How I Quit My Job and Started A Boutique
In this blog we will look at the key elements that all successful boutiques share and unveil the most essential tool you need to launch your boutique. My path to boutique success started something like this: having finished college I immediately paused my pursuit of being an elementary school teacher and gave a try at my real passion, fashion and clothing. I began by attempting to create my own boutique and after just a year I was fresh out of ideas and most importantly cash. Dejected, I decided to enter the fashion market by becoming the assistant brand merchandiser for TJ Maxx, eventually ending up as a head buyer for their juniors clothing department. Working with manufacturers for those eight years and being behind the scenes at a multi billion dollar corporation gave me knowledge that elevated my understanding of how a successful business is run. Some of that knowledge includes: The 7 Basic Elements Market and Trend Analysis - Learning how to analyze season fashion trends, customer preferences and price points for different groups and demos. Manufacturer relationships and Sourcing - Negotiating clothing prices and best terms, developing an eye for quality fabrics that would elevate brand value. Inventory Management - Balancing stock and avoiding overstock while securing profits in strong economic times from not under stocking. Buying early trends and beginning flashy and effective sales sooner than your competition. Pricing Strategies - Always securing profitable margins and harnessing effective markdown strategies. Leading and managing - Managing people was the hardest aspect of my job and every year I understood how to do that better by showing strength and assertiveness and kindness when it counts. Financial Planning - A continual revisit of past effective strategies to enhance new ones and learning from the bad months of financial history. Competitive Edge - Comprehensively studying my competitors to learn what they are doing well. Copy the parts you can while enhancing your own vision of what you can offer your customers. "At 28 years old I decided to quit my job and make a second go at launching a boutique." With very little capital I decided to focus on creating a business and product that was cost effective yet had something unique to offer customers. At this time subscription boxes were doing really well. Companies like StitchFix were becoming huge and I decided to jump on the trend and make my own subscription box. I built a cute website on Shopify, shot some original photos in my rustic backyard and marketed it out on facebook. In a matter of months it was a huge hit. Family and friends were intrigued by this subscription box and loved the novelty of having items picked out for them by a fashion expert. This brings me to my #1 tip and tool if your serious about quitting your job and starting a boutique, and that is: #1 Tool - Jump On a New Trend Early The fashion market is like an ocean of waves and every so often a good wave comes a long and has the opportunity to sweep you up and take you for the ride. But just like surfing, you must be aware, equipped with the skills to take advantage of the opportunity and a strong determination to hop on before your competitors do. Every four to six years there is generally a new big wave, think internet boom, social media, flash sales, subscription boxes, fast fashion, drop shipping. Every season there are essentially smaller waves and these are fashion changes that occur every season, think floral, animal, game day, gingham, boho, maxi dresses, lace tops, etc. The goal is to capitalize on these developing trends before other businesses beat you to it. In the world of fashion small businesses do just that and that is why boutiques make up a huge chunk of fashion consumer spending. In fact large department stores rarely capitalize on these trends because of their lack of ability to adapt. Large stores concentrate on ease and ultra low price points to lure consumers. This leaves a massive vacancy for small businesses and boutique to bust in and utilize new developing trends to generate sales. I'm writing this blog and the day is January 20th 2025. The last massive trend to ignite thousands of boutiques was drop shipping and live selling, but unfortunately this has deflated in the last year. The answer to which trend will be the one you need to hop on is still yet unknown. It's your task to find the next Tiktok and be always alert on clothing trends that will allow you to ride the wave all the way to owning a successful boutique. My prediction for the next big wave is two fold, in-store experience and boho. Post covid leisure markets cruises and camping resorts have exploded in popularity and I think we will see a continuation of these trends move across every consumer market. Within fashion the in-store consumer experience will be where women will decide to spend their hard earned savings. Unfortunately the online experience has been oversaturated by Temu, Shein and a host of others that have rigged the game to dominate the online boutique landscape with half of pricing and pictures that are ripped straight off of American boutiques sites. Thus the importance to develop either in-house/garage/camper van boutiques for those on a budget or those with a solid budget, an aesthetic store front where shoppers can get royal treatment and royal clothing. In terms of the next fashion wave, it's looking like Boho and animal is about to come alive again. This trend was ultra popular some ten year ago and as trends do, every decade they come back with a vengeance with a new twist. When you start your boutique on the back of a developing technology or trend, success is not ensured. You will still need to be versed in all of the businesses practices I mentioned previously to help foster and sustain momentum to keep surfing on. How to Find Great Deals for New Boutiques You need all the competitive edges you can get when starting a boutique and one of the biggest is sourcing low cost clothing. With 20 years of experience I have located the sites where you can find amazing clothing at literally 50% off: FashionGo - Fashiongo is simply an online showroom that hosts thousands of USA vendors and suppliers. Hidden inside each vendor's page may or may not be a sales page. In these collections you can score deals on styles that start as low as $5.00. You can also search and sort products by price, starting with the low prices. Scanning through these pages you will be sure to view many great deals a long the way. BloomWholesale - The next three sites are in a class of their own and I would turn them off-price distributors. These distributors have a unique business model that allows them to purchase in bulk closeout items from your favorite manufacturers and in turn list them at prices on their site for 50% off. Bloomwholesale concentrates more in mid-western styles, lot's of plus and missy look. They have been around for over ten years and the trick with them is they release all of their merchandise on Saturday morning, which is where you can pick up all the best stuff. WholesaleFashionTrends - Like Bloom FashionTrends is also a closeout company that purchases largely from Fashiongo vendors at ultra low prices and offers them up on their site. These products are usually last seasons items but with so much crossover between each seasons trends usually your customers aren't privy to this. Wholesale Fashion Trends offers a young contemporary look for that more chic girl whose looking for a sometimes sexier look. TashaApparel - Tasha Apparel is another young contemporary off price clothing vