Episode 14: From Tailoring to Technology: How a 50-Year Downtown Business Stays Relevant
We have another episode that will surely inspire you to continue doing your craft and keep a good relationship not only with your customers but also with other store owners.
Join Terresa Zimmerman and Tony Paranzino in this conversation. Tony, the owner of Tony the Tailor in Charleston, West Virginia, shares his remarkable journey from learning tailoring at age 9 in the family business to running a successful men's retail business for over 50 years. Tony’s father started as a technical designer for the Botany 500 suit. Following in his father's footsteps, Tony has built a reputation for excellence in tailoring and men's fashion, serving clients far beyond the borders of Charleston and West Virginia.
Through economic ups and downs, changing fashion trends, and evolving retail landscapes, Tony has successfully adapted his business model while maintaining the core values of exceptional service and quality. His business has transformed multiple times - from a pure tailor shop to a full men's store, back to tailoring, and now a comprehensive men's store with expert tailoring services, and a vibrant ecom business, generating over $1 million in annual online sales, alongside his brick-and-mortar operation.
Topics Discussed
Early beginnings and family legacy in tailoring
Evolution of business model and adaptation to market changes
Customer service philosophy and building long-term relationships
Importance of downtown location in retail strategy
Modern retail tools: Square POS, loyalty programs, text marketing
Mobile trunk shows and expanding customer base
Succession planning in specialty retail
Community involvement and giving back
Changes in men's fashion and tailoring techniques
Training new talent and mentoring staff
Challenges in finding skilled tailors
Impact of department stores on local retail
Building customer loyalty through personalized service
Importance of Main Street to community vitality
Role of tailoring in modern menswear
Managing business during economic changes
Online retail integration with traditional business
Future trends in menswear and retail
Featured Store:
Tony Paranzino
Tony the Tailor Charleston, WV
Website: https://bestmastertailor.com/
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/tonythetailor1
FB: @tonythetailorwv LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-paranzino-0b153118
Connect with Us:
Main Street Matters Podcast:
Website: www.mainstreetmatters.co
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mainstreetmatters1
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/main-street-matters
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@MainStreetMatters_MSM
Host - Terresa Zimmerman:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/terresachristensonzimmerman
Listen to the episode here:
Watch the episode here:
Featured Store:
Full Transcript
Tony Paranzino:
Tailored clothing is the backbone of this business, and when you give that up, you've lost your backbone.
Terresa Zimmerman:
They have kind of tried to replicate what is important in what you do. It's personal. It's relationship-driven.
Tony Paranzino:
You know, because that's important. Relationships are important. And communication is important. If something's not working with a vendor, I need to tell them.
Terresa Zimmerman:
This episode of Main Street Matters is brought to you by Wood Underwear, Marchesi Jin Frati neckwear, and Inspiro Tequila. I'm your host, Terresa Zimmerman. Welcome to Main Street Matters. I am excited to have you here. Everybody else, this is Tony Paranzino. He is the owner, operator, chief tinkerer, tailor, guiding light, all the things of Tony the Tailor in Charleston, West ‘by God’, Virginia. Right.
Tony Paranzino:
We separated in 1863.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Just a short time ago.
Tony Paranzino:
Right. Correct. People say, oh, I have relatives in Richmond. OK, well, they're eight hours away in a different state, but that's cool.
Terresa Zimmerman:
This is a total aside, but the first time I moved to the East Coast from the West Coast and somebody starts talking to me about, you know, moving to the North, but not in the North, I'm like, huh? What? I had to look all that up. You wanted to move to the North, but you didn't want to live in the North. Okay. All right. So tell us about Tony the Tailor.
Tony Paranzino:
Well, Tony the Tailor is basically where we're at from my dad starting this operation in 1974. A little background, my father was the technical designer for Darif and Sons in Philadelphia during the 1960s. They were the famous Botany 500 suit. They folded in 1969, and my father was from South Philadelphia. He met my mother here at a trunk show for Botany 500, and then that's how I came along. So we set up shop here in 1974 after my dad bounced around a little bit doing some consulting work for several major manufacturers. We started just basically as a tailor shop. And at the time, Charleston was a really pretty large city. It's the same size as Charlotte at one point. And we had like 12 men's stores, several department stores. And we did alterations for most of them and did our own bespoke there and had like four tailors. And then, of course, I was nine years old. So in Italian families, that's about the age you go to work. So I had to go to work. And I learned from my dad's knee from the bottom up. Was sent to Chicago every summer to work in tailor shops there. His best friend had several shops that worked for other department stores, did bushel work and tailoring and some bespoke. And it just grew out of that into a full-blown men's store. My father, we had a pretty large men's store, about 7,500 square feet back in the 80s and 90s. Specialized mostly in Italian clothing. That was the That was the thing back then. And it grew to a pretty large store, had two buildings, occupied two buildings in the middle of downtown. We've always been a downtown store, which has always been important and was drilled into me by my father, as downtown is always the best location for a men's clothing store. Anyway, as times changed, my father passed in 98. The clothing business started changing a little bit. I had an opportunity to sell my buildings to a law firm next door. It was time to downscale, went back to my roots and just started doing bespoke tailoring and got a contract for a Macy's here. At the time it was Kaufman's and flipped to Macy's. Ended up with three Macy's stores doing their tailoring, which paid for my staff and let me concentrate on making suits, jackets, shirts for my clients that I brought with me. Then we morphed back into retail because people started begging for a nice quality men's store here. When we closed, we didn't have one left. So next thing I know, I'm back into the retail business and we hang, I don't know, 300 sleeves in here, complete men's store, still do some bespoke. I try not to do that much anymore because we're so busy with off-the-rack and we do a huge made-to-measure business with Oxford, Samuelson, and Adrian Jewels.
Terresa Zimmerman:
So did you go back to the store when the Macy's were still around? How did that all work?
