We're in Good Company: The Wardrobe

We’re in Good Company. Town and Country Bank and Peoples Prosperity Bank are honored to serve communities where small business owners are innovative and resilient.

A Springfield tradition since 1963, The Wardrobe offers a boutique shopping experience for clothing, gifts, shoes, and accessories. Kim Dixon, owner since 2002, prides herself on providing exceptional style with personalized service.

On March 21, 2020, Governor JB Pritzker announced the Illinois stay-at-home order requiring non-essential businesses to close. Kim took the first two weeks of the stay-at-home order to plan how The Wardrobe could remain operational and profitable during the COVID-19 pandemic—something many retail business owners faced. Kim’s solution was to go online, which was risky because it had been attempted years prior, but “never quite took off,” says Kim.

Learning about the SBA Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) established by the CARES Act, Kim decided to apply through Town and Country Bank, a preferred SBA Lender. The PPP loan would allow Kim to continue to pay her employees while using her funds on hand to build a brand new website from ground zero. TheWardrobeSpringfield.com went live on April 28, 2020, after being in development just a few weeks.

“The online store is something we’ve always wanted to do, and now was a perfect time to make it happen,” says Kim. “My team of five helped make this happen; we grabbed online photos where we could, and where we couldn’t, we took photos to make the online shopping experience as easy as possible.” Since the launch of the website, online orders are mostly from local residents, though some out-of-state orders have been fulfilled. The Wardrobe employees work under state guidelines of social distancing in the store to fulfill all orders placed.

In addition to online orders, The Wardrobe uses Facebook to market its inventory taking orders via direct message (DM).

“We love to connect with our customers. We have many customers call and text to ask questions about a piece such as sizing, so we want to be as helpful as possible. It’s all about personalized service,” says Kim. Customers of The Wardrobe can arrange to have their orders picked up curbside, shipped, or for local orders, get same-day delivery.

“The retail industry has been hit very hard,” says Kim. While Kim and her buyer, Lisa, are proactively managing inventory orders by only replenishing some stock, there are some vendors that they’re not able to reach. “We think some vendors aren’t getting their stock, which means they may not have a lot to offer for Fall 2020 due to their supply coming from China.”

Kim is looking forward to reopening and welcoming customers back into the store with fresh looks for summer. The Wardrobe’s business model has changed permanently because of the pandemic, which is why she’s currently working on integrating their in-store point-of-sale system with their website ordering system so that inventory can adjust automatically. “All this was made possible with the PPP loan. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Town and Country Bank,” says Kim.