A PLEA FROM JB - SUPPORT LOCAL OWNED BUSINESSES LIKE JEALOUS BRIDESMAIDS
May 14, 2023
We would like to make an appeal to your sense of community by encouraging you to support locally owned businesses like JB.
As a GTA community, we support our local coffee shops, our local fresh food supermarkets, and our neighbourhood restaurants owned by people who live here. And we ask you, Torontonians and fellow members of the GTA, to support your locally owned bridal stores, like Jealous Bridesmaids.
In recent years we’ve seen an influx of bridal stores, owned by US Private Equity firms, open across the GTA. And you might reply: well that’s competition, and competition is good and it’s our problem to manage that and figure out how to compete. That’s true, and we do whatever we can to survive and stay in business, however the way these businesses compete is by selling below cost (I.e. not running viable businesses). They come in, take away sales from locally owned stores for years and then it turns out they weren’t making any money while doing it. If this wasn’t the case then why would an American bridal store (owned by a Private Equity firm and very well known from TV) be closing their doors after a 10 year “kick at the can” and another “big-box” store be declaring bankruptcy for the second time in 5 years!? And this is despite enjoying prime locations, large scale and lots of capital investment. Indeed lots of debt is hard to service when you’re not making any margins, yet we are sure these sophisticated Private Equity players figure out how to squeeze profits for themselves using financial engineering.
Yes, we know the economy is tough and everyone wants the best deal they can get. We offer fantastic customer service and a great dress selection, both bridal and bridesmaids, but we do need to make a normal economic profit in order to pay bills and stay in business. Another round of restructuring is not an option for us, so we implore you to support local businesses like ours, ones that continue to support our communities and provide quality service and selection time and time again.
We appreciate your support and look forward to serving you for years.
Sincerely,
The Small Business Owners of Jealous Bridesmaids