Tony Paranzino:
Yeah, well, they still wanted me to do their tailoring because I did tailoring like you're supposed to in a department store. I had the light. I told him I would kill the sale because you'd have guys selling one guy because there's a department store. He wears a 42 regular. They'd sell him a 42 long, a 44 regular and they'd hammer him in alterations. I was like, no, this is not going to work. And the only way I would do the work was to be able to kill the sale. A lot of the salesmen didn't like me, but most did because of the garments fit correctly. So, but it just got to the point I was doing the Columbus, Ohio store, Huntington, West Virginia and Charleston, West Virginia. But I just had to get it was just clogging up the shop so much. And then they tried to cut price. You know, he's trying to pay me less and I don't work for less. So we ended up now there's no Macy's store here in Charleston. The only one in Huntington. And I don't even know about Columbus anymore. But so it's funny. We had to end up adjusting our a business model to start accommodating some of the Macy's customers. Kind of had to add, you know, at the time, Ralph Lauren, Lauren by Ralph Lauren suits, which we didn't carry, had to kind of drop some price opening price point stuff to attract that customer. And then they found out that at our regular price, they were paying us less than what Macy's had it on sale for. Because we give the free tailoring also. Right. Kind of funny how that works.
Terresa Zimmerman:
You fill the need, fill the void in the town.
Tony Paranzino:
Yes, and that's what you have to do as a retailer. You can't just be one thing. You have to constantly change and you can change around that model that you like. You know, everybody wants to be high end. However, the banks don't care what you are. They just want paid. And you have to adjust your model, adjust to the economy, adjust to your demographics and just keep moving. So our We're more of a regional store. We draw in from Columbus, probably about a 150 mile radius is a strong draw for us. Easy to get to Charleston. I like to say that I'm one of the best tailors, and I'll put my work up against anybody in the country. And we have people flying here from all over the country for me to make them suits.
Terresa Zimmerman:
I mean, bestmastertailor.com, that says it all, right?
Tony Paranzino:
That's that I've christened that domain back in 1994. And we've had a web presence since then. And which helped. We have a thriving online business. We do a little over a million dollars a year online and just feed it out of our store. And that through the pandemic helped us. We were already set up and running and helped other stores during the pandemic say, here's what you need to do. Here's how you do it. It's not rocket science because I can do it.
Terresa Zimmerman:
You're not a rocket scientist, Money?
Tony Paranzino:
Nope. That's how easy it is to get online and go.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Your customer, it sounds like Charleston went through a pretty big change to bring in those big name department stores and then to, I guess, evolve out of them as well.
Tony Paranzino:
It did. Politicians basically run it here, ran off all of the big industry that was here. It all moved to Louisiana and Texas. And so we have had serious population loss here. But you kept, you know, we're the survivor of all of that. Because we were a chameleon, you'd keep changing to the market. Other stores didn't want to change. They still thought it was 1988. You know, we had 600,000 people living in our metro area. Now we have probably about 400,000 in our metro area, which is fine. I mean, we serve that need. You just got to keep changing and moving and, you know, don't be afraid to introduce new items. And again, we go right on the edge of fashion of whatever they're showing in Italy. We have that. And then we also have just basic items.
Terresa Zimmerman:
But your customer then had to change pretty dramatically too, or has your customer base always kind of been the same and you've just kind of moved along with what they needed?
Tony Paranzino:
Yes and no. We've always had a higher end customer brought over through our bespoke work. What we lost a lot was the blue collar worker. I mean, this was the chemical center of the world here. And that's all gone. Now we're seeing us come back a little bit with methanol plants is a big thing here. We have a couple larger plants that are moving. DuPont had a huge facility here. It's pretty much run by a big Italian chemical company now. They're hiring again. And things are looking better here. Big tech is moving in here because it's a wonderful place to live. Cost of living is less. And Western University is building out a huge orthopedic hospital here and revamping another hospital here. We have seen a lot of people move here from that. I mean, we collect your data here. We have a loyalty program. So we collect your phone number and that's how we communicate. We send text to people when you have a point system and coupons and first in sale. It's a great marketing tool we have.
Terresa Zimmerman:
I mean, I was there not that long ago. I mean, downtown seems seems like it's perky. Yeah.
Tony Paranzino:
Yeah. There's a lot of action downtown. Spend a lot of money downtown. Our main street. This is one of the towns. They had put a mall here in the 80s downtown, which was unique at the time. And it sucked some life out of the central business district toward downtown, of course, is your cookie cutter chains. There's a typical 1980s mall. But it filled a need. But again, as demographics change, then the suburbs grow, kind of that kind of went to, moved out to the suburbs. There's a huge mall out, it was around here, it's called Corridor G area. And most of those stores are there now. This mall downtown now is empty. But about seven years ago, I noticed a change of where people ate lunch and it started coming back downtown and our foot traffic kept increasing. and people were not going to the mall. Because our customers are generally men, men do not go to malls. They hate malls. They like to go in a place, feel comfortable, pick out their stuff and leave. Or if they're going to hang out, they like to have a cocktail, which we have plenty of those here. Or just relax. We have shoeshine stand. at one point, which we'd like to fill that up again. It's hard to find workers. So our downtown started really coming back. And now that mall is pretty much empty and it's not abandoned yet, but it's getting close. And the developer, the guy who bought it from Core City, he has a weird business model. He basically runs everybody out, all of his properties all over the country. We don't know what's going on. But around that- It is a weird business model. It is. We don't understand it. Nobody understands it. And this happens in all of his properties around the country. So what really needs to be done is to be leveled and rebuilt into an entertainment center. We have a brand new $100 million civic center, convention center there. And we have two new hotels being built. And there's a lot of action here. But our downtown's thriving. New stores pop up. Older stores are still around. I'm probably the oldest store downtown. I've been here for 50 years. of some form or another. Nice. And they can't get rid of me. They try, but they can't get rid of me.
Terresa Zimmerman:
It's a nice corner that you have. It seems a nice corner anyway.
Tony Paranzino:
Thank you, yeah.
Terresa Zimmerman:
And you're very involved in your community too, right? How much of that is, you know, part of your business?
