Nicole Comis: Owner of The Shoppe - West Boca's Unique Concept Store
Oct 09, 2023
David Conway
Nicole Comis, the fashion-forward entrepreneur behind West Boca's unique concept store, The Shoppe, is our guest for this episode. Her fashion expertise, honed over a 25-year long career which includes running her own fashion agency and managing a stylish New York showroom, has culminated in the creation of a space that seamlessly merges fashion, beauty, and wellness. The Shoppe offers an eclectic range of services, from providing contemporary fashion and accessories to offering full-service hair styling, eyebrow design, and wellness treatments like massages and facials. Nicole's passion for her craft is palpable as she details her exciting journey, adding a vibrant New York energy to West Boca.
In her in-depth discussion, she emphasizes the importance of understanding what you purchase, ensuring you get the best quality in every transaction. But it's not all business with Nicole, as we also get a glimpse of her downtime activities. So tune in, as we explore Nicole's world of fashion, beauty, and wellness, and witness the evolution of West Boca's retail scene.
The Shoppe is located at: 9101 Lakeridge Blvd, Boca Raton https://www.facebook.com/theshoppe.us/?locale=hi_IN
Local Living is a community podcast for Palm Beach to Parkland. Are You A Local Business, Resident, Leader or Non-Profit? If so, we would love to have you on the podcast! Go to www.locallivingpodcast.com for all of the info.
Nicole Comis, the fashion-forward entrepreneur behind West Boca's unique concept store, The Shoppe, is our guest for this episode. Her fashion expertise, honed over a 25-year long career which includes running her own fashion agency and managing a stylish New York showroom, has culminated in the creation of a space that seamlessly merges fashion, beauty, and wellness. The Shoppe offers an eclectic range of services, from providing contemporary fashion and accessories to offering full-service hair styling, eyebrow design, and wellness treatments like massages and facials. Nicole's passion for her craft is palpable as she details her exciting journey, adding a vibrant New York energy to West Boca.
In her in-depth discussion, she emphasizes the importance of understanding what you purchase, ensuring you get the best quality in every transaction. But it's not all business with Nicole, as we also get a glimpse of her downtime activities. So tune in, as we explore Nicole's world of fashion, beauty, and wellness, and witness the evolution of West Boca's retail scene.
The Shoppe is located at: 9101 Lakeridge Blvd, Boca Raton https://www.facebook.com/theshoppe.us/?locale=hi_IN
Local Living is a community podcast for Palm Beach to Parkland. Are You A Local Business, Resident, Leader or Non-Profit? If so, we would love to have you on the podcast! Go to www.locallivingpodcast.com for all of the info.
Speaker 1:
Welcome, welcome everyone to Local Living Community Podcast for Palm Beach to Parkland. I'm David Conway, your host for today's episode. If you are interested in beauty, interested in fashion, then you will be interested in today's podcast. I have the owner of the shop, Nicole Comis. Nicole, welcome to Local Living.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, david, I'm so happy to be on.
Speaker 1:
So great to have you and you know I would refer to the shop as a boutique, but I know it is so much more than that. Tell the listeners about your business.
Speaker 2:
So we are a concept store. We are fashion, beauty and wellness. We have our boutique in the front where we have our own private label of women's contemporary fashion and accessories. We have some gift we have a great candle brand that we carry. Then we have our beauty area, where we have two hair chairs with very experienced New York stylists. We also have a wonderful woman that's been doing eyebrow design, threading and waxing for most of her life. That's here. And then we have our wellness suite, which we have another wonderful woman that does facials and massages. So that's our fashion, beauty and wellness concept altogether in one location.
Speaker 1:
And where's the location you're on Yamato Road in Boca Raton right.
Speaker 2:
So we're right on Yamato, just west of Lyons. We're in the same shopping center as Daris, which I feel like everybody knows. We're going to go to Artnest. Yeah, so we're right here. We're right here in.
