Avenue You

Beauty Boutique Blends Personal Touch with Technology, Saves 70 Hours Per Week

Avenue You—a high-end beauty boutique—wanted to upgrade its technology in order to provide even better customer service to retail and online clientele. The company opted for a suite of easy-to-use Microsoft® products, including Windows Vista® Business, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, Windows Live™ Messenger, and Microsoft adCenter. Avenue You now saves 70 hours per week on administrative tasks, increasing sales by 30 percent.

 

Business Needs

Brian and Lisa Esposito were born to become entrepreneurs. The siblings grew up going to tradeshows with their father, Anthony Esposito, who has been an innovator in the cosmetics industry since 1971 when he launched Salon Professional Services. Over the years, Brian and Lisa worked alongside their father and watched him expand his company into a thriving chain of retail stores called Beauty Plus.

After Brian graduated from college with a degree in marketing and Lisa became a certified cosmetologist, the two decided to join forces and start their own business—Avenue You. “The entire concept behind Avenue You was developed by Lisa,” explains Brian Esposito, CEO and Co-Founder of Avenue You. “She saw that the market was becoming saturated with beauty products, and the items that we carried in the Beauty Plus stores were showing up in supermarkets and pharmacies.” 

Lisa Esposito, Co-Founder of Avenue You, adds, “Beauty Plus wasn’t as special as it once was. I knew that we needed to change the company’s image if we wanted to survive in the marketplace. I had this vision of downsizing the store but upgrading the product selection to include more exclusive items. That’s how Avenue You, a high-end specialty boutique, came into being.”

Using the right technology relieves a lot of stress by helping us stay organized and connected. We are exponentially more efficient than when we started. Microsoft products make life a lot easier. Brian Esposito CEO and Co-Founder, Avenue You

In 2001, the Espositos opened the first Avenue You store in the affluent town of Deal, New Jersey. “In the beginning, Lisa would handwrite the customers’ invoices and keep track of all the sales information on a notepad,” says Brian. “Those notes would be mailed or driven over to our main offices. We didn’t have a way of keeping track of the information, so data got lost, notes got misplaced, and sales and inventory figures didn’t get entered correctly. We realized that upgrading our image also meant upgrading our technology.”

The Espositos also discovered that the Avenue You retail store was subject to the ebb and flow of seasonal traffic. Many of the store’s customers came to the area only during the summer months, so business dropped off precipitously in the fall and winter. “When September came, my sister and I kept asking ourselves, ‘Where have all the customers gone?’” Brian says. “We realized we needed to reach out to them online.”

Solution

Brian had used Microsoft® software to help him succeed in college, so he immediately saw the potential of using Microsoft products to run Avenue You. “Doing everything with pen and paper was okay until Brian introduced me to the world of Microsoft technology,” Lisa says. “This is like heaven! Doing everything manually was so time-consuming. Now we are much more organized and efficient." 

To run Avenue You and the company Web site, www.aveyou.com, the Espositos use the Windows Vista® Business operating system, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, Microsoft adCenter, and the Windows Live™ network of Internet services.

“I have more peace of mind with Windows Vista because I know our company’s information is secure,” says Brian. “We also use Windows Vista with Windows Live Messenger so we’re able to communicate instantly with one another to share ideas, answer customer questions, or check on inventory.”

The Espositos use another important tool—the Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 messaging and collaboration client. “We start, work through, and end our days with Office Outlook,” Lisa explains. “Brian uses Office Outlook in the main office to reach out to vendors and customers, while I use it in the store to process our orders. We’re able to turn orders around within 24 hours thanks to Office Outlook.”

To manage daily business operations, Brian uses Microsoft Office Excel® 2007 spreadsheet software, the Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2007 presentation graphics program, and Microsoft Office Word 2007. “I use Office Excel to keep track of daily sales and Web site growth rates,” says Brian. “I put all of our company information into Excel and can pull out the precise data that I need to make smart business decisions. I also use Office Word and Office PowerPoint because I can easily create beautiful documents and presentations that help us make a good impression with customers, vendors, and manufacturers.”

Benefits

Brian and Lisa Esposito use Microsoft products to help them save time on administrative tasks so that they can focus on increasing sales, improving customer service, and doing what they love to do most: finding creative ways to help people look good and feel great.

Increased Sales

To extend sales opportunities beyond the retail store, Avenue You decided to go online. Currently, 93 percent of the company’s business comes from www.aveyou.com. “We use Microsoft adCenter to attract customers to our Web site that we never would have been able to reach before,” says Brian. “Thanks to this tool, our sales have increased 25 to 30 percent month over month. Also, the return on investment per dollar spent is 7:1 with adCenter, which is much better than the other advertising companies out there.”

Time Savings

Avenue You estimates that using Office Excel saves the company at least 70 hours per week. “We sync our shipping vendors with Excel and print all of our labels and invoices in batches,” says Brian. “This saves us hours each day that we can put toward getting new customers, coming up with new ideas, and being more creative, rather than sitting in front of a computer manually typing labels.”

Improved Connections, Better Service

Avenue You now can provide improved customer service to its clientele. Without disrupting the customer experience, Lisa can request product information from the warehouse via Windows Live Messenger. “In the past, I'd have to pick up the telephone and break that connection with my customer,” says Lisa. “Now I can stay focused on the customer while I wait for an instant message from the warehouse.”

Greater Efficiency

Avenue You chose Microsoft products because they are easy to use and provide the company with everything it needs in one integrated package. “Using the right technology relieves a lot of stress by helping us stay organized and connected,” Brian says. “We are exponentially more efficient than when we started. Microsoft products are making our lives a lot easier.”

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