Tony Paranzino:
A lot. I'm a commissioner on our urban renewal here. I've been on there for several years. I was kind of brought in to help fix it and run a mock. And we're one of the few urban renewal commissions in the country left. And we're going to have some great new people on there. We're changing the aspect of it, how we're going to help build up other parts of the city with it, but with continued focus on downtown. Also, during a pandemic, me and two of my good friends, we started Better Together Charleston, West Virginia, and we raised close to a million dollars to help service industry workers who were left flat-footed. There was nothing there for restaurant workers, hotel workers, when everything collapsed. They made too much money to go on government programs, but they didn't make enough money to where they were still living day-to-day. And we put it together because I still had to go to work. I still have to work even though we're closed. I'm a worker. I get up every morning at 4.30, go to work. And so my two, Jennifer Farr and Bernie Lane. Jennifer is a city council person here. Bernie is a trial lawyer, his office is across the street. Two of my best friends in life. And we said, what are we going to do? And we just came up with this and we raised a lot of money. The corporate people here were good. Individual donations were good. We set up tip jars in restaurants, people responded, and we helped a lot of people. That's what you're supposed to do in times of crisis, is help people.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Absolutely. Are those activities for them still active? Do you have links or anything?
Tony Paranzino:
Yes, we had to change again after the pandemic, we changed our scope a little bit. And still some people need help. Restaurants struggle. And so restaurants still come to us and ask us, you know, for bridge loans, we do bridge loans, we do some grants. We help with if we think it's a need necessary. Now, if a business is just run roughshod, and they don't know what they're doing. And, you know, we still we look at their business plan, try to help them. And, but Yeah, we still have it active. Excellent.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Well, if you've got links to anything that we can put in show notes, I'd love to do it.
Tony Paranzino:
Okay. I will send you what we do.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Obviously, you're doing that because you're part of the community. You said it also helps generate foot traffic for the store too, but it seems like it's just a bigger part of you being part of the community that you're doing this.
Tony Paranzino:
Yeah, I love this community. Born and raised here. We have a phenomenal community and just have good people here.
Terresa Zimmerman:
The scope of what you do, because I know you said you get up at 430 because you've got all these things going on, but I know you're also actually doing the tailoring. You're working on garments.
Tony Paranzino:
Yeah, we have to because that's my training. And I remember when I was 12 years old and I didn't want to do it. And my dad always said, look, if everything goes to shit, you can still do pant bottoms in a dry cleaner and make money. So you have a skill.
Terresa Zimmerman:
So that was your fallback position. Your fallback.
Tony Paranzino:
Always have a skill. My skill is I'm a tailor, you know. But, you know, Being a tailor, you're not a tailor overnight. I made my first, first thing you make is pants. You learn how to make pants. When I was 12, 13, made my first pair of pants that actually fit. And then, I mean, I first coat, I was about 16, 17, that actually fit. And you go from there and still do pattern making and stuff like that. Now with software, CAD CAM, we didn't have CAD CAM back then, or Gerbers, all that nice, fancy stuff. You just put the points in and everything does it for you. This is basically cut with a pair of scissors and, you know, draw it out, but... With the pattern paper? And we don't do much of a spoke here anymore. It's just not efficient enough to do it. It ties our shop up. And again, hard to find tailors. I have two wonderful women that work with me. One has been with us for 43 years. She's 83 and will not quit. She's like my grandmother and God bless her. I got another great woman who's my age, which I'm going to tell my age so we don't tell her age. But she's great. But again, we do not teach this anymore because you have to start literally when you're nine, ten years old. And in this country, people frown upon that. We don't have kids passing papers anymore. I had a paper route, too, because my dad wasn't going to pay me anything. He figured there's food on the table. Lights came on. I should be happy. You know, so I had to get a paper. So I'd pass papers after work and an evening paper route. I learned more about that than any business schooling I've ever had. I learned about inventory control, customer service, theft of product, everything. You learn it. Collecting bad debts, the whole thing. And I've dealt with these people, these fancy MBAs from prestigious schools. They don't even know what the cost of goods sold is. They came to figure it out. You ask them, they're like, what are you talking about? Which is crazy to me, but whatever.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, I mean, there's nothing like apprenticeship, right?
Tony Paranzino:
Right. And we have some, a young lady who interned with us last summer from WU, which has, Western University has a phenomenal fashion merchandising program. I mean, it is one of the top in the country that nobody knows about. And this local girl, she came here, she interned with me. She wants to be in a bag maker. She wants to make bags is her goal. and but she worked you want to learn how the internal works of a tailor shop and worked fantastic skill so there's a future out there and they're out there yeah there's a lot there's a comeback for vocational programs um well people figure out if you have a skill you can always make money you can always do pant bottoms at a dry cleaner if it goes south yep there you go but i love can Sunday's my big tailoring day I come down early, get it all done before I go to mass. And then it's always a good time because I can crank up the music. Nobody's bothering me and let it go. I had to tailor. We had a Brax trunk show Friday, sold 88 pair of pants, half of those out of our inventory. So I have to chop them up, get them ready for the girls to sew. And also, the guy orders three pair of pants, two are here, and I have to record the outseam so when they come in, we don't have to have him come back in and try them on. We only have his outseam.
Terresa Zimmerman:
All right, you said you loved it, right? And then a few, a little bit ago, you said that you kind of didn't want to do it when you were 12, which I totally understand. I mean, there were a lot of other things I'm sure you would have rather be doing at 12. But how did you go from, this is not what I want to do to now loving it?
Tony Paranzino:
Well, again, coming from an Italian family, you have no choice. There's no choice in it. Yes. You know, when I was about 15, 16, I was going to be David Lee Roth, the next David Lee Roth.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Oh, right. OK. Right.
