Olive & Bette’s is getting serious about cyberspace.
The contemporary retailer, which operates four boutiques in Manhattan, is relaunching its Web site, oliveandbettes.com on Monday. The company has operated a Web site for years, but owner Stacey Pecor said she never paid much attention to it.
“It was always sort of a stepchild,” she said. “We were in the brick-and-mortar business, where we provide great customer service and provide a really friendly community in our stores. Now we are translating that feeling onto the Web.”
The new site will offer a larger range of product from some of the store’s best-selling designers, including AG, Velvet and Susana Monaco. It will also feature expanded navigation with more categories such as Exclusives, Perfectly Priced, Have To Have It and New Arrivals. In addition, the site will feature a section called Dressing Room, where customers can see how the same piece, a Splendid thermal top, for example, looks on a size 4 or a size 14.
“In the Dressing Room, we are showing these women that they can look amazing even if they aren’t models,” Pecor explained. “We are showing them how we think they should wear the item to make them look their best.”
For the launch, the models in the Dressing Room are Olive & Bette’s employees, who showcase a range of body shapes and sizes. Pecor said that in the future, they may decide to include customers as models.
“When you shop at a store, you look for someone that you can relate to when you ask for assistance,” she said. “You want to learn about that person and about what’s in their closet. I really think that is what Dressing Room does.”
The site also offers a Community section, which highlights other cool Web sites, the Olive & Bette’s blog, a link to the Olive & Bette’s MySpace page, letters from customers and notes from celebrity shoppers.
“We don’t want this to be a site where she logs on, buys one item and goes away,” Pecor said. “We want this to be her community, where she spends time and enjoys being there.”
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With every order, customers will receive a quote of the week. The first quote is “Beauty’s where you find it.” For Halloween, shoppers received holiday stickers with their orders.
“When they open the box, we want them to have the same feeling as if they were in the store,” she said.
Pecor hired five people to work on the launch of new site. She plans to hire more help during the holiday season.
“We are learning a lot with this Web site; it’s an entirely different business than running the boutiques,” she said. “We are really extending our special relationship with customers outside of Manhattan.”