Talk about an impulse shopper. One late spring day in 2006, Sandra Alonzo made her regular stop at Queens’ Closet – a Tacoma consignment store for larger women.

At the checkout stand, owner Beverley Long slipped a piece of paper into Sandra’s bag. Sandra pulled it out and read that Long intended to sell her business after 21 years.

“I’ll buy it,” Sandra said. Right then she put $1,000 down.

Then she called her husband, Ray, a retired Army master sergeant, who worked as an environmental coordinator at Fort Lewis.

“Guess what I bought today?” she asked.

A jacket? Ray thought. Maybe a dress?

“I bought a business,” Sandra said.

Ray smiled the other day recalling the conversation. For years, Sandra had talked of buying a business that would take advantage of her retail experience working in military PXs around the world and the clothing and design training of her youth in Hawaii.

“I figured since she supported me through 23 years of my military career, it’s only fair that I support her now in what she wants to do,” he said.

So the Alonzos sold an investment property to buy the business officially on July 31, 2006. Ray quit his job at Fort Lewis to run the store full time.

Sandra, meanwhile, works part time at the store while she continues to work full time as office assistant to the director of the Pierce County Area Agency on Aging. She’ll retire soon after 20 years and work full time at Queens’ Closet.

But the transition to business owners – while fun and now slightly profitable after two years – hasn’t gone quite as smoothly as the couple thought it might.

And in a receding economy when you might think more frugal shoppers would turn to consignment boutiques for 30 percent to 50 percent off new and like-new clothing, the boom hasn’t come yet.

The Alonzos think they know why.

First, Long owned the building on Tacoma Avenue where Queens’ Closet operated for 21 years. She had plans for the building that didn’t include Queens’ Closet. So the Alonzos had to find a place to move it.

The less-traveled location they found at 4102 S. M St. works for them. But many of the store’s customers didn’t know where it went when it left Tacoma Avenue. Long provided a customer contact list with 3,000 names, but the outdated list had many errors.

Second, the Alonzos didn’t buy the business’s old Internet address, so locating their business online became a problem for former customers. They bought a new Internet address, but the old one kept coming up on search engines.

“We tried, but it was difficult,” Sandra said. “Marketing has been our main problem. In spite of it, we’ve done well.”

Ray also found himself the lone, inexperienced male mixed into the shop’s talented sales staff.

“It was hazardous when I first got here,” he said. “There are a lot of intricate things about women’s clothing that I didn’t know about. I was calling out sizes and thought size ‘20W’ meant ‘20 Wide.’ I didn’t know the ‘W’ meant ‘Women’s.’

“And when women would leave the dressing room trying on something new, they’d ask, ‘How do I look?’ I think I had an easier time in Vietnam,” he said with more than a tinge of hyperbole.

Most recently, a summer squall during a reroofing job on their building sent a cascade of rainwater pouring into their back office one night. The water dropped straight into their computer network that ran the online sales system. They hope to start selling clothes online again soon.

Despite it all, the Alonzos have built back a reliable customer list with approximately 1,000 names.

One of those names – Shirley Watson – has shopped at Queens’ Closet for more than 10 years and made sure she followed the boutique to its newest location.

Because she has “a thing for shoes.”

“I admit it,” she said. “But I’ve also bought all kinds of things there – purses, jewelry, lots of clothes, sunglasses. A little bit of everything.”

Shoppers like Watson, who come in sometimes two or three times a week, help Queens’ Closet with its social mission, too.

Several consigners sell clothes with the profits going to one of eight charitable organizations.

For example, Alice Fidler raises money for the Tronie Foundation, a nonprofit that equips victims of human trafficking to transition – psychologically and vocationally – back into society.

“I’m very impressed. … They’ve done very well for The Tronie Foundation,” Fidler said. “Word has spread so that clothes are donated to me. I wash and iron them and take them up there. Ray and Sandy price and sell it, then the checks come back to me made out to the Tronie Foundation. It’s awesome.”

For the Alonzos – if allowed to dream – they would like to open a Queens’ Closet in their native Hawaii. And perhaps franchise the concept.

“When I go home (to Hawaii) I have trouble finding things to buy in my size, which is ridiculous because a lot of us Hawaiians are bigger,” she said.

For now, though, Sandra said, “my passion is just to make this shop as good as it can be.”

Dan Voelpel: 253-597-8785

dan.voelpel@thenewstribune.com