Tony Paranzino:
And then when he left Van Horn, I was really going to be the next David Lee Roth. Of course, we'll see how that all works out for everybody. But yeah, that's music. That's my passion. I love music. That's my stress relief. Look back here, we have guitars in the office, we have a music studio upstairs. We're still involved in it. But that's what I wanted to do. And then I really wanted to be a recording engineer and be like Ted Templeman, who anybody knows who that is. He produced many, many albums, including the Van Halen albums. But obviously, we see what my best skills are. But as you get older and you see what your career path is, and I love fashion, love the business, and lucky enough to have good, I can see it before it's done. Um, you know, and it's a struggle sometimes with some retailers. Uh, you know, you work with customers, they can't see it. I can't see that in a swatch. And you just have to say, trust me. And it comes out fantastic. Uh, but I have worked with some retailers that do not have the vision or, and it's kind of frightening. And I get put in with some, some of my vendors put me in with other retailers to kind of push them along. as they will stare at a solid blue swatch and don't know if they're going to be able to sell a solid blue suit or not. Which, whatever. They're not on the internet either.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah. That's a talent, though. That's a skill. I mean, having vision, I don't know if you, I mean, I guess it's something you can learn, certainly.
Tony Paranzino:
Yeah, it just takes being confident in yourself. You know, I've been looking at wallpaper, you know, how it's going to look in a room. I can just see it before it happens. And that's lucky. Visual merchandising, I always trimmed all the windows, still do some of the windows sometimes now, but I try to get other people. I have a fan, I have a rock star salesman, and I try to get him to be more creative and learn, you know, you put stuff up and learn from your mistakes. and they just kind of keep pushing him to become more and more involved with all aspects of the store. Because hopefully one day, maybe he would like to take it over.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, succession. Let's talk about that a little bit. I mean, succession planning is a really big deal right now for a lot of men's stores I talk to. It seems to be like this undercurrent of worry.
Tony Paranzino:
Well, because we're getting old. I don't want to do this my whole life, you know. Now, you know, when I retire, will I just sail off in a sunset? Probably not, because if you're in this business, you have to have people interaction constantly. I'd be a target greeter or something, but whatever. I mean, you still have to have the interaction with humans or you or you would die quickly. But succession planning, you know, I have three daughters, three wonderful daughters, my oldest daughter, She's the food and beverage director in Pinehurst Country Club in North Carolina. My middle daughter's here, married with two kids, wonderful, wonderful grandkids. And my youngest daughter is a nurse in Columbus, Ohio. So they're not obviously involved in the business. None of them have any interest in the business. And I kind of really, you know, it was kind of nice maybe if they wanted to join the business, but I never forced them. I was forced into it. And then as I went on, didn't know about succession. Here I am. I'll just end it. when I croak or whatever, get old, too old, age out. And then I brought Ryan in. I hired Ryan and I was interviewing people because I knew new sales on our business is really good. And Ryan was the only one who said he wanted to do this for a living. Oh, right. Are you sure? Right. Everybody else was like, well, I just need another job or just looking for a discount or something to do. He has a passion for it. And he's really good. He's a million dollar plus seller. And you've met him and he loves the business. And this is, you know, even though there's no such thing as the mafia. Yeah. Even though there's no such thing as the mafia, it's like the mafia. Once you're in this business, it's hard to leave.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah. Yeah. There's such passion running through it. It's really kind of addictive.
Tony Paranzino:
It is. It's fantastic. And the customers, the customers you meet.
Terresa Zimmerman:
I came at that from internal addiction. You came at it from no mafia. We're keeping you. Right.
Tony Paranzino:
Right. But it's, uh, you know, and your clients and our customers, are they're your friends and they want you to succeed and they're, you know, we get rid of asshole clients, you know, We just, sorry, we can't help you.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Life's too short.
Tony Paranzino:
Life's too short. My father's telling me the biggest red flag, the biggest red flag, somebody comes in and says, nobody can fit me. Well, what makes you think I can? You know, what makes you think I can if nobody can fit you? Should have came here first, but you know, sorry. And they just kind of just weed them out. Or if they come in and say, I only wear the best. Well, if you're not shopping here, you're not wearing the best. I don't care where you live. There you go. But, you know, just again, succession. It's hopefully that works, you know, and I'm pretty sure that he I'm confident he would be able to continue the business on and be wildly successful.
Terresa Zimmerman:
I mean, I love hearing that, you know, you're thinking that way because your store has been in that, you know, downtown area and on that corner for, you know, you said 50 years. You know, what happens when an independent store like yours leaves? Well, it's a big deal for a community.
Tony Paranzino:
It is, and it hurts. If there's nothing to take its place, that's the thing. Yeah. Besides loss of employment, you know, we employ people. We have warm bodies here that work and get paid, and we pay our people well. I don't think a lot of stores pay their people enough. If you pay them well, put them on a good commission sales, you know, commission is important, but the commission rate is even more important. and a little base hourly wage, and also 401ks, good health insurance. That's important. You attract better people, and they will stay. And people complain, I can't find anybody. Well, what are you offering to pay them? You know, the more money he makes, the more money I make. It's just the way it works. I don't understand some people's thinking. But when it leaves a community, when any business, a men's store, a restaurant, a women's boutique, an art gallery closes or leaves, it hurts. It's a hole in the community.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah. So where do you find stuff? Where did you find Ryan?
Tony Paranzino:
Well, we just ran an ad. I mean, we ran an ad basically through social media. There was really not much Indeed and that kind of stuff back then to find this. And word of mouth. He started at Joseph Banks. He worked there like in high school. And so he had a little bit of basic training of customer service. And no matter what you think of Joseph Banks, the quality of everything, they're still a retail store with training. So I didn't have to train him on the basics. Then I could bring him to me and mold him of how we do things. And like his first sale, I had a client call me, long-time client. I said, Hey, look, I got a new guy here. I'm going to let him wait on you. So he comes in. First thing I wondered was a big glass of scotch, right? They don't do that at Joseph Banks. And he drank it, like three or four glasses of scotch, you know, spent like 18 grand. You know, Ryan was a little nervous. He was sweating when he's ringing it up. And it was over and a guy, you know, a guy left. I said, uh, you ever had a sale that big? He goes, uh, I haven't never sold that much in a month. You know, there's a bank. Wow. And we let him make mistakes. You know, he made, the guy's shirts came in, they looked like belly shirts. They were like four inches too short. So I had to remake them. Oops. Cost me money, but you learn. That's how you learn. You can't learn from not making mistakes or coddling people. You got to make sure they fall down, skin their knee. And then you help them back up. And then say, OK, what did you learn? And then move forward from there.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Sounds like you had kind of a safety net under him too, giving, working, you know, talking with the client about what he was getting into with that too, right? Your client was willing to play that role.
