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The Trunk Show That Taught Me to Invoice Fashion Buyers

By Adriana Vega, Boutique Clothing Owner — Scottsdale, AZ

I opened Palo Verde Boutique in 2017. Women’s clothing, Arizona-made and Southwest-inspired brands, a few national small labels that aligned with the store aesthetic. We were a physical storefront in a mixed-use development near Old Town. By 2020 I’d added an online store and a small styling service.

Revenue was good but seasonal — strong September through January, slow in the summer. The slow season problem led me toward a model I hadn’t planned for: pop-up retail and trunk shows in hotels and resorts.

The first hotel trunk show was at a boutique resort during their holiday market. They gave me a space for a weekend. I sold $6,200 in two days — more than I’d do in two weeks at the shop during the same period.

Then came the invoice question I wasn’t ready for.

The Hotel Invoice Problem

The resort wanted to take 15% of gross sales in exchange for the space and promotion — a standard trunk show arrangement. Fine. But when it came time to settle, their event coordinator said they needed a formal invoice from me showing total sales, the 15% commission, and the net remittance — not a check or Venmo.

I’d never thought about invoicing a hotel for the privilege of selling in their space.

Trunk Show Settlement — [Venue Name] — [Date]:

The “sales tax collected separately” note was important — the hotel didn’t want to touch my sales tax calculations, and I wanted to document that I was responsible for my own TPT (Arizona’s transaction privilege tax).

Building the Boutique Billing System

Invoice Flow app invoice editor of a boutique — fall pre-order line items with style codes, colors, size ranges and unit counts plus a volume discount
Style codes, colours, size runs, the buyer's PO — a wholesale order their books accept.

After the trunk show, I rebuilt billing for every revenue channel:

1. Wholesale Buy Orders (ordering from brands) When I place wholesale orders with my clothing brands, I receive their invoices. But for any brand I work with on consignment or on a split-invoice arrangement, I issue invoices.

2. Consignment Settlement with Local Designers Several local Arizona designers consign their pieces through my boutique. I settle monthly.

Consignment Settlement — [Designer Name] — [Month]:

3. Styling Service Invoices My personal styling service — wardrobe consultations, outfit building, personal shopping — uses hourly billing.

Personal Styling Service — [Client Name] — [Date]:

4. Corporate and Employee Gifting Orders Companies — often in the resort hospitality industry — place bulk orders for employee uniforms or client gift cards.

Corporate Gift Order — [Company Name] — [Date]:

The Pop-Up Retail Revenue Model

Invoice Flow app documents of a boutique — a wholesale order sent, a special order held on deposit, a paid corporate branded-apparel order and a draft
Wholesale, held special orders, corporate apparel — every channel in one ledger.

After the first trunk show success, I formalized a seasonal pop-up strategy. Three hotel markets per year (spring, fall, holiday), two outdoor festival markets, and occasional private estate sales.

Each pop-up location gets a settlement invoice with the sales total, their commission percentage, and the net remittance. Having this as a template in InvoiceFlow means I can generate it the day after the event.

For my own internal records, I create an invoice-style document tracking my own sales and inventory movement at each pop-up — useful for understanding which products perform in different settings.

Online Sales and Platform Invoices

Invoice Flow app products screen of a clothing boutique — dresses, tops and trousers with style codes and tracked stock quantities and low-stock thresholds
The rack with live counts — the silk camisole is down to three, and you'll know before it's gone.

My Shopify store handles retail. But for B2B buyers — a resort gift shop, a hotel lobby retail space — who place orders through email rather than checkout, I issue wholesale invoices.

Wholesale Order — [Buyer Name] — [Date]:

The Business Seven Years In

Current revenue breakdown:

The pop-up and trunk show model added about 11% of revenue and — more importantly — introduced the boutique to entirely new customer groups.

What InvoiceFlow Does for Boutique Clothing Stores

Boutique clothing billing spans trunk show settlement invoices with venue commission calculations, consignment settlements with local designers, styling service hourly billing, corporate gift and wholesale orders with PO fields, and platform supplemental invoices. InvoiceFlow handles all of these from one Android app — settlement templates, consignment tracking, and the professional B2B invoice format that hospitality and corporate buyers require.

Download InvoiceFlow. Build the trunk show settlement template. Build the consignment settlement for your local designer consignees. Add hourly billing to the styling service template. The trunk show that settles in 7 days is more predictable than a month of retail floor traffic.

Adriana Vega is the owner of Palo Verde Boutique in Scottsdale, Arizona, selling women’s clothing through retail, online, trunk shows, a personal styling service, and local designer consignment.