In case you missed the wonderful followup article about Grandasia in Quincy’s Real Deals, here’s the full article posted with permission from QRD. All rights reserved.

In our last issue, we at Quincy Real Deals had unveiled GRANDASIA as Quincy’s best kept fashion secret in an effort to share with our readers all the amazing products and services that are offered inside Quincy’s very own bridal, prom and fashion emporium, located at the corners of Beale and Hancock Street Wollaston, that were seemingly unknown to the public because it was so deceiving from the outside looking in.  To QRD’s delight, we received many pleasant emails from our loyal readers thanking us for sharing our discovery of this “hidden gem”.  From what we gathered through the email responses, Grandasia seemed to become the HERO for helping many of our readers transform their prom shopping experience from over-stressed to over-joyed! Prior to the article, Mothers and Daughters were over-stressed from not being able to find that dream PROM gown after traveling from mall to mall, boutique after boutique in the Greater New England area.  All those stressful concerns immediately turned into joy after they paid a visit to Grandasia and found that they no longer needed to settle for less out of desperation.  If they found themselves in a store with an issue, and the issue is ‘OMG I can’t decide which one out of these ten dresses to pick because I feel so special in all of them,” then they found the ‘Hidden Gem’ in Fashion!”  In other cases, it was the excellent, prompt and reasonably priced ALTERATION services by Grandasia’s tailors and seamstresses that had saved the day for many brides and bridesmaids who had already purchased their gowns elsewhere but couldn’t find that special place to have their gowns fitted. What had really enlightened us was our readers’ upbeat attitude when describing their shopping experience at Grandasia as “fun and painless.”  As one reader had put it “Whatever your fashion dilemma, whatever your budget/size/time constraints, it seems like Grandasia can always do its magic to make things work for you, and they do it with a smile and even a few good jokes to melt the stress away!”

The overwhelming responses from our readers had stirred up our curiosity and prompted QRD to make a second visit to Grandasia for a follow up article.  Upon our arrival, we were greeted with a shocking yet delightful change of window display that was so contrary to what we saw in our last visit.  During that follow up interview with Phi Du, Founder and Executive Fashion Director of Grandasia, we found out the reason behind the dramatic change of window displays.  Du also shared with us a few of the interesting responses that took place at Grandasia following the release of our QRD article “Secret is Out!”

QRD: Wow, your store is looking completely different since our last visit.  From the perspective of a passenger driving by on a routine basis, outside looking in, Grandasia appears to have grown “bigger” in size overnight when the entire store front is blanketed in white and ivory with a CONTINUOUS stream of many gorgeous, sophisticated looking wedding gowns of various different themes.  Did we (QRD) help inspire you for this window change, and what message are you hoping to deliver to the public with this new Grandasia look?

PD: First of all, we at Grandasia would like to thank QRD for that wonderful article that unveiled Grandasia as a hidden gem to the entire City of Quincy.  QRD had certainly helped demystified Grandasia and the reactions we received from customers who read/heard about us through the article was one of the inspirations for our recent dramatic window display change.  Two days after the release of your article, a young lady walked into our store holding your QRD newspaper and introduced herself as management personnel of the bank right behind our building.  She had always walked by Grandasia on her way to work everyday for the past five yeas but never came inside to visit not even once, all because of the deceiving appearance of our store’s exterior.  On a few occasions, she was struggling to find that perfect outfit for a family wedding but surprisingly never considered Grandasia, and our store is just a few footsteps away from her office!  After taking a tour of our entire store and enthusiastically exclaiming “Wow!” half a dozen times, our neighbor told us she could not believe the number of CHOICES that are available INSIDE our store for EACH CATEGORY.  I guess what truly mesmerized her was the enormous and beautiful selections that we have from wedding gowns and prom gowns to dresses for mothers, bridesmaids, flower girls, sweet 15/16’s, as well as accessories like jewelries, dance shoes and even wigs!  Our neighbor came with an expectation to see the usual 100 dresses of just 10 different styles with different sizes, just like in a typical department store; but instead, what she saw at Grandasia was a refreshing scene of 1000+ gorgeous dresses of diversifying designs and themes across the different categories, with each style being hand picked with careful considerations for craftsmanship, fashion trends, fabric and color combinations.  From this experience and many similar cases, we at Grandasia learned that our ideas really worked and our products were extremely well received, but what we lacked was an effective way to communicate our products and services to the public.  Now that prom season is behind us and wedding bells started to ring, we figure what could be more fun and effective than a beautiful message through our window displays to invite all Quincy Brides-To-Be and their friends/families to come pay a visit to Grandasia?  Our message is now screaming loud and clear: “Here Come The Brides!”

QRD: Do you project any change in this year’s brides wedding dress shopping experience that has to do with the economy?

PD: I think the economy will certainly play an important role in determining what kind of budget a bride has for her gowns, just like it had affected the budget of our prom customers this past season.  However, because Grandasia carries gowns for all types of budget with excellent value, the economy doesn’t really have an impact on our sales performance. This past prom season, a lot of families had come to Grandasia with a restricted budget for their prom dresses, but many were still able to walk out with a desirable dress that’s within their budget.  Despite the economy, our prom business continued to grow and we at Grandasia couldn’t be happier having served over 150 schools this year, from as far away as Canada, Great Britain and Belgium, to as local as our beloved Quincy High School and North Quincy High School.  I am very optimistic that we’ll do well with the upcoming wedding season.  Furthermore, I think we’ll do extremely well with the closing of Priscilla of Boston, as sad as that is, because our wedding gown collections, especially the Justin Alexander line, offers that same type of exquisite taste and quality that Priscilla’s had, except at a fraction of the price.  And of course for those brides with a limited budget, we also carry informal wedding gowns as well as simple traditional, All American “City Hall Wedding Style” dresses that are under $200.

QRD:  It seems like Grandasia will soon require more space with all those dress choices available from so many lines!  Any plan for expansion?

PD:  Yes, expansion is definitely on the horizon!   We are hoping to find an additional location within Quincy, as we owe our success to this beloved city! Not many people know, but we have a lot of closeout dress styles that had to be put away in storage due to space limitations.  With the added space, we can bring those closeout dresses back to life again and can even implement a new Clearance/Bargain department which would make shopping at Grandasia even more exciting!

QRD:  Any final thoughts you would like to include for our readers?

PD: Just like a picture is worth a thousand words, a customer testimonial is worth a thousand ads!  If you would like to hear more about all the wonderful experiences that our past customers have had at Grandasia, please look out for our upcoming program of GrandasiaTV which will be featured on our website grandasia.com.  GrandasiaTV will feature all our customers’ activities with Grandasia including live testimonials recorded on video, photo galleries, written reviews, etc…

Grandasia
663 Hancock Street
Quincy, MA 02173
(617) 328-6380
www.grandasia.com