Tony Paranzino:
Yeah, right, right. A willing, a willing, a willing victim.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah. Willing victim. That's awesome. And so you mentioned, you mentioned the gal that came to you as an intern. She was from the local college. I mean, do you pull people from the local, local schools?
Tony Paranzino:
Uh, not, no, because, uh, and she, she went... No, she found you. She, yeah, well, um, a mutual friend, um, had put us together and said she was looking for a place to intern at home. Morgantown is where West Virginia University is. It's about two and a half hours from here. Uh, but she was from here, wanted to come home and intern. And, um, it was a lady's store or something, but they, you know, she wanted to sew. We're one of the few stores that have an actual tailor shop. on premise with Taylors.
Terresa Zimmerman:
So you mentioned when you were training Ryan that you were able to bring him in and show him how you do things. So what are some of the things that define what Tony the Taylor is and does?
Tony Paranzino:
Well, we interview the customer.
Terresa Zimmerman:
What does that look like versus others?
Tony Paranzino:
We want to sell what the customer needs. and then push them a little bit to what they might need that they're not seeing they need. Most of our clients are lawyers. They travel over the country. Some of the top-notch trial lawyers are from here. Different venues they appear in, have to have different dress. They have to go up against big city lawyers. who have attitude problems until they see that the guy from Charleston, West Virginia has a nicer suit on and can afford that nicer suit. You know, so that's that's where we do it, you know, in their lifestyle. We want to cover their clothing for their entire lifestyle, from going to get coffee in the morning and a bagel to going into a trial situation. So and I shop merchandise also in market for that. So we tailor our merchandise to our clients. But that's the way we interview them, make sure this is what they want. You know, try to stay within their price point. Just because somebody's rich doesn't mean they're going to spend a lot of money on clothing. You know, they spend their money on watches or cars. And they just want to wear, you know, they're comfortable in $1,500 suits rather than $3,000 or $4,000 suits, which is great. You know, we sell tons of those too. And also we have people who, you know, they might not have a lot of income, spend their money on clothing, you know. We don't judge. That's true. But we treat everybody, everybody from the $250 suit customer to the $20,000 suit customer the exact same. You get the same great tailoring. You get the same service because that $200 customer, he might hit the fucking lottery. You know, then we got to get him really dressed. All right. And he'll remember.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah. Well, yeah, he might be the next, you know, unicorn founder.
Tony Paranzino:
You never know. You never know. We are running tuxedos, our tuxedo rentals at prom and homecoming. It's a huge business. And you start getting these young people learning to come to your store. You know, they come in, they look around, we have a huge Johnny O selection. They love Johnny O. Kohan shoes. You know, they're like, oh great, this is great. And then you get them shopping there early. They make it a habit for them. When they think they need some clothing, this is where they come to first. And we also have the same thing on the internet. All these guys are on the internet. When we have a sale, you know, we're promoting an item or something and we start a clearance sale, I would say 20% of our customers just go ahead. They've been buying it and now it's on sale. They buy it online and to pick it up at the store. Right. We train them. Our emails go out with the link directly for them so they can go ahead and get that DiBianco shoe they've been looking at and announce at their price point that they want, you know. So that's it. But treating every customer the same.
Terresa Zimmerman:
That younger customer,
Tony Paranzino:
If the younger customer is a future.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah.
Tony Paranzino:
You know.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Well, I'm grabbing them when they come in to rent a suit for the prom. I mean, that's perfect, right? Because they wouldn't necessarily, they don't know the brands in your store because they're too young and you've got to say, yeah, this is for you.
Tony Paranzino:
And they have their own brands. A lot of these legacy brands, as we know, are not even the same thing. It's fascinating, but you, you know, work them up through the price points. You know, we get young lawyers in here just starting out, you know, so they got school debt. They're not making a lot of money. They're only making like $70,000 a year starting out. They have a new wife, whatever. You know, they've got all this, you know, they're, they make $70,000, which is a nice chunk of money. But however, you know, they got $80,000 going out. Uh, so, you know, they're not coming in here to buy, uh, $2,000 suits, but you know, they'll spend four, $600. But our goal is as they go through their career, we'll trade them up all the way up to Oxford, you know, and that's, and we want to make sure that we keep telling them that we show them the Oxford and this is, you give them an attainable point to being, and it works. It has worked over the decades. It works.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Well, I think one of the things that you said that I think, um, is, uh, overlooked is you've you're inviting them in, right? These, um, even the young kids that are picking up their suit, you know, you're sharing with them other options. You're inviting them to, to, you know, aspire. Um, and I, I think the invitation is way overlooked.
Tony Paranzino:
Oh yeah, and anybody who, any men's store that is not renting tuxedos, they're missing a huge opportunity. Do you make money on it? Eh, probably not. Because you know what? We send them out the door, they look fitted. We alter these rental tuxes. They look great. Yeah. And also, you have to walk a fine line between mom who wants them to look like 1988 when she went to prom to today when they want, you know, tight, short pants. And they're like, I'm a man. I can't believe the pants. And, you know, we just say, Mom, it's not your problem. And you take up for the kid. The kids are like, wow, this is awesome. Was there things some old dude's going to go? No, this is what you need to do. That old man pants, you know, long break. No. They want short, tight and, you know, now that look is kind of moving away. You know, I think we're going to see that, but it's still going to be another three or four years before we get away from that and back to.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, for sure.
