The Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon-cutting for Finley & Co., 325 Argonne Road, Warsaw on Tuesday. From left, Scott Wiley, Chamber member relations manager; Scott Clay, NAPA, Chamber ambassador; Sandra Parra, Old National Bank, Chamber ambassador; Kristi Coverstone and Alex Reese; Nick and Jenny Finley, co-owners; Sally Bailey, Coldwell Bankers Sally Bailey Team; Heather Lardino, 1st Source Bank, Chamber ambassador; and Rob Parker, Chamber president and CEO. Photo provided by David Slone

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — Some women prefer shopping online; some like the experience of shopping in-person.

Jenny and Nick Finley now offer both with their store at 325 Argonne Road, Warsaw. They held a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 16.

“Finleysfashion.com is our website, but Finley & Co. will be the name of the store, just because we thought the name would be more chic,” said Jenny.

She said she’s been in business for about five years. She sold Lularoe for a long time before breaking off and running the business she co-owns with her husband. She resources and does everything herself now. 

“We just wanted to be able to serve our customers a little bit better, and be able to get the merchandise they were asking for and to be able to go out and pick my own things, and just make it be kind of our own, and really serve our customers better,” Jenny said. 

Finley & Co. has women’s clothing, jewelry, gifts and some home goods. 

“We probably will venture more into the gifts and home goods, too, as time goes on. We kind of slingshotted this,” Jenny said. “This building came available and we just jumped at the chance and renovated it and went from there.”

She said they sold online for about the last five years.

“It’s our first brick and mortar,” Jenny said of the Argonne Road store.

She explained that she sources all the clothing from different vendors. She goes to market a couple times a year and national fashion shows and finds the clothing herself.

“The unique thing about us is, we are a size-inclusive boutique so that means we carry small through 3X in almost everything. The prices are all the same, so you’re going to have the same prices for a small as you are a 3X, which is very unique. Not a lot of other stores do that. And they’re also all together. So we don’t have an exclusive plus-size area. You can find a shirt that is a medium and you can find a 2X in the same section, all together,” Jenny said. 

“It’s just a very unique shopping experience because we have found that women of all sizes want to wear the same clothing, and so I try to find vendors and brands that carry all of those sizes and really do the size-inclusive.”

On average, there are five to 10 new styles per week, she said. “So we turn the inventory pretty quickly.”

As the seasons change, so, too, will the items in the store.

“We try to basically buy for what would  be spring/summer, and then we buy again for what would be fall/winter. Obviously, we have the seasonal stuff right now, so that can change, too,” she said.

While she does the shopping for the store, she also credits her longtime customers for helping her decide on items when she’s on the fence about them. 

“Sometimes, they’re like, ‘Absolutely not! Do not buy that!’ And then other times, they’re like, ‘Yes, everybody needs that,’” Jenny said.

Nick said they’ve also gotten a lot of information from going to market. 

“We’ve gone to two or three markets together and we’ll just go through like (hundreds of booths) and look through clothes and figure out what people like, what’s the new trends and both of us have gone, which is a three-four-day event of just shopping, shopping, shopping,” Nick said. “It’s nice to be able to see stuff and feel it and check the material and sizing and what’s going to look good on a smaller person, larger person, that sort of thing.”

Nick said Jenny kind of pulled him into the business with live sales. 

“We sell a lot on Facebook Live. And there’s an app that we can go live on the app. We found out that the customers really enjoy it if we kind of play off each other and kind of do the live sales together, have fun with each other, make it more entertaining than just one person showing clothing,” he said. 

Nick said they’ve had a lot of fun with that over the last four to five years.

“Our customers love it when he comes on and does his dad jokes and all kinds of fun stuff,” Jenny said. 

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, more people have gone to shopping online. So why did the Finleys open a brick-and-mortar store now?

“The short answer, we were outgrowing our basement,” Jenny said. “Long answer is, it’s very hard sometimes with boutique clothing. People want to come try it on. And I love the face-to-face interaction with customers. I love to style them. I love to help style them. I love to match things up. And I just love the people. I love the ladies that come shop from us. We’ve developed some really great relationships with a lot of them over the years, and they trust me now, which is great. But, again, they want to come see it, they want to feel it, they want to try it on.”

Nick said there’s a lot of people who love the clothing they see online, but they want to come see it in person. Jenny said there’s always the app for people to shop online.

As for the store hours, Jenny said they probably will be Wednesday through Saturday, but it may vary.

To find the business online, visit basicsimplefashion.com or finleysfashion.com. If you search Finleys Fashion on the app store or the Google Playstore, Jenny said it will come right up. 

“Jenny’s got a good style sense, every since I met her. She knows how to style … I think it will be an enjoyable shopping experience,” Nick said.