Speaker 1:
West Boca, so you do a bunch over there. Just to go over it one more times. So we have fashion. So the front, you have a boutique with your own line. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, with our own private label. We mostly did that too, because we wanted to be able to curate a collection of fashion that was under a certain price point that hit the boxes for basics and trend. So we do it all ourselves.
Speaker 1:
Two chairs right, you have two hair stylists. You said down from New York, is that correct?
Speaker 2:
Two hair chairs. Stephanie is our master stylist. She's incredible. She's from New York. And then we have Kim and also Juliana, who does eyebrows and also does some blow dries and other hair styling too.
Speaker 1:
And then you also said you have the massage in back. You have a special room for that too.
Speaker 2:
We have a wellness suite. We built a whole room. It's really beautiful. And we have a woman named Audrey who's been in the community for a really long time. She has clients in West Boca, concierge clients in West Boca, and she also has another studio down in Fort Lauderdale and she's here with us and she does European facials, massages. She's really wonderful. She does a really good job.
Speaker 1:
It sounds like more of an experience over there as opposed to just stopping by the boutique, right.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. We like to call ourselves a ladies' social club. Our friends and clients come in, they hang out see what's new in the retail, see what new arrivals we have in fashion. They'll get quick blow dry. We have a lot of gals that come for weekly blow dries. Actually, our hair business grew from just one chair of doing blow dries just related to styling like buying an outfit, getting your hair blown out, going out for your birthday, an event or whatever and now grew into a full service hair menu including extensions. Stephanie, our master stylist, is trained and expert in eye tip extensions, so we do that too now. And then we added the eyebrows recently which, if you're a New Yorker, eyebrows are so important I mean to everybody. But I just say in New York it was my most important beauty ritual. And yeah, and then we've always had the wellness suite where we've done more events. We've had different events in the past where we've had different practitioners come in and do RF therapy, lymphatic massage and things like that, and now we have Audrey full time doing facials and massages.
Speaker 1:
So how about you, nicole? What's your background? Are you more from the beauty, business, fashion? How did this all come together for you?
Speaker 2:
You know I consider myself from the beauty business just because I love Beauty products, wellness services, all that, but really my background is in fashion. I've been in wholesale women's, contemporary and designer fashion for almost 25 years, since I was 19 years old was my first internship. So I've worked for big companies as an An executive. I've worked for big agencies that did multi-line brands. I've had my own agency for the last 10 years and Also part of that was an experience that I created called the fashion co-op. So that was something that I did.
Speaker 2:
I had a 3000 square foot showroom in New York up until COVID and I would share my space with other fashion brands and other Fashion companies and I would bring everyone together in this big space during fashion months February, september, and then also June and December and we'd all share my space as to become a destination for the buyers to come there.
Speaker 2:
So we would have, you know, 150, you know retailers come to our location over three weeks and during those times and I created this Just really cool space and everybody was excited to be there and come there. And that's really where, when we moved down here with my family to West Boca, I wanted to. You know, not only you live here, but I wanted to work here to implant some roots professionally. I've been, you know, self-employed for a long time and I sort of took my, my fashion experience. I also had a little retail store in Puerto Rico for four years, so I knew that part of it as well. So my wholesale fashion and retail, my just like enthusiasm for beauty and wellness and this sort of co-op concept, and put it all together where we're planning events and bringing in different local Practitioners, designers, vendors and things like that and making it sort of a, you know, event-based business.
Speaker 1:
And you walk in such a cool vibe. I guess it really translated because you don't think of that when you think of West Boca, right, but you walk in and it's like you're not in West Boca anymore.
Speaker 2:
I know we get that all the time and we really love that. Everyone, you know, definitely compliments us on having a New York vibe, which you know, intentionally or not intentionally, we are from New York, obviously we. You know we did, we did want that to come through, but we're glad to hear that and a lot of people who were, you know, you know sort of transplanted, like we are excited to feel, like we get so-ho vibes, a lot and things like that.
