Canadian Retailer - Holiday 2015 - 44

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trying to be that one stop for them."
"We're smart enough to know when we don't know
This penchant for innovation represents the comsomething. We're not just going to try and pretend.
bined vision and business acumen of the founders.
"When we first started, Lisa and I had very We reach out and ask questions and try and find
long talks about what we both wanted from the
mentors and people to help us through that piece."
company, what our strengths were," Wieber says.
- KRISTY WIEBER, Rent frock Repeat
"I'm very detail-oriented. I like the operational
piece. I like the detail of the day in, day out. I
like the creative side, the marketing side. She likes the bigger Donate the Rest,' in which fundraising organizapicture. Where are we going next? And I don't want to worry tions inform event ticketholders about the Rent
about that too much."
frock Repeat service. In turn, the company doDuring the initial growth of the company, the duo experi- nates 10 per cent of each rental for that event back
enced a short but steep learning curve, Wieber recalls.
to the cause.
"My background was retail, and Lisa and I together have a lot
As a retailer who is heavily invested in e-comof sales and marketing experience. The fashion piece is where merce, Wieber takes particular pride in the comwe didn't have a lot of experience. I did some fashion merchan- pany's award-winning website. But that success
dising in college, but we had no idea really what we were doing carries its own challenges.
from the fashion side of things. But from the business piece-
"Technology is not our background, so that's
customer service, sales and marketing-we felt pretty good a big piece of the puzzle that we keep trying to
about what we wanted and how we wanted to approach things.
make work, she says.
"We're smart enough to know what we don't know. We're not
"It's the technology piece that keeps me up at
going to pretend. We reach out and ask questions and try and night. It's not just about the [website's] bells and
find mentors and people to help us through that piece."
whistles. It's just about it being really effective and
making sure it works for our customers. That it's
Creating groundswell
streamlined and really easy to use and that we're doPromoting the new venture was a challenge. "As a start-up, ing things that enhance the shopping experience."
our marketing budget was nothing," Wieber says, prompting
And if the success of Rent frock Repeat genera decision to focus on public relations, social media, referrals ates competition? Wieber says bring it on.
and word of mouth (to appeal to customers).
"We feel like our customer service level is so
Another promotional ploy was generating business by link- high. I think we've set a pretty tough standard for
ing up with events and causes, and a director of business de- other companies to beat. We're pretty confident
velopment was hired to solicit partners.
that the way we cater to our customers can be the
Out of this came a feel-good program called 'Rent the Dress, difference every time."
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CANADIAN RETAILER | HOLIDAY 2015

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