We love hearing what our readers want to know from other dance studio owners. Recently, you asked what someone else’s opinion on selling dancewear at the studio versus online teacher & studio programs.
I spoke with studio owners Chad Martin and Christina Wiginton for their opinions.
Chad Martin – The Dance Avenue
“Currently we offer an apparel order a few times a year and do not order anything that isn’t ordered by someone. Â We simply don’t have the cash flow or space to keep an inventory of items displayed in a proper way to sell it. I’m sure there are studios that do but I would venture to guess that a majority do not.
We supply our teachers with apparel for teaching. Â Anything provided as a “uniform” is a tax write off and anything they want above and beyond they order for themselves from one of our apparel orders. Â I like the idea of offering a few items and giving the teachers the ability to select a few items as their “uniform”.”
Christina Wiginton – CK DanceworksÂ
“We sell dancewear at our location but it is customized to be only CK DanceWorks things. We wanted to set ourselves apart and not sell things that you can get just anywhere. All of our apparel is custom with a CK logo or something cute that we design and then print!
We don’t sell shoes or normal dance items because I have found that people don’t like to spend all of their money in one place! They are already paying us for costumes, tickets, tuitions and other items and sometimes don’t want to put more money into the same place. Not to mention that we would never have the options as a retail store or an online store just by nature of why we are here….to teach dance! That is just the way I see it…I don’t sell dancewear “the best” and the dancewear store doesn’t teach dance “the best”. We all work together!”
What do you do at your dance studio? As always, we want to hear from you! Share your experiences in the comments.