Physical retail experience

There is a big difference between what you imagine a physical store in a mall to be and what happens, in reality, when you come from online and production and enter a curated fashion ecosystem, like A List Magazine.

For me, the AList Designers Boutique x Vanilla Days experience was not about "presentation", but about confronting reality. With numbers. With seasonality. With timing. With my expectations, which I must tell you, were higher than the final result.

And that's precisely why the experience was extremely valuable.

The difference between aesthetics and reality

From the outside, a store in a mall seems like the ultimate validation: traffic, visibility, a "ready-made" audience. The reality is much more nuanced.

My experience was completely different from what I expected a physical store in a mall to be. Not because the space or concept was wrong, but because the sales dynamics are radically different from what I knew from the showroom or online.

A brand that comes from online with its own production does not automatically operate on the logic of large inventory plus fast turnover. And this is immediately visible in the numbers.

A wrong decision, assumed

One of the biggest mistakes I made was to start producing merchandise for the store's stock in the middle of the season, at a time when Vanilla Days already had a lot of active orders and was overwhelmed by volume.

It was a decision made out of enthusiasm and a desire to “be prepared.” In reality, it was a wrong decision.

I locked up resources, energy, time and money in a stock that didn't turn over as I had imagined. Sales weren't where I had projected them, and that forced me to look much more lucidly at the difference between potential and execution.

Business does not forgive optimism not validated by data.

Timing matters more than you want to admit.

Another essential aspect was the period in which Vanilla Days was present in the store, from August to October.

Exactly the change of season. Exactly the moment when the customer is indecisive, waiting for discounts, not buying in the summer, but not fully investing in the fall either. It is one of the most difficult periods for fashion retail.

Looking back, the timing wasn't on our side. It wasn't a failure, but it wasn't the ideal context to sustain consistent sales in a new space.

What an online brand looks like, placed in a mall

This experience forced me to look at Vanilla Days not as a concept, but as an economic organism. To understand where it fits and where it doesn't. What works in the showroom, what works online, and what needs to be radically adapted for mall retail.

I learned that:

• production must be perfectly synchronized with the sales channel

• Stock without strategy is a vulnerability, not an advantage

• real validation comes from sustainability, not from presence

• not every fashion context is automatically suitable for every brand

A valuable experience, even if expectations were higher

Overall, the AList Designers Boutique x Vanilla Days experience was very interesting and extremely educational. It was not what I initially imagined. My expectations were higher, and the reality forced me to be more lucid, or more precisely, to come back down to earth.

And that's precisely why I consider it a good experience.

Because it brought me closer to the truth. To the numbers. To more mature decisions. To a clear understanding of where Vanilla Days truly performs and the contexts in which we need to be more cautious.

Fashion is image. Business is truth. And in between there is a space where you learn the most.

The conclusion?

For Vanilla Days, until the stars align to present themselves in a proper physical retail environment, we will limit ourselves to the online universe and our showrooms. I am focused on growing exponentially on what we know, on a healthy and fair foundation.