We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shira Ferman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Shira thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

While the creation of the company took only one week, the naming of the boutique took three. Naming the business was one of the hardest things I have done while owning this boutique. I wanted it to be fun, bright, and positive. I started by writing down words that made me feel happy and combining them in a variety of ways. I was inspired by For Love & Lemons and LoveShackFancy from their use of the word “love” so “love” and “lovely” were added to the list. “Sun” was added because I love the beach and the word itself is bright, positive, and describes something that all life on earth needs! Therefore, The Lovely Sun was combined together and the boutique got its name.

Shira, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

In college I studied Retail Merchandising and Product Development. Right out of college, I got a job at Macy’s Corporate in NYC as the merchandise assistant to the director of product development for Macy’s furniture. I worked with Macy’s for a few years and continued remotely after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and my fiancé and I moved to St Petersburg, FL. After some time, I decided to start a small business as I grew to love the small business community in St. Pete.

I had always loved putting together outfits and styling others. When I worked at Pacsun and Aldo in college, I would create styles and outfits for customers that asked for my assistance. Even in high school, where I was forced to adhere to strict uniform policies, I found ways to add style to the uniform. I would pick through the racks at Forever21 to come up with outfits that were unique and still within the uniform guidelines of a button down and trousers/pencil skirts.

Trend-forecasting is something I have always had a skill for. My friends and fiancé can attest that I have an ability to predict trends in fashion a few months before they reach their peak. I called the neon color trend in 2017, 1 year before it hit, as well as ribbed and colorful palooza pants trend in 2016. Before white cowgirl boots and corsets were a hit trend this past year, we brought them into our boutique in fall 2021 and since then have sold them out numerous times. Some current hit trends now are jean midi skirts, cottage-core/prairie styles, colorful pastel trousers, utility/cargo pockets, lavender hues, and ruffle/bubble silhouettes.

This brought me to open The Lovely Sun boutique filled with trend-forward, fun, unique, and quality clothing at affordable prices. I am proud to put out clothing at my boutique that makes my customers feel happy, amazing, and look their best! Something that sets us apart from our competition is a continuous 10% off sale for anything online with the code LOVELY10.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

The best source of new clients for us have been our pop up shop markets. This is where we set up at a farmers market a 10×10 booth with racks of our merchandise for customers to come try items on or touch and feel the fabrics.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

We keep in touch with our clients by sending emails out once a week as well as engaging with our followers on Instagram and Tik Tok. To foster brand loyalty, we give customers that have purchased items a discount card to orders online as well as random special discounts in emails or on our Instagram stories. Another fun thing we do to keep brand loyalty is posting merchandise we are thinking of buying and letting our followers choose which items we end up getting. This way our customers feel like they are a part of the buying process and they have a say.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thelovelysun.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shopthelovelysun/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shopthelovelysun
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-lovely-sun/
• Other: Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@shopthelovelysun?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

Image Credits
photography credits of some of the photos goes to Kristina Bremer