Speaker 2:
You know we try to keep it. So everything in the shop is on wheels. So if we do like a big event, we can move everything out of the way. If we we like to change things around all the time so it feels a little bit different, so it doesn't feel like you're walking into the same Space all the time, because we do have a lot of gals who come in once a week, sometimes twice a week, so we like to always give a little bit of a you know, a change the place up for everybody, including us.
Speaker 1:
So you've seen the industry from a bunch of different vantage points. Now right, Mm-hmm. Can you tell us about any myths or misconceptions someone may have about your industry?
Speaker 2:
About the industry. I don't know. I think sometimes it's hard to tell now, just with the amount of like product and services and things that are out there, what you know what cost will be. We'll get some feedback that people think our store is probably more our price points higher than it is just because it looks so beautiful. Then I think that there's a lot of things out there that are just kind of like, you know, junk and they're overpriced and I think that there's just a way people have to know it's true.
Speaker 1:
I don't want to. I'm not going to go down this rabbit hole, but there's a lot of junk out there, right?
Speaker 2:
There's a lot of junk out there and I think the misconception can be that you know you really should spend your time like, you know, checking things out and learning a little bit and asking questions, especially as a small business, and I think a lot of people that are, you know, entrepreneurs and have their own business or product, they want you to ask them questions, they want you to know why maybe, like, something is priced the way it is. Maybe there's a reason why there's other people behind it, there's like some certifications or levels of experience that are behind it. It's not just because, like, I picked a number out of the air. So I think, you know, people should really spend their time like understanding, you know what they're shopping for and where is the best place to get it, and I think sometimes people just, you know, make a decision based on what the quality of, you know, the service or the product is, just by how it's priced.
Speaker 2:
You know, for us even, we spend a lot of time curating our retail product, but we also keep it under 200. Everything in the store is under $200. We have dresses and sets under $200. We have, you know, sets under $150. We have basic t-shirts under $50. You know we spend a lot of time on that, but then I think it's a really sharp price point. So some people might think you know it's cheap, but like, on the other hand, like we, really there are a lot of things, a lot went into it. So I think you know, ask the questions, find out, you know what you're, what you're interested in and what you're looking at.
Speaker 1:
So is that a hard line everything under $200?.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it is because I think for well, the decision for me and for us in here was well one. I really don't. I really didn't want to compete with the department stores. Just coming from a wholesale background, that's just a really hard business to be in. You know, we're right near town center, which is a gorgeous mall, but you walk into, you know, any one of those department stores. If you have a pulse, you get a discount. So it's hard to you know, it's hard to compete with that.
Speaker 2:
You want to be able to have things that are a sharp price, well made, you know, and that check the boxes, like I was saying earlier, for trends or for basics, and also because we have the services. So we're not only selling, you know, the fashion, we're selling the services too. So I want somebody to be able to come in here and be able to get their hair done and also buy a top or a dress and not feel like they, you know, overspent, you know, and ideally we want them to be able to feel like they can do that as often as they want. So it is important to keep the price point low because we wanted to feel like a fun, a fun shopping event, not just like oh, I spent too much, I'm sick. I shouldn't have done that like I wanted to feel like a fun to make, not a scary, you know.
Speaker 1:
So one year now you've been there. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:
we just had our first birthday at the end of August.
Speaker 1:
Congratulations.
Speaker 2:
Thank you.
Speaker 1:
I know you work a lot. I know you do. I know you've been working so hard to build this business. I also know you have a beautiful family. So, yep, beautiful family. And what do you like to do when you're not at the shop? That's probably not a whole lot of time, but what do you like to do for fun, recreation you yourself or as a family?
Speaker 2:
So so we live in Lotus right over here, which has like incredible amenities. We, you know, have a great house. We love to be outside, go swimming. We also have an RV. We've really settled into our Florida life. What I really love about Florida one of the things I love about Florida is you can go to like so many different places that are still in the state but have different Landscapes and climates. I mean, even just the difference in Miami and Palm Beach is like night and day.