Tony Paranzino:
Reality fits. But yeah. Yeah. And that's it. And they remember that. They remember I had one lady just really and I was felt so bad for for the kid. And she was going to make sure he wore a black tie bow tie to this thing because it was that just country club. And, you know, in her day, that was that she did. But this is this is 2018 at the time. And so he wanted to wear a blue one that matched his date's dress, right? So I ordered both and we came to pick it up. I said, here's the black one to wear for pictures at the house. The blue one's inside the pocket. Today, the guy has graduated school, came back, and he's a thriving, good customer of ours. He loves Samuelson suits. And that's his thing. All over a blue tie. All over a blue tie that I hooked him up with.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I want to come back to, um, you know, when you said, you know, customers come in and, um, you know, there, there are certain things that they want and then you kind of, you know, nudge them a little bit. It is surprising to me how many people will come and say, Oh, I want a black suit or a gray suit or a blue suit. And, you know, it's that sort of standard thing. And then they look at swatches and say, what do you mean I can have a design on my lining? What do you mean I can have a color thread on my buttonhole?
Tony Paranzino:
You have to keep constantly, never stop selling. You know, my dad would say, somebody comes in and says, I need a blue suit. You show them everything but the blue suit because you've already sold the blue suit. You know, we sell double and triple headers here. You can't walk out of here with one suit. Yeah. You move to three or four suits and jackets and pants. There's no one suit here. Yeah. But that's it. You know, you've already sold a blue suit. But it's all right. Let's look at it. And they go, I want a gray suit. You go, I got black. Look at this gray one. This is an alternative. Or this nice sport coat I got in that you can wear with your denim that you actually have on today. You know. So yeah, that's it. But also you have to push them a little bit with fashion, especially when major changes happen in fashion. You know, when the skinny suit thing came in, you know, there's a little rebellion, the older guys in the office. But then when it starts taking hold, the older guys feel left out. So they want to come back and get skinny suits and short pants. I'm like, nope, we'll do you a modern suit. We'll trim it up. But if you're over 35, no. We're not going to do that to you. And sometimes, you know, sometimes we kill sales just because we refuse to do it for that guy's sake. We're looking on the customer's best interest here. You'll look retard. You look ridiculous. You look ridiculous and don't look ridiculous. We're trying to, I never will forget. Again, I'm on my seventh death of the suit. Okay. Nobody's ever going to wear suits again. I've heard that seven times. Still our number one category in sales. Always.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Absolutely. The backbone of this business. Men look amazing in suits.
Tony Paranzino:
Tailored clothing is the backbone of this business. And when you give that up, you've lost your backbone. I remember when Bill Clinton came into office. Death of the suit. Everybody's going to wear polo shirts and khakis. You know, everybody went to Dockers. Well, these offices, there's a hierarchy. There's a hierarchy in the offices, right? And these guys, everybody's walking around in Dockers. Well, you don't confuse the CEO with the mail boy. You know, here, here's the mail, sir. You know, can you deliver this down the thing? They don't want that shit. And we started getting these guys going, hey, do you have khakis and something nicer, nicer, you know, nicer polo shirt. And right. And let's put a nice coat on with it. Had a guy come in from Utah. There was a ticket master used to have their big ticketing thing or their national ticketing thing. Headquarters was here. And had this printer from Utah come in who made like the lanyards for Ticketmaster. He had this big meeting, right? And he seen me sold Oxford clothes and apparently his dad used to wear Oxford. He knew that was the best. So, um, I get a call. He goes, Hey, I'm in town. I need a couple of jackets. Okay. Come down. So he did his business, came down to the store, introduced himself, started looking at swatches. And I said, you wear a lot of tailored clothing, a lot. He goes, no, he goes, actually, but I need something to wear around the office because I was in my plant and somebody came up to me and asked that to speak to the owner. And he goes, I didn't look like an owner.
Terresa Zimmerman:
And I think the way it makes you feel personally, regardless of how other people look at you, the way you feel in it is so, it's amazing what it can do for you, for your confidence.
Tony Paranzino:
The biggest compliment I get is when people text me, they have an important event, no matter what it is, wedding, trial. uh even a funeral or anything any type of event in their life where they need nice clothing and then they text me and thank me for number one making them look good and all the women love how they look and some guys you know and right right and uh also um how um how it feels this feels like pajamas well yeah supposed to you're not supposed to feel clothing Good clothing is like nothing.
Terresa Zimmerman:
And the confidence you have, you have in that. It's important. Knowing you look good.
Tony Paranzino:
Men have been wearing suits of armor for a long time. It's just the materials.
Terresa Zimmerman:
And I think they've gotten better. I mean, at least more accessible, more broadly accessible. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's go to sort of some of the tools and techniques and things that you use in your business. Anything, anything that you that you, you know, have to have every day and things you rely on. Coffee. Right. I only had one today so far, so that's going to be next.
