Joe Carvelli
Founder, Retail Ingenuity
Joe started in retail when he was 14 years old helping his dad run a shoe repair store. Even at a young age, Joe saw opportunities that his father didn’t because of being focused on the repair work. He asked his father about branching into more product lines and soon after started bringing in luggage, Wolverine boots and other items to sell.
That proved to be a smart move.
By the time he was 17, he was in contract to buy his father’s store, as dad was ready to take it easy. And, by the time he was 18 (newly graduated from high school), he owned the business!
Joe then expanded the business by acquiring another store as well as expanding continuously.
By 1997, I was recognized by Steve Madden, Sam Edelman — and other giants in the designer shoe world — as the store that sold their products
In 1998 Joe made a mistake. A mistake that cost him the retail business. He ended up closing both the stores due to “under capitalization” and had first-hand experience of being under or over-inventoried. He learned some lessons the hard way, that he does not want retailers to experience.
According to Joe, “One bad buy can cost you your business”.
After running a successful retail business for many years, he went into retail consulting and started sharpening his analytical skills to a point where he had a choice to either return as a retailer or as a consultant. The accumulated knowledge and skill would not be justified if he focused on one retail organization, so he chose to help out retailers as a consultant.
For over 12 years now, Joe and his business partner and friend Jamie have developed some very innovative solutions for numerous retailers in the apparel and footwear industry. Solutions that have saved money and put their clients in the better cash position.
Joe is very passionate about helping retailers and you can feel his energy and enthusiasm whenever you speak with him.
Phone: (866) 709-8673 E101
Jamie Burr
Working Partner, Retail Ingenuity
Jamie has been working in retail since he was 15 years old.
Just about every free moment he had after school, on weekends, and on holiday and summer breaks was spent at his dad’s chain of retail stores.
He did everything that was needed at any given time: waiting on customers, running the cash register, stocking shelves, sweeping floors — just about anything you can think of.
Even during the five years he worked on his BS and MBA at Cornell University, he continued to work at the store. He had the rare opportunity to put what he learnt into practice.
When he earned my MBA from the Johnson School, he went to work for Bloomingdales. Several years later, after becoming branch department manager, he returned to the family business, David Burr Inc., a multi-unit apparel chain in the New York metropolitan market and made changes, opened a couple more stores in the chain, refined existing stores to stay competitive and to stay visually appealing to customers.
In 2000, he opened a school uniform distributor called Uniformity which eventually grew to a 20,000 sq. ft. warehouse and 4 locations.
His long history of entrepreneurial projects have given him insight into the industry, in how retail works (and how it doesn’t), and even a mention in NJBIZ as a leading New Jersey entrepreneur.
Later, he was approached by his friend and associate, Joe Carvelli, about developing a consulting firm to share with retailers their collective experience and knowledge and help them make their businesses better.
Because I’ve had a chance to see retail from both the strategic and operational sides of the business, I did have a lot to offer, and Joe and I knew we could help retailers reach their greatest potential.
Retail Ingenuity was born! In 12 years of existence, Retail Ingenuity has perfected a system that helps you use technology to your advantage, keeping your retail business competitive — or propelling it to the top of its class by building customer service teams, identifying and negotiating cost savings, creating sales incentive programs, establishing KPIs and managing for their improvement, merchandising for sales increases, negotiating credit agreements, and streamlining supply chains.
Success in the retail business takes a keen eye and a certain unknown quality to know what will sell and what won’t—but it also takes a keen understanding of those back-end systems.
Joe and Jamie can help you take your retail apparel and footwear business to the next level of profitability and overall success!
Phone: (866) 709-8673 E104