Danbury Business Spotlight: Plato's Closet

Every local business has a story worth sharing with the community. And that’s the belief behind this exciting series — to shine the spotlight on all our favorite local businesses, and to learn a little about the ones we may not know that well.

Business: Plato’s Closet Danbury
Owners: Derek and Lindsay Bell
Website: platosclosetdanbury.com
Address: 67 Newtown Rd (Berkshire Shopping Center) Danbury, CT

How did you come up with the name?

The founders of the company have a teenage son who was studying philosophy in school. He recommended that they name it Plato’s Closet after the Greek philosopher Plato because he pioneered the idea of recycling.

Why choose that location? Why start a business in this town?

Danbury has long been a shopping destination for the surrounding areas from Ridgefield to New Milford to Putnam County, NY. That, combined with the fact that our sister store, Once Upon a Child, has been very successful for almost 16 years here, made Danbury a great choice.

Briefly, what business are you in?

Plato’s Closet buys and sells gently used clothing, shoes and accessories for teens and young adults. We buy items from customers every day and pay cash on the spot for everything we purchase. Most people think of us as a consignment store, but unlike consignment, our customers get cash right away for the items we buy from them. We offer all of the latest teen and young adult brands, from American Eagle to PacSun to Nike and Adidas.

What’s the most difficult moment or challenge you’ve faced as a businessowner?

One of the biggest challenges for our store, as with any new retail business, is just getting the word out and making sure that everyone in the community knows about us. When customers walk into our store for the first time, they are usually surprised at the quality and the selection of what we offer and how low the prices are.

Were there any challenges that made you second guess your decision to be an entrepreneur?

Being that Plato’s Closet is the first business I have owned, there was a good deal of unknown coming into it. My wife Lindsay and I were married two years ago and when we opened the store this past August, she was expecting our first child. Needless to say there was a lot at risk but we both knew that owning our own business is what we have always wanted to do and we made the leap together.

What’s been your favorite moment or proudest achievement since opening?

There have been many great moments since opening on August 7th, 2014 beginning with a line of about 100 people the first day. Every time a customer has something great to say about the store and the selection of the store is a great moment for me and my team.

What’s the most innovative idea your employees or customers have had that you put into practice?

We have been very lucky to have found a great team to work in the store. Our staff is always coming up with great ideas. We try to do a great job of letting our customers know about new and exciting merchandise through Instagram and Facebook postings. One way that we do that is with an Outfit Of The Day (OOTD) or Trend of The Week which our staff came up with.

How do you deal with difficult customers?

I try to preach to my staff that the customer is always right. Occasionally we have customers who bring in items that were very expensive. In order to keep our prices down, we sometimes cannot offer them enough for those items. In the end we realize that our offer may be too low on those super high end items and try to offer them other solutions to where they might be able to sell them. We just want the customer to be happy with their decision to either sell or not sell a particular item to us.

How does your business give back or get involved in the community?

One of Plato’s Closet’s main slogans is Recycle Your Style. In just over 7 months since we opened we have paid the community more than $220,000 for their gently used items. In many cases those are items that would have been otherwise thrown away or just stayed on the bottom of their closet. Being new, we are definitely looking for additional ways to get involved in the community and helping with charitable organizations.

Would you like to see your small business showcased in this series? Email wendy.mitchell@ patch.com.

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