Tony Paranzino:
I had to have coffee, drink a pot before I leave the house. And that goes back to my dad. My dad, I mean, he was a coffee fiend. He drank it all out. I can't drink in the afternoon. But when I was younger, we would race. And when I was younger, but old enough, I was driving myself and going to and coming into work. It was a race who could get to the tarot shop first. And if you Where second, you had to buy coffee for the day. We didn't have a coffee maker, too cheap to buy a coffee maker, but we had to go where there used to be McDonald's like half a block from here. So we go to McDonald's and get the coffee and he would beat me every time. That's why I'm up early every morning. But yeah, coffee is an essential tool of this business and bourbon and bourbon is another tool of this business. If you can handle your alcohol, it's a great tool of this business. And also it's a great sales tool also. Yeah. But in terms of how we operate our business, we use Square as our point of sale system. And if you're familiar with Square, the payment system should be mobile payment system. Well, they have a retail POS system, which is fantastic. And through it, we have a loyalty program. And we have, I think, about 3,000 customers on it. We text you through it. Like we had a Brax Trunk Show Tuesday. We text you, hey, Friday we have a Brax Trunk Show. Lunch is going to be served. And here's our deal with also a link in it. You can go to our website. Can't make it in. You could have bought them online also. And then Friday morning, they get another text reminding them because people forget. Busy. Oh, I need to get over there today to get some pants. Highly effective. way more effective than email. We still send email out, you know, we have a 6,000 person mailing list, but 30% open and of that, probably 10% click, which is apparently a high click rate, but you know, I want everybody to open it. But yeah, those are important tools. Our point of sale loyalty program, the combination there, and people love it, especially our younger customers. And so you get points, you get a point for every dollar you spend. and we set it up to where the first discount's $25 and 50, all the way up to $1,000. If you get 10,000 points, you have $1,000 credit. Wow, cool. And you'd be surprised how many people really get it, can't wait to get that, because they want to come in and they want to put it on like an Oxford jacket. Yeah. Because that's the thing, it's 1,000 off. And we don't have no restrictions, it's their money. You can spend the 25, you can increment it, And it also lets you younger guys who are not gonna spend $10,000, but even then they can participate. So if you sign up, you get an automatic $25 coupon. On your birthday, you get a $50 coupon and it works. And then every month Square sends me a report, loyalty versus non-loyalty customers. And like, so last month, our loyalty customers had a 2.2% 2.1 times amount of spend over non-loyalty customers.
Terresa Zimmerman:
For the full month.
Tony Paranzino:
And they break it down for that full month. And every month you get that report. And you can see it's always almost double the spend. The loyalty customers, their average ticket was like $3,200, where the non-loyalty was like $1,800. It's fascinating. And you really don't realize it as you're doing a day-to-day, but then at the end of the month, You see it in black and white like, wow, it's amazing. And if you don't have some kind of loyalty program, you need to get one, whether it's through Square or some other, however you want to do it. But also make it to where it's broad enough where everybody can participate at some point. We have customers who just don't, they want to participate, but they're not going to spend 10 grand. But yeah, they spend 100 bucks and still get 100 points.
Terresa Zimmerman:
And you're building a database. And what made you decide to do that?
Tony Paranzino:
And online support. Okay, yeah. Just, Starbucks does it. Every coffee place has it. That's true. You reward your customers. You reward your customers. I reward my customers. I have customers all over the country. I just, I had a road trip from, I went to Knoxville, Tennessee, Atlanta, Georgia, Greenville, South Carolina, and Charlotte. And I do mobile trunk shares. I sit up, have clients in every city, and then they bring their people, you know, and we'll do, you know, 50, a hundred grand at those trunk shows. And I reward those guys, I'll make them a sport coat or something, or half a dozen shirts as their commission for bringing these people. And you start getting your base there. Because those guys are asking them, where do you get your clothes at? Charleston, West Virginia. Like, you know, people's look is Charleston, West Virginia. Who knew? Well, yeah. If my store was in a bigger metropolitan area, it'd be 25 times as big as it is.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Well, that's fascinating that you go out to them, though. I mean, you're, you know, this mobile store, this mobile. Yeah.
Tony Paranzino:
Oh, yeah. We have done that for since the 70s, gone to people's offices, gone to their home, doing people act like they're pioneering this shit back in the 90s. No, we pioneered it. We showed you the way to people's closets. Go through, throw this out, get rid of this. And it's my, you know, then we replace it with this. And you got to be honest with people. We just can't go throw everything away. We can fix it. It's fixable. If it's not, I'll style or or sentimental, you know. So it's I watched I had a couple get into a knockdown drag out fight at one time because he wouldn't get rid of his army uniform. You know, she didn't understand how sentimental it was to him. And he got into, I mean, I ended up giving a deposition in a divorce court hearing.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Oh my gosh. Wow. Wow.
Tony Paranzino:
So my requirement, if I come to your house to clean your closet is good wine and no domestic violence.
Terresa Zimmerman:
That's a pretty low bar. Well, I guess it depends on the quality of wine you want. Could be a high bar. Right. Oh, my God. Well, you clearly love what you do, Tony.
Tony Paranzino:
I do. I love this business. I love talking with other retailers. I love going to market. You know, the Chicago market is just fantastic. I miss some of the New York market because I miss New York. But that market has just went, you know, it's just not there. And, you know, and again, I've been doing this long enough. I've watched these markets. Everybody go into the Javits Center. Then everybody gets mad and breaks off. And then everybody makes up. And I'm tired of that. And you gotta go all over, all over here, here, and here, where Chicago, one roof. And I knew it was the end of New York when the Italians showed up in Chicago. That's when you knew Chicago's the number one show, and it is. Everybody's there, it's fantastic, they treat you like gold, and Chicago's a fantastic city. So now when I go to New York, I can go to New York and just have fun and not worry about making an appointment or anything. Still love New York, but the New York market is just, just, just,
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, the Chicago Collective, that trade show just makes it feel more like personal meetings than a, you know, here's your, you're this number with seven digits and, you know, we don't really know who you are. Chicago does that completely differently.
Tony Paranzino:
Yes, yes. Well, because they have bars setting up everywhere. You notice there's always a Bloody Mary bar.
Terresa Zimmerman:
That's true. There's alcohol.
Tony Paranzino:
Everybody's ripped the whole time, you know.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, they've hit on something, though, that's really important. And they have kind of tried to replicate what is important in what you do. It's personal. It's relationship driven. And that's what the Chicago Collective is. And so why wouldn't you want to go do your business in a place that is trying to that values the same things that you value for your customers?
Tony Paranzino:
Exactly. And it's relationships. You know, again, been doing this for a long time. I've seen salespeople You know, they lose a line or a line goes out of business or something, they come up with something else. Even if I don't need it, I'll still look at it and probably buy it just because I have a relationship with them. You know, because that's important. Relationships are important and communication is important. If something's not working with a vendor, I need to I need to tell them. Most vendors will swap it out, change, whatever, whatever we got to do to keep doing business. You know, it's a two way. Business is a two way street, you know. A lot of these retailers get scared if they can't pay somebody the invoice. They don't pay anything. Send them $1,000 and go, OK, the rest is coming. That works a lot more than just not enough communication. Because everybody has been in that mode. Yeah, something, something. Some Kroger food cart, something. I mean, just make an effort. Right, right. Because everybody, every retailer has been in that boat.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, absolutely. It's just part of business. There's ups and downs. Yeah. And how you work through them tells a lot about, you know, who you are.
