Ooh La La will close its location in the Villaggio Shopping Center at the end of the month and transition all of the staff to online order fulfillment. Photo via Ooh La La.

The closing of a north Fresno clothing boutique represents a step into a new retail future for its owners.

Ooh La La will close its location in the Villaggio Shopping Center at the end of the month and transition all of the staff to online order fulfillment, said co-owner Norma Haynes.

The clothier will keep its flagship location in Clovis open.

The move was largely in response to the times. Following Covid shutdowns, the two sisters who own Ooh La La moved much of their business online, which Haynes says has created a customer base not only in the Central Valley but also throughout the country.

“We’re going in another direction and focusing on what we built in the Covid period,” said Haynes.

They had a website before, but it largely went unused. Once they had to close their store, Haynes and her sister took their merchandise home where they took pictures and posted everything on the website. The success of the website even spurred them to hire an employee dedicated to online marketing and visibility. And they also got a warehouse space in Fowler.

“The nice part is we picked up a lot of new customers all over the U.S.A.,” said Haynes.

They’re not doing any layoffs, added Haynes. They’re retraining employees to ship goods.

They’re planning a celebration Sept. 23 for the website with food trucks at their location at 1305 N. Willow Ave., Ste. 140.

“We wanted to let all our customers know we didn’t close our Villaggio store because we weren’t doing well,” said Haynes. “We’re just going a different direction because we’re doing better.”