obviously. But in terms of transparency, it's just gonna make the experience even easier for them.

And you mentioned there that you're bringing in, particular stock at different times based on your data, looking at your numbers, how do you actually call that in too? Do you just, put that call out that, we need more? Oh, I guess you look at what you've already got, but you then go, all right, we need more knits, we need more boots.

We need more coats, whatever it might be. 

Correct? Yeah. So look, stock has never been an issue for us. Getting stock has never ever been an issue. But there are times when we'll go, oh, you know what, like we've only got five. Like at the moment our coat rack is low. 

So the start of every season, like a month before the season starts, we do a call out to our consignor list for the first option to book an open consignment so they can just bring in bags of clothes and we will go through them one by one and pick what we know we need at that time. If throughout the season we are really low on stuff, then we will send an email out to our consignor list and say, we are looking for a Nina being blazers or we are very specific Kneehigh leather boots.

If you've got anything, here's a booking link. Bring it in. Yeah. So everybody needs to make a booking just so we can manage the inflow of stock. And then obviously if people come into the store just off the street inquiring the communication is around seasonal. So at the moment we're telling people we're only, taking winter stock 'cause we're booked through till, I think it's June at the moment.

On our website. There's really clear terms and conditions around, when we're accepting certain, seasonal stock. That's not to say at the moment we don't have any summary stock. 'cause we do have customers coming in who are lucky enough to be going to Europe when it's winter here or whatever. So we keep a very small amount of, stock that's out of season.

But the majority of the store will be yeah, seasonally based.

To be completely honest, we haven't worked it out yet. So there'll be times where we go, oh, event, we're selling really well online, and then we'll go weeks without selling anything that's event wear and we'll sell a lot of like really basic things. The store, the online store only launched in, oh, so it's been like eight months.

So we don't have any data to track from last year. It's really hard to pinpoint what sells really well. I can tell you brands like Country Road Sell Australian brands sell really well. We find it hard to sell, say European brands 'cause people just don't know them. They don't know the sizing, they don't know their fit.

So a brand like Country Road though they're sizing so consistent. If you're a size 12 genes in Country Road. You're a size 12 Jeeps, whereas there's some brands that you're like, ah, I was a size 12 in that style, but I'm not a size 12 in that style. There are certain brands that sell well, but yeah, in terms of best seller category.

I couldn't tell you. It's here, there and everywhere. I think being a consignment store, a secondhand store, it's really hard to track that data. But hopefully over time, once the online store has been trading for a bit longer, we'll be able to find some sort of, consistent pattern that's appearing.

Yeah.

Now I think I've lost your, you now.

Let's see. I've got you on. 

Yeah. I can now.

Yes, I heard that. 

Definitely one piece of advice, two pieces of advice I got when I first started, my first business was. Done is better than perfect. And we touched on that before with the online store. Just do it and perfect it later. Because most people aren't gonna notice the things that you knew you had to do.

And, it's an evolution. Like where I started from with pre love Geelong. Eight years ago is not where we are now. And I know in 12, 18, 24 months, it's gonna probably gonna be different again. And then the second piece of advice I got given was network. So get out in your community, meet people, meet other business owners.

If there's. There's networking groups you can join that are a paid program, but I actually started, oh, I didn't start it, sorry. I joined a business group of women. There was, I think about 10 of us and have made some incredible connections and I actually collaborate with a number of these women.

So we started meeting, oh, maybe it was pre Covid, and. Just you just bounce ideas off each other. You share your wins, you share the things that are actually a really big challenge. So just get out in that business community and meet people and ask questions. 'cause not, we don't know everything.

I certainly don't know everything. And it's nice to build new connections with people and refer. Business to them or get them to refer business to you? In a very genuine way. I do wanna say, I struggle at some of those really formal networking events where it's oh, here's my business card.

I prefer to catch up in go out for lunch with a group of people or, do things. A little bit more, casual.

Yeah social media accounts. We've got Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and they are pre Love Geelong. And then the website is www.prelovegeelong.com au.

No, it's fine. 

So you can just 

say, hang on, 

okay. 

Yeah, 

so Lou, where can people get in touch with you? Yeah, so online store is www.prelovegeelong.com au. And then we have, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok accounts, which is just pre love Geelong. 

Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing everything today, and thank you so much for all your time.

You're welcome, Mel. So great to chat. Thank you. Bye.