My third
week interning with Fornash, a fashion jewelry wholesaler, just ended. The
company has one flagship retail store, which seems kind of like a test kitchen
for new products. We are located in Arlington, Virginia in the Ballston Common
Mall. The mall has the strangest mix of stores, and I hear young, hip Arlington
moms come in with friends and exclaim “it’s simply the best store in the mall and I
just need to shop here to keep them in business!”
But we
aren’t in the mall for the retail dollars; we’re here for the wholesale space
in the back, right alongside the office. And maybe there is a good sweetgreen
down the street. And a Panera Bread in the mall, by a Starbucks, and maybe
there is a candy store above us; but we’re definitely here for the large
stockroom. We have rows and rows of inventory and I still can’t remember the
names and colors or placement of some of it (not for lack of trying). The
collection is expansive and new products are introduced all the time, rather
than by season. Although at first I wasn’t the happiest to be labeling and
restocking my first few days, it does help me learn the SKUs and product names.
I don’t think I can contribute here without knowing the basics.
The SKUs
here are easy to understand. Rather than a string of numbers, these are a
series of letters. For example, a red enamel bracelet with gold anchors would
be: “BR-“ for bracelet, then the collection or style name “ANCH-“ for anchor,
followed by the color option “GLD/RED.”
The team
and the owner, Steph, are mostly Hokies, and some of the girls graduated from
my department. It’s been easy to talk about the classes and professors that we
all remember (That sewing lab - is it still a windowless sweatshop? How was the
fashion show this year?) But the first few days were a little awkward for me
since the full staff and Steph were at tradeshows. By the beginning of my
second week it got much better, and I got my own Fornash email to use and an
ongoing project with SimplySoles, a website where we list our products. I will
liaise with one of their people for the entirety of my internship and complete
the necessary order fulfillment and customer service for SimplySoles customers
who buy Fornash from their website.
There’s
another girl who finished her internship two days ago. It was great to have her
there when I started, since she showed me around and helped me acclimate. Lizzie’s
attending Tech in the fall actually, so we had a lot to talk about. Lately the
two of us were mostly sitting at the retail desk in the store, labeling product
and doing other smaller projects. Aside from labeling, I’ve done a little bit
of merchandising and learned how to ring up customers, taken inventory of the
popular SKUs, checked voicemail, gotten the mail, and opened the store.
Ava, the
marketing director, did give me a good project on the first day. I had to list
new product on Shoptiques, so first I had to check what products we already had
listed. Then I made a list of products I deemed appropriate for a 25-40 year
old demographic and had Ava approve it. Once that was done, I found TIF files
of the products and had to resize them using Photoshop and save them again, and
finally upload them onto Shoptiques and write a little blurb about the product.
At the
beginning of my second week, we were featured on “Jill’s Steals and Deals” on
the Today Show! As a result there were more retail and wholesale orders to
fill, and we got more Instagram and Facebook followers, too. I’ve been picking
the Fornash Friday winners every Monday morning; the winner gets a free item
that we posted on Facebook the previous Friday. Just comment on the picture
with your favorite color (and have a cute profile picture) - anyone can
participate. I’ve been doing a lot of the Instagram photos as well, and it’s a
better part of my day when I’m assigned to those kinds of projects.
Something
I like less than Instagramming is calling customers about their back orders. Not
that I hate it, but I'm almost convinced no one likes talking on the phone to
strangers. Actually, I am convinced, since I got some of the team to admit they
don’t love it either. It’s comforting that it’s not just an inexperienced
intern thing. I’m also slowly learning to use QuickBooks. Ass I call the
customers I have to make their requested changes in the QuickBooks system to
keep track.
A
typical day for me now involves liaising with SimplySoles after getting the
mail and checking the voicemail, opening the store and completing the cash out,
working the retail floor in the morning, and doing any projects that come up in
the back and restocking wholesale in the afternoon. But the projects are all
diverse, from taking inventory to trends research, which I enjoy.
But today has been the least typical day. Yesterday I pulled samples and older items for a sample sale in the garden of a store called the Preppy Pink Pony in McLean, Virginia. Tomorrow Meghan will set up shop there and sell some discounted Fornash as PPP has a blowout, “we’re moving” sale. Today I got to leave work early and drive over to help Meghan there. So far I’ve only had a few DC incidents (first, taking the metro to the all-kinds-of-wrong stop before work) and today “getting my car stolen”.
I drove
to the mall for the first time today. I parked in the garage, and walked inside
like a normal human being. My car is loaded with all my stuff, since today I
drove to Woodstock (home) after work. Clothing, shoes, a laptop, a diet coke
stash… all the valuables in my car today. I walked out to get in the car and
drive to the PPP sale. I walked to where it should have been. I walked past
where it should have been. I walked around the level where it should have been.
I ran around the level where it should have been.
My stuff!
My car! My ride home! My job! And my stupid mistake, I was on the wrong level.
The car was fine. But I was so frazzled the rest of the drive that I missed my
turn for the highway twice and arrived late to the sample sale.
It’s
been an interesting three weeks, so far. I’ve seen Fornash work with retail and
wholesale markups, price out logistics of transporting product by sea versus by
air, discuss LCL and lead time on shipping by sea (they prefer air), and
discuss the HTS and import paperwork (they don’t fill out much of it, their
vendors do). My point is, that even three weeks in they’ve talked about a lot
of things touched on in my courses.
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