Anne Dorsey
Editor’s Note: Anne Dorsey, owner of McCabe’s Costumes in Winterville, North Carolina, was elected to the NCA Board during the Business Meeting on August 5 in Indianapolis. Click here to read a previous article about her.
Ed Avis: Congratulations on being elected to the Board! When we spoke last, McCabe's had just joined the association. Tell me a little bit about what has happened since then.
Anne Dorsey: We keep growing. We keep crushing our numbers from the previous month compared to the previous year. So we keep going up, which is a positive. We've expanded out to clothing and accessories, so like purses and leggings and shirts and dresses in addition to the clothing.
Avis: Oh, that's interesting. How did you make that decision to add the leggings and handbags, et cetera?
Dorsey: I met a handbag vendor, Comeco, at an Expo. Their stuff was kind of quirky and I'm like, okay, I'll take some. So I took some to a Comic-Con and we sold out, and that was a year ago. And we just keep selling them as fast as the orders come in.
Avis: Other than that area, what has been succeeding for you in your store?
Dorsey: Well, you know what? Decades, I mean, decades stuff is tried and true. I would say that's what gets us through the non-Halloween season. We like to carry a lot of ‘20s era stuff, like flapper dresses, ‘80s are really big, anything neon, especially with Barbie coming out, we've kind of started loading up bright, colorful, different clothing so people can create their own Barbies or ‘80s type look. And the ‘90s are getting to be popular, with the wide-leg jeans. We go and look at thrift stores to find different, more vintage clothing. We also advertise that we buy vintage clothing, so if anybody in our geographical location has vintage clothing, they can come bring it to the store. And if it's something we can use, we will buy it from them or we will let them consign it.
Avis: And the people who come in and buy the decades stuff, why? What are they doing?
Dorsey: I think now we're finally just seeing people going back a hundred percent to what they were doing pre Covid. Companies are trying to boost morale now that everybody's back working in person full-time. So they're doing a lot of decades events. We actually did one for a hardware store here where they did a ‘90s night for their staff.
Avis: Wow. That is freaky. A hardware store.
Dorsey: When all these people came to the store, I'm like, "What's going on? What's up with all this uptake of ‘90s stuff?" And then one person said, "Oh, we work at such-and-such hardware store, and they're trying to do once a month a themed event for staff to show their appreciation and boost morale."
Avis: Nice. What other interesting markets are you finding?
Dorsey: When the school system does the spirit week, we sell related merchandise and donate 15 percent of all sales back to that school. Like Wacky Tacky Week, or Dr. Seuss, whatever the theme is, if they coordinate it with us, I tell them to give me three weeks, so we can order stuff that we might not normally have or that we're low in stock on. And once customers mention the school and they're checking out, we will donate back 15 percent.
Also I'm kind of the MacGyver of putting things together for people, so people come into our store with a picture and a lot of times I can take stuff that we already have in store and repurpose it, throw some spray paint on something, put some fabric paint on it. So we do a lot more custom stuff, because our big goal is to be different from the chains, from the big box stores.
Avis: That's a great goal. I agree with that 100 percent.
Dorsey: And we're super involved in the community. We're about to donate costumes to the Ronald McDonald House. And every year we pick a charity to donate to. This year we partnered with a group called Alternative Stage. They do a haunted film festival at Halloween. We'll do one check donation, and then at certain times in the year, we'll do a percentage of sales back to them. So all of our sales in April go to them, a percentage, because that's the month we started, and then we'll do the first two weeks of October.
Avis: The first two weeks of October are very lucrative weeks, huh?
Dorsey: They are. But for us, the last week, because we're right next to a college town, is bigger. We get tons of college boys shopping for whatever they can find. So the last week is big, but yeah, the first two weeks are still good. They're still getting a good, decent sized donation from us.
Avis: When we last spoke, you mentioned that one reason you joined the NCA was to learn about other vendors of quality costumes. Has that worked for you? Have you found any?
Dorsey: I would say maybe half of the new ones we found were NCA members. But I guess my issue with it, I don't like ordering from companies that send me spreadsheets, and that's where a lot of them are still, I feel like we traveled back to 1986.
Avis: What's better? How do you want to do it?
Dorsey: I want to log in and see what's in stock. It’s more up to date than a spreadsheet, so if I place the order, I'm actually going to get what I ordered. But a lot of them, they send you a spreadsheet, you mark your selection on the spreadsheet, and then you send it back, and then they go, "Oh, we're out of stock on that." And it's hard because we're a small store. I can only keep so much excess inventory because I don't have the space to do it. So to be able to order more frequently, because I know what's in stock, that works best for us at this point.
Avis: What do you hope to do as a director of the NCA?
Dorsey: I would like to bridge that gap with newer members who are just joining who are at a loss from all the different places to buy stuff. Giving them more of a clear cut path. Maybe working with some of the vendor members who are still doing the spreadsheet thing. You know what I mean? Just be like, "Hey, you might be able to increase what people order from you by getting a little bit more technologically advanced."
Avis: Well, let me just say this. We are delighted that you're on the board, particularly because you are a newer owner, so you have a different perspective than a lot of owners. And we want to tap that. So please do feel free to contribute whenever you feel like it.