Web Vendor Aims to Click With Store

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Thinking Small: CeCe Hendriks at Spoiled’s soon to be ex-office in Beverly Hills.

When word came that she’d have to relocate, CeCe Hendriks’ office was overflowing with Ralph Lauren dresses, Gucci shoes and Juicy Couture tees. And they weren’t even hers.

The goods were consigned and donated items that make up the stock of Spoiled, her secondhand, high-end, 12-and-younger online children’s clothing shop. Now, with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority about to take the Beverly Hills property that housed her office to make way for the expansion of the Metro Purple Line, Hendriks was faced with packing up and moving her two-year-old business.

It was just the kick in the preowned pants she’d been looking for.

“I didn’t want to stay online forever,” she said. “I thought, ‘Maybe it’s just time for me to move up and open a store.’”

Last week, she signed a lease for a 1,000-square-foot storefront at 8178 Melrose Ave. near L.A.’s Fairfax District. She said the retail space will be a hefty increase from her former office location, which was $1,500 a month. But Hendriks has reason to believe it’ll thrive.

Sales have been increasing steadily, she said, and the addition of a bricks-and-mortar outlet will allow her to expand her product line. She hopes to be moved in by Dec. 1 and have a grand opening after the first of the year. She will continue to sell online.

With the move, Hendriks expects to hire employees for the first time, and she’ll likely expand to include bargain-bin items from more affordable brands. She also has plans to invite young designers to sell their clothes there.

“I saw a market for high-end resale kids’ clothes,” said Hendriks, whose 10-year-old son inspired the shop’s name with his covetable closet. “Friends would say, ‘Remember that Burberry jacket Jordan had? Give it to me when he grows out of it.’”

Instead, she decided to sell such items, and the orders have been rolling in from Los Angeles to New York.

Hendriks calls Spoiled “the Robin Hood of clothes,” because while all items are high end, nothing is priced at more than $200, giving high-fashion-minded yet budget-conscious families access to luxury brand names.

Most important to Hendriks is bringing high-end clothing and the good feelings it can generate to families for whom those items might otherwise be out of reach.

“Kids should be able to have that good feeling about themselves,” she said.

– Cassie Paton