Having a successful business for 20 years, especially in New York City, is no easy feat! Yet Ali Moroze, the founder of Ali’s Market, has managed to do it. To help celebrate this outstanding achievement, we sat down with Ali to learn more about how she became a rep, how Ali’s Market supports the brands it represents, the changes she’s observed in the kid’s market over the decades, and how she’s started stepping into consulting as a new part of her business. Let’s explore the universe of Ali’s Market!

After graduating with a degree in Fashion Buying and Merchandising at FIT, Ali Moroze began her professional career under the tutelage of the wholesale rep Sheila Weiss. Encouraged to follow Sheila’s lead and learn as much as she could, Ali worked with her for six years. She would also work in retail stores on the weekends to gain a deeper understanding of the end consumer’s wants and needs. Six months after Sheila retired, Ali started her own business, Ali’s Market.

As a rep, Ali caters to the needs of both the brands she represents and the stores she works with. She’s there to build happy relationships between the two parties, connecting brands with the stores they should be in and providing retailers with the right quantity and merchandise to best appeal to their market. To communicate with the retailers, Ali sends out eblasts introducing new brands or new collections. She also finds it important to call each customer, finding that speaking is still much more effective and personal. Ali also loves using social media to promote the brands she represents. She enjoys sharing stories of retailers that invest in Ali’s Market and the brands she represents, too.

When she started her own business, Ali sat down and wrote up a five year plan. Her main goal was to try to have 10 brands at the end of the first five years. She achieved this target in just three seasons. Today, Ali’s Market represents 13 brands. They are Apple Park, Wee Ones, Calonie, Coral & Reef, Boboli, Nest Designs, Petite Revery, Little Lady Products, Esme, Billy Loves Audrey, Lucky in Love, KicKee, and Paige Lauren.

When deciding whether or not to take on a brand, Ali makes sure they won’t be competing with one another. She’s careful to not take on a brand that a retailer could look at and decide they don’t need because they already get the products they want from another of the brands within Ali’s Market. It’s all about balance and the instincts that Ali has developed over 20 years in the business.

Depending on the needs of each individual brand, Ali takes on different responsibilities. She works closely with several brands on their marketing and design, while for others she’s a bit less hands on. It all depends on their needs and the structure of each individual business. Ali also passes along the feedback she hears at trade shows. She consults her brands on how to make their collections more sellable, offering constructive criticism she knows will help them evolve. Ali sees it like mixing colors: the more black or white added to purple or green changes the shade of the color. It’s the mixture that changes according to the needs of her brands.

The territories she covers for brands also varies. For some, she is exclusively their agent for the tristate area. For other brands, she covers the entire East Coast or the whole United States.

It’s Ali’s job to know what the stores need and like. Whether she’s at a trade show or in her showroom, Ali is always chatting and asking questions to gauge what to show the retailers she’s working with. For Ali, it’s all about engaging with people and listening to what they have to say. When she’s at trade shows like Playtime & Kid’s Hub New York, she’s always on the lookout for new and familiar buyers to chat with.

Over the course of 20 years, Ali has seen plenty of shifts and changes in the kid’s market. From the many changes in technology since 2005 to where she writes orders, Ali’s had to stay adaptable. In the past, Ali would exhibit at trade shows mainly to build awareness around Ali’s Market and the brands she represents. It used to be that 70% of her business would take place in her showroom and 30% at the trade show. Now, she finds that her business is more evenly split between the two.

Ali has also observed that buyers today are shopping differently, both from the past and from one another. When she was growing up, department stores were the tastemakers of the fashion industry, with boutiques following their lead on the brands to carry. Today, the boutiques are curating their own individual styles, and even revitalizing the towns they’re based in.

Brands, too, are running on different schedules. Some deliver every month, some every other month, or others twice a year. These shifts make being at events all the more important. It’s about meeting people where they are, and offering the opportunity to meet new clients. Ali has even met new retailers that were in New Jersey all along.

These shifts have happened gradually over time, the result of evolutions in society as a whole. Being able to succeed amongst all these changes is an impressive achievement by Ali. She has recently expanded her business to include consulting, making her expertise accessible to retailers and manufacturers outside the brands she represents.

Ali’s two main pieces of advice are to go with the flow and keep a notebook. In the notebook, write exclusively the feedback you receive. Whether a retailer or a brand, it’s essential to listen. It’s impossible to remember everything, so by writing it down in a dedicated notebook, you can keep track of how many people said the same thing. If the feedback was from one person, it’s likely just not a good fit. But if fifteen, twenty people are all saying the same thing, it can be important feedback to consider and maybe make a change.

For brands that are just starting out, we asked Ali for her top five tips. She recommends starting with a clear idea of who you are and what you want to be. Then, do your research and know your market. Understand how and what to merchandise. It’s also important to understand how you want to be represented in stores. Finally, don’t take everything that’s said to you personally. Attitude is key, and being positive and receptive to feedback is essential.

Thank you to Ali for sharing these insights into the roles reps play and offering such sound advice. We are so happy to have her and the wonderful brands she represents as part of our community, and are looking forward to seeing them all at Playtime & Kid’s Hub New York July 27-29.

Buyers, get your pass here, and make sure to stop by Ali’s booth (J14) to celebrate this milestone with her. Congratulations again to Ali for making it to 20 years of Ali’s Market! We can’t wait to see what the next 20 years bring.

All images courtesy of Ali’s Market