Speaker 2:
We've spent a lot of time in the Panhandle, like the St Augustine area, so we'll do that and yeah, we just really love being here, we love, you know, we sort of bounce around with like restaurants and things like that. We'll go to Delray, we'll go. We'll go to Palm Beach, we'll stay in Boca. Yeah, we're just, you know, doing family stuff. My son started soccer, so that's the thing how big is the RV?
Speaker 2:
we have a 39 foot fifth wheel and it's got slide outs to 12 feet and we actually lived in it for like, like, quite a lot over the last few years during co-vide, waiting for our house to be finished. So yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's great, it's really great. I will say I appreciate traveling in it a lot more than I do living in it. It's like, but it's great, we're RV so you got a great life.
Speaker 1:
Obviously ever have some challenges. Maybe that you might have overcome what you think might benefit you today.
Speaker 2:
You know, I think just we've been sort of living in New York, living. We've also been living in Puerto Rico for last 10 years. We just moved here. We've gotten really good at sort of adapting and but also not really, um, letting it get. You know, two different for us, like we were here. You know, for example, like I've been working in New York forever, I had my little store in Puerto Rico but then we moved here. So I just like, opened the business here. Um, you know, a little bit scary, but sometimes you got to jump feet first and maybe Better or worse. Um, you know the challenges that I've gone through and having other businesses made me a little less, uh, you know, scared to do this. And uh, you know, and here we are.
Speaker 1:
So what might you want our listeners to know about your business before we go today? Is there something that you'd like to leave them with or something that you want them to be more aware of about the shop?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think that sometimes people really don't know what to expect, even when they see it from the front windows or maybe just from our advertisements.
Speaker 2:
We try to explain it. It's a concept store. So you know, I think that sometimes people are like, wait, are you here? Wait, are you a boutique? Like wait, what's going on here? So, but you know, I would say, just come in and check it out. We love when new customers come in or new people come in to see and we walk them through the whole space. So our store manager is actually her name is Camilla. She was my store manager in Puerto Rico. So we've been working together a long time, super tight, like have a lot of fun working together.
Speaker 2:
Like I said, stephanie, our master hairstylist, is one of my closest friends. She's here every day. The other ladies at work here are really warm and you know we just we are really friendly in here. We want this concept to reach a lot of people. Like I said, we are also doing a wellness retreat coming up with the people at Garden Butcher in three weeks, called Rest and Reset Retreat. You know we have a lot of things going on. We want to talk to people about it. We want them to come in and learn about it. We'll walk them around. We open up the wellness suite, whatever it is. So just I think, yeah, I'd like to leave them with. If you see it, or you've heard about it, or you're walking by and you're not sure what to expect, come in, we're really nice, we want to show you around the low pressure and we're just excited about what we're doing here.
Speaker 1:
She is really nice, by the way. So you've got so much going on. Is there a mailing list or that they sign up for? How does that work?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so we do have a newsletter, but we found that a lot of people really just interact with us on our Instagram and our Facebook. So our Instagram is the shopshoppeus. It's also the same on our Facebook, and then we text people a lot. People love a text. I'm a little bit of a dinosaur. I've been working for a really long time. My first job we used to fax people and make phone calls and I've seen the transgression of how people want to be communicated with, and it really is Instagram and text. But we'll call you too if you want. Just let us know how to reach you. But we're here and that really works for the most part.
Speaker 1:
So you are on Yamato Road at Lyons right. What's the address?
Speaker 2:
We're 9101. Lake Ridge Boulevard actually is the address, but we're the corner of Yamato and Lake Ridge, which is just one traffic light west of Lyons and Yamato, so we're basically between 441 and Lyons.
Speaker 1:
I can tell you everybody, it's not just a boutique, it really is an experience. You've got to go in and check it out yourself. It's nothing like you would expect being there in that plaza. It really does have the soho vibe Again, Nicole, thanks for joining us on the podcast today.
Speaker 2:
Thanks, david. Thanks for inviting me. I had a. Really that was really fun.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it was fun, Great conversation folks. Hope you enjoyed it. Again, Nicole Comus, owner of the shop in Boca Raton. I'm David Conway, your host. Thanks for listening and we will see you next time.
