Happy Tuesday, lovers!! We have so many exciting things going on here in Amber Interiors / Shoppe / All Sorts Of world and I couldn’t be more thrilled about it all. While I love all my babies equally, today is ALL about Shoppe Shoppe Shoppe, because drumroll please….. we just relaunched our Shoppe website this morning!!!
If you have followed along on my crazy career journey for long enough, you may remember how and when Shoppe came to be. If you are new around here (HI Welcome!!) and have not yet been bored with the backstory of my how my lil’ baby Shoppes came to be, Welp today is your lucky day. Sit down and I’ll tell ya the tale of just how Shoppe was born.
Back in late 2011 into 2012 during my earlier blogging times, and when I first began taking clients independently through Amber Interiors, I was mainly working from home, doing all I could to get my biz off the ground whilst being a full time stay at home mama with G. Part of my early days included me going to every flea market, garage sale, and thrift store around. I was shopping like mad buying things for not only my own home, but pieces for the the few (read 2) clients I had. Before I knew it, all of those shopping trips to load my car to the brim full of goodies, started to amass quite the collection of all types of pillows, textiles, rugs, and flea market finds. Because I am inherently a bit of a hoarder (thanks Dad, and Papa) I was buying a bit more treasures than I really needed, and the overflow of stuff was getting a little ridiculous.
At this point in time, Mike and I were sharing a small home office, as he was still writing music and touring, and I was spending all my free time getting my business off the ground. It wasn’t long that one client turned into two, the three etc. and we quickly ran out of room in our 9’x10′ bedroom office. Every corner and spare space in the whole house started to get the overflow of goods, including the garage. After weeks of digging through pillow towers and mazes of stacked rugs, we knew this was gonna get old real fast, so we thought, “Why don’t we start a small little online store selling what items we don’t use for clients to my blog readers.” I knew there was a total gap in the market for these cool vintage pillows and funky rugs that defined my Interior Design aesthetic so well, so maybe a store could help offset the costs of buying all the things I ultimately didn’t always use for clients. What I didn’t know when I began was that it would be a real hit, and what started as an idea to sell a couple pillows here and there, turned into multiple sales a day and a request for us to add more and more stock available to purchase. Pretty soon the small “side biz” of our online store, turned into a full-time hustle and had us buying pieces specifically to add to the web store and sell to our customers. This is where Shoppe was born, and how Mike and I came to be in business together. He saw I couldn’t do it alone, and jumped right on it to help grow the operation.
After 2-ish successful years of having Shoppe live online only, we stumbled on a perfect little location in downtown Calabasas, that just felt like our next step. Brick and Mortars are crazy, and we knew nothing about how to really start one…but like most things us Lewis’s do, we dove into the shallow end and just winged it until we figured it out. We decided that since I had clients now, and a couple employees, I could turn the back half of the store into my office, and leave the front for clients. What is now Shoppe Calabasas used to be half my design office and half Shoppe, and I would literally switch hats all day long and jump in-between the two. To make a long story short and fast forward to 2016, the Shoppe was killing it, and I needed more employees to help with the design side of it all. I moved the design office up the street to a separate location so Shoppe Calabasas could take over the entire downtown Calabasas location. We hired a couple more people, moved out of our Public Storage warehouse into a proper 2400 sq. foot commercial warehouse, and we felt like this was it. We had a good thing going. Fast forward a quick two years later to 2018, and we decided it was time for location 2, and an upgrade to a 6,500 sq. ft warehouse!! We opened a new Shoppe in the Pacific Palisades… and are currently working on Location 3. (if we could just land on where Location 3 should be, haha)
While I think our brick-and-mortar locations are pretty damn cool, and yes I am 100% biased, I also think our online Shoppe is equally as cool!! I totally understand not everyone can visit us here in Los Angeles, and I want anyone who wants to experience the full Shoppe vibes to be able to. The goal was to make the web the next best thing to physically visiting our stores. So we have been working hard to help make our Shoppe website the very best it can be with added features, more products, and better ways to reach more of you.
I am SO excited to finally share our brand new Shoppe website with you all!!! My team has been working so freakin’ hard to make this look and function at its absolute best and I am so proud of everyone who has been part of this process, because it ain’t easy folks!!
Here are a few reasons why the new and improved Shoppe will rock! Not only do we have all kinds of new items, like chairs, bar stools, cabinets, benches, rugs, pillows, lighting, artwork, and more… I mean, we literally s-t-o-c-k-e-d UP. We also added a bunch of awesome new features to the new site…such as…
Ability to order ‘Made By Shoppe’ furniture pieces directly online!!!
You can now order any of our ‘Made By Shoppe’ pieces with just a few clicks — and you don’t have to call or email the Shoppe anymore! Pick your finish or fabric, size, etc. directly online. Want some finish and fabric samples sent to you before you make the decision?? You can easily order them online now! Of course if you are looking to customize your piece of furniture you still can, just contact the Shoppe and we can absolutely make it happen. Most importantly, all items in the Made By Shoppe line are still handmade in LA, Designed by MEEEEEE and made to order for YOUUUUU!!
Gift Registry
Thats right folks.. I said GIFT REGISTRY!! Clearly this feature gets me REAL excited. You can create your own gift registry directly on our site, and add in all your favorite Shoppe items so your friends and fam can get you exactly what you want (HINT HINT)!! Your registry can be set to public or private, and if friends and family want to purchase a registry item in-Shoppe, our in-Shoppe sales associates will easily adjust items within the registry to match the online registry accordingly. It’s real easy and I highly suggest getting that registry set up PRONTO!! Stay tuned for a post on “what I would put on my registry” if you wanna use mine as a little cheat sheet!
Trade Program
If you didn’t already know, we offer a trade discount to all registered designers, decorators, and architects!! All you gotta do to apply is have your verifying credentials available, like a website or business card and resale certificate. Once you’re logged in, you’ll see trade pricing take effect (and we’ll show the MSRP comparison so you can see your discount), you’ll have more customizing options available, like additional finish options, as well as first looks at select new items.
ALRIGHT, so if my long Shoppe story hasn’t bored you to death, and you are still interested in whats happening over there… head on over to the new website and leave us a comment below on all your thoughts!! THANK YOU guys for all the support. We truly could not have done this without you and your support over the years. Love love love you all!!!
xo
amber
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