Los Angeles is widely known for Hollywood, but what many often don't realize is that the city has is home to the largest selection of textiles in the United States and has over 4,000 businesses located within the Fashion District, according to the Fashion District Business Improvement District (BID).

And 80 percent of Los Angeles' Fashion District is made up of wholesale-related businesses, with buyers, retailers, wholesalers and designers occupying parts of the whole. So how do retailers, wholesalers, designers and vendors market themselves to stand out from the crowd and attract customers—especially with more than 150 vendors occupying Santee Alley, a shopping center located within the Fashion District?

The Fashion District's Business Improvement District offers businesses located within the space with marketing resources and platforms to increase business growth and sales, especially for smaller businesses.

However, the sole purpose of the BID is not to provide marketing resources and tools to businesses. The overarching purpose of the office is to provide safe programs for the overall district, so that businesses and other entities can thrive within the district, said Ariana Gomez, the Fashion District BID's marketing and PR manager.

However, Gomez said her office has worked hard to provide resources and marketing tools to businesses through the office's different platforms because they have noticed that it has been a need.

"On the [Fashion District] website, there's a business directory where we list all the businesses in the Fashion District," said Gomez. "Because a lot of our business are mom and pop and do not have an online presence, we promote their businesses on our website for them."

Not only does the BID office promote businesses on the Fashion District website, but Gomez says that they also promote specific businesses on their social media platforms and have provided businesses with different marketing workshops.

"We have in the past, offered marketing workshops in association with other organizations and non-profits, but we don't offer these regularly," said Gomez.

Gomez said that they do want to clarify that they do not offer consulting for businesses, but try to provide enough resources for smaller shops to help them stay competitive in a highly saturated space.

"We have over 4,000 businesses in the Fashion District, and we're an office of about eight people," said Gomez. "It's not realistic to sit down with everyone one-on-one."

Elena Collections, located on Santee Street in Downtown Los Angeles, has benefitted from the marketing opportunities and promotions that the BID office provides, according to Gomez.

“[The store] decided to lease their retail ground floor space because they were doing sales online,” said Gomez. “A lot of the web store traffic came from the BID website through the directory.”

The store’s owner Elena Pulido said she leased the retail floor space and moved her business upstairs because her business was doing so well online that it no longer needed to rely on foot traffic.

“We moved upstairs where we just do the manufacturing because a majority of our sales come from online,” said Pulido.

Bentley Rivera, who runs the store HBD Lingerie in Downtown Los Angeles with her mother, said she has also noticed the trend of customers turning to online shopping for purchases.

“Now, everyday, less and less people come by and shop, said Rivera.” “They like shopping online, and it’s much easier instead of [customers] going out of their homes and going out of their way to come by here.”

Rivera said that she has also noticed that having an online presence is helpful to market businesses within the Fashion District in order to attract some of the 46,000 visitors that come to the Fashion District on average per month. Rivera’s business, HBD Lingerie, is listed on the Fashion District’s directory, and Rivera said she and her mother are currently working to build a website for the store.

However, Gomez does acknowledge that these resources do not help all businesses, so when she heard this news from Pulido, she was surprised.

“Most stores here rely on foot traffic, so it was weird for them to make the move upstairs,” said Gomez.

Freddy Sab, who has owned the small store Monamel located on East Los Angeles Street for more than 30 years, said the marketing resources that the office provides does little for his business.

“My customers come from Mexico, said Sab. “They don’t use the internet or check websites.”

Sab’s businesses is one of the many stores in the Fashion District that rely on foot traffic and customers seeing the business’ signs to market towards customers.

“They come to my store after seeing the signs,” said Sab. “They’d rather come into my store and try on the clothes because it’s brand name stuff.”

Customers such as Kianna Walker, who said she has been coming to the Fashion District “for years,” said she would rather come to the Fashion District and look at physical signs that market to her, but her daughter Amanat Walker disagrees.

“I would check online,” said Walker. “I want to see the dresses that they have or shoes just to look at, or to tell my mom: ‘Can you get that for me?’

Although it may seem that turning towards online marketing may seem like a generation difference, Gomez said they will continue to provide website promotions for businesses and not only that, but they will also continue to conduct business survey to better assist the different entities within the district.