retail profiles // classy // tu collection / tan united

Q&A with Keith Lipman, president & key buyer

Number of stores: 2
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Square footage: 3,200
Year opened: 1997 salon / 2011 Retail

Ted Vayos, BODY: Describe your store.

Keith Lipman: Wow, Loaded question, the best response is Look at our pics, We are a Breath of Fresh air to Phoenix, Downtown/Central and Uptown phoenix really died for a long time, we took back a business and added to it by opening the First Upscale men’s and women’s Clothing Store in Metro Phoenix that is really more like an Upscale Shop from NY, LA, Paris or Miami. There is NOTHING like us, we mainly sell men’s swimwear and underwear, but having the traffic of the Tanning salon made us think twice so we added women’s Swim and underwear!
We are EXCLUSIVE to ES Collection, Addicted, and AussieBum in Arizona we have high end sunglasses from Luxottica, we carry Seafolly and about 10 additional brands of woman’s swimwear and coming in march we will have a full line of men’s and woman’s swim and underwear form Pull-In from France and Diesel from Italy!

Ted: What makes your store special?

Keith:We are so far one of a kind nothing like us in Phoenix, I assume there will be copy cats soon as people see how well we have done! We carry funky hard to find FASHION, not cookie cutter clothes, but fashion that is not easy or too expensive to get…

Ted: What do you look for in a brand?

Keith: Quality, Quality, quality! We are UPSCALE but affordable for everyone.
Brands we have dropped, well not really brandy but LOW end Watches and accessories from china, Some are good some are bad and some are really bad, we learned our lessons!
What we look for is the brand and the support, we do a lot of events and functions and we always need marketing materials, and promo items!

Ted: Describe popular styles or trends in your store.

Keith: Comic Undies, Ray-Bans, Addicted Men’s Undies, AussieBum Undies and swimwear..
The NEW crocs shoes, not the old croc but the new fashion shoes

Ted: Describe your price points and size ranges.

Keith: Undies from 18.00 to 85.00 / swim from 15.00 each top/bottom =30.00 to 90 to 140.00 both men and womens
All of them XS to XXXL.

Ted: What is your average customer size?

Keith: Medium to large in Euro Sizing.

Ted: What does the average customer spend per visit to your store?

Keith: In retail about 60.00. in tanning it varies, as little as 10.00 to 55.00 per month.

Ted: Describe your customer base.

Keith: Male 65% / 18 to 40 Female 35% Female 20 to 65.

Ted: What other information would you like to share?

Keith: We are like no other, a complete trendy Very NY, SOHO, Paris or LA Shop brought to Central Phoenix, We play Fun Dance music throughout the entire space and force a good happy attitude on everyone that works there and walks in to the business.
We have fun, we are honest and we don’t Lie, cheat or steal from our customers, We treat everyone as we want to be treated and I think that makes the entire difference that lead to our success our success!