I love ALO. I buy a lot of it and I'm glad we have a store at UTC, but I generally only go here for returns. There's a reason for that.
If all ALO stores were siblings, this store would be the sibling that lags behind the rest of the family.
The main issue is the overall vibe. There's an older employee who, without fail, stares me down every time I visit. I'm not exaggerating. More than once I've looked across the store after forgetting about it, only to find her still staring. It's become so consistent over the past year that it's actually funny at this point, albeit a little awkward.
The store also rarely seems to get the full drops for new releases. We attended the VIP launch for the Summer Romance collection last month. While other locations had DJs, refreshments, and the full collection available, the UTC store had about 4–5 Summer Romance pieces on a rack next to a quiet register. The girl at the front of the store required me to scroll through my email with nearly zero internet rather than check my name off of the very short list. There were a total of 4 people there, tops, so they should have been ushering us in with gratitude that anyone showed up at all.
That was the entire event. Well, that and Stare Bear. She was there too.
The good news is that this store has tremendous potential because, at the end of the day, it's still ALO. It just needs stronger management, a better in-store experience, and a little more love from corporate so customers can actually shop the full releases instead of a small fraction of them.
No love lost here. I’m forever a loyalist. Just sharing this for the Mothership to take notice and being this young sibling up to speed. I'd love to see this location become what the brand is capable of delivering.