Tony Paranzino:
Yes. Yes.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Well, so I mean, you've got so much going and it all seems to be kind of working on all cylinders. What are you seeing in future that you might be preparing for right now? I mean, are there other things out there that you're looking at that you're, you know, kind of looking at preparing for right now?
Tony Paranzino:
Yeah, I mean, design wise, I mean, we're starting to see tailored clothing loosen up a little bit. Shoulders getting a little wider. Yeah. Again, I have a couple pleated suit models in my store, the high waistband, one single pleat, not a lot, probably about a dozen units. But that's a little bit in our store, but I got to have that. Those guys see it on the internet, they want it. They want to see it live and in person. I think that we're just kind of seeing some of that. Sportswear, who knows? I think we're just kind of in a lull. I think with this new administration coming in, we're going to see tailored clothing become important again, because these guys are suit and tie guys. Regardless of their politics, these guys are all suit and tie guys. And so it does, it influences the whole thing. Economy wise, who knows? We have, election years are always tough. And it always slows down until the election's over. Then the gates flood back open, no matter who wins. Because people just don't know what they're going to do. Then they make the adjustments and then back. We have a big holiday season. It's going to be promotional. But three or four years down the road, I don't know. I think we're going to see more and more clothing become more standardized and small, medium, large, extra large and double XL. I mean, we see that in the shirt business. I mean, who carries a 17 and a half, 33 shirt? Who even makes that shit anymore? You know, I carry it, if I can find it from David, I think David Donahue has it, but everything on a European model. Yeah. Well, we got guys with 19 necks with 33 sleeves. We do a huge custom business. We do over 3,000 shirts a year in custom shirts. But some guy needs a shirt today. Their grandma died and they need a shirt today. They're not in the custom shirt we're on. So there's that issue. I think suits are going to go the same way. We used to carry you know, a lot of long suits. We don't carry anything in longs now except for just basics. Everything is regulars, no matter how tall the guy is. Hopefully we go back to more draping clothing. I cut my teeth in draping. My shoulder has a lot of sins. Shoulders had a lot of, shoulder pads had a lot of sins in fit. Yeah. These with no pads and all that, Neapolitan tailoring. Well, it's just sloppy to me. That's just being lazy. You know, these pulled sleeve heads, all that. That's just not, to me, it's not good tailoring. And, you know, people like it, whatever. It's just not, as a tailor, I want it to be smooth and perfect every time. So I think that's some of the change we'll see. Sportswear, I don't know. I mean, again, technical fabrics. We'll see what happens. Sustainability is a big keyword. Not one fucking person has ever came in my store and asked if anything's sustainable. And I was at a vendor in Chicago a couple of years ago, and she said sustainability six times in one sentence. I said, you mention that word again, I'm dropping the line. Nobody cares. They think they care.
Terresa Zimmerman:
It sounds good. They feel good.
Tony Paranzino:
You know what the customer wants? They want it to fit nice at a good price. That's all they want. They could care less about stability. It's just reality. Anybody says different, they're lying to themselves. Yeah. Right. It's just the way it is. Right. Brax had this pant. The fabric was made from water bottles taken from the ocean. Great. People love that story. Oh, yeah. While they're drinking from their water bottle and threw it right in a trash can to go back to the ocean. Right. Right. There's a nice story and they liked it, but they didn't buy the pants because of it. They could give two shits about that. Right.
Terresa Zimmerman:
It's a cool pant, though. I've seen that. That feels great. Yeah, but they don't have it anymore. I don't know how they fit. I've never put them on.
Tony Paranzino:
Uh, they said they don't have it in a line anymore, so it didn't go over that well, um, apparently. But we have moved on to being more stretched, more relaxed. Whatever happened to sell it to raw denim? That kind of went away. You know, everybody wants stretch. Everybody got fat in these stretch pants.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah.
Tony Paranzino:
We used to sell raw denim.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Oh my God. Well, and then the whole thing about, the whole thing about you've got to put it in the freezer and then shake it out and you don't wash it. Right.
Tony Paranzino:
Nobody wants that shit in their freezer. No.
Terresa Zimmerman:
No.
Tony Paranzino:
Nobody wants their ball sweat in his freezer. I'm sorry. It's just not going to happen.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Well, no, especially when you hear that some of these guys are going commando. Come on. Come on, man.
Tony Paranzino:
You should be wearing wood underwear, which is the best underwear. If you're a retailer and not carrying wood underwear, buy yourself some. I'm wearing some today. I love it. We sell it. It's fantastic.
Terresa Zimmerman:
This was not a paid plug until just now. I'll be sending you a check. Oh, my gosh. All right. Well, you've been so generous with your time. I do have one more question, though. I ask everybody because I think it's important. I want to know why for you. Why does Main Street matter?
Tony Paranzino:
Main Street matters because it's the community and the Main Street is the heart of the community. People need to pay attention to their own hometowns. If your store is not in the heart of the community, maybe open up a smaller one in the heart of the community and become a fabric of that community. It's just important. People love it. We see younger generations, Gen Z, they love smaller stores. They want knowledgeable salespeople. They want knowledgeable stores. We see that here in Charleston, West Virginia, of all places.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Love it. Thank you so much, Tony. I appreciate your time.
Tony Paranzino:
Thank you, Teresa. It's been great.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Thank you for tuning in to Main Street Matters. Hope you found today's episode insightful and inspiring. I'd love it if you would share Main Street Matters with fellow retail owners or anyone else who loves Main Street. And please subscribe so you know when the next episode drops.
