Context
Savage Diva is a gift shop on a storefront block of historic downtown Bryan, Texas, stocking gifts, jewelry, home decor, and art picked for their character rather than to fill a category. The buying is personal: the range is eclectic by design, and much of what sits on the shelves is chosen because the owner liked it. Customers come from downtown foot traffic, from the wider Bryan College Station community, and from visitors passing through the district's shops and restaurants.
Downtown Bryan runs on its calendar of First Friday evenings, seasonal vendor markets, and holiday shopping, and the surrounding area carries a large Texas A&M student and alumni population. In late 2021 the district was coming back to that rhythm after a quiet stretch, and small retailers there were leaning harder on Instagram, local partnerships, and seasonal events to bring people through the door. Savage Diva was selling in the store, showing the range on Instagram, and running a website alongside both.
Challenge
Savage Diva is an eclectic gift shop in historic downtown Bryan, Texas, selling gifts, jewelry, home decor, and art chosen to reflect its owner's style and personality. Sales history sat in the shop's point-of-sale system and had never been pulled apart by month or by category, and the Instagram account, website, storefront, and store layout each carried part of the brand without a shared plan behind them. The shop was heading into its busiest season after a hard year for downtown retail, with one person running buying, selling, and posting. The owner wanted a short list of practical steps to bring in more customers and keep them coming back, small enough to start on right away and simple enough to keep running from behind the counter.
How the team worked
TASK split the work into a finance track and a marketing track and ran them in parallel across the term. The finance side started with the shop's Square point-of-sale exports rather than with ideas, working through monthly sales by category, customer purchase history, and the cost-of-goods sheet before recommending anything. Because the shop would have to repeat the analysis without the team, the deliverable opens with the steps for pulling a report out of Square and saving it, so the same view could be rebuilt in any later month.
The marketing side worked from the store outward. The team visited Savage Diva to see how the space was laid out and how the shelves read to someone walking in, then reviewed the Instagram account, the website, and the storefront side by side as a single presence rather than as separate channels. The team also attended a downtown vendor event, which put them in front of local makers and market organizers and produced a working list of businesses the shop could approach about partnerships and a winter market.
Segmentation work ran alongside the channel review, describing the shop's likely buyer by age, occupation, and the kind of home they were shopping for, so the content plan had a reader in mind. That picture shaped the Instagram plan: which story highlights to build, what the bio should say, how often to post, and how Reels and short video could be reused across platforms rather than made twice.
Every recommendation was written to be started within the year and paired with a link to a how-to or an example, from exporting a Square report to setting up a scheduling account or generating a color palette, so the owner could act without the team present. The highest-priority items were pulled to the front of the deliverable and narrowed to a handful of steps, while longer-term ideas discussed during the term were noted and kept out of the immediate plan. The team also planned a hands-on social media crash course in the store so the posting routine could be handed over in person.
Workstreams
- Exported sales history from the shop's point-of-sale system and mapped which product categories sold in which months, so seasonal items could be featured at the right time.
- Analyzed customer purchase records to compare new and returning customers and recommended an email sign-up at checkout as the foundation for retention campaigns.
- Reviewed the cost-of-goods spreadsheet against product revenue to identify which items to keep restocking and which to let go.
- Proposed weekday discounts, point-of-sale displays near the register, and limited-time offers to lift slower days and encourage larger purchases.
- Built an Instagram plan covering story highlights, a bio rewrite, a link-in-bio page, Reels and TikTok, posting cadence, and a weekly content calendar run through a scheduling tool.
- Recommended a holiday store layout, a sidewalk sandwich board, a simple brand kit of colors and fonts, and partnerships with local makers and Texas A&M student-owned businesses, including giveaways and a student discount.
What the team found
- Register history showed that categories did not sell evenly through the year, which made a case for timing displays and promotions to a seasonal calendar rather than to the stockroom.
- Weekday traffic ran lighter than weekend traffic, so the quieter days were the clearest place to add a reason to visit.
- Purchase records pointed at retention rather than acquisition as the larger opportunity, since the shop was better at drawing people in than at bringing the same people back.
- Cost and revenue rankings did not line up across the product range, which gave the shop a repeatable rule for deciding what to keep restocking and what to let go.
- Reviewed side by side, the website, the Instagram account, and the storefront each told part of the story but did not point at one another, leaving a visitor on one with no path to the others.
- Segmentation work described the likely buyer by age, occupation, and the kind of home being shopped for, giving the content plan a specific reader instead of a general audience.
What the client received
- Written final deliverable covering finance findings and marketing strategies
- Final presentation deck walking the owner through both tracks
- Seasonal sales pattern table by month and product category
- Step-by-step guide to exporting and saving point-of-sale reports
- Product cost and revenue review spreadsheet for the most recent month
- Instagram plan covering highlights, bio, link-in-bio page, and Reels
- Social media content grid and weekly posting calendar
- Store layout and sidewalk signage recommendations for the holiday season
- List of local businesses, makers, and vendor markets to partner with
- Brand kit starting points for colors, fonts, and design tools
Outcome
Savage Diva left the engagement with a prioritized list of steps it could start on right away: a seasonal calendar for what to feature and when, a checkout email capture to build a returning-customer base, a repeatable rule for judging which products deserve shelf space, and a social media routine with a brand kit and content grid behind it. The shop also had a clearer view of who it is selling to and a set of downtown makers to approach, plus a planned hands-on crash course so the posting routine could run from the store.
Recommendations
- Rebuild the seasonal calendar from the point-of-sale exports and feature each category in the months it actually sells, treating the holiday weeks as the priority window.
- Capture email addresses at checkout in exchange for a discount, then use that list for holiday announcements, new arrivals, and offers aimed at returning customers.
- Apply a consistent cost-against-revenue rule to the product sheet each month to decide what to keep restocking, which frees both cash and floor space for items that earn it.
- Add weekday discounts, small impulse items placed near the register, and limited-time offers to lift the quieter days and give smaller purchases a nudge.
- Rebuild the Instagram presence around named story highlights, a rewritten bio, a link-in-bio page, regular Reels reused as short video, and a week-ahead posting routine run through a scheduling tool.
- Tailor the store for the holiday season and partner with downtown makers and student-owned businesses, supported by a sidewalk sign, giveaways, and a student discount.
Next steps
- The client was handed a short prioritized list of steps to begin within the year, each paired with a how-to link or a worked example so it could be run from the store without the team present.
- The client was handed a seasonal table of which categories sell in which months, together with a marked-up product cost and revenue sheet for the most recent month reviewed.
- The client was handed a social media content grid and a weekly planning routine, with an in-store crash course planned so the posting habit could be handed over in person.
- The client was handed a list of downtown makers and student-owned businesses to approach about stocking, partnerships, and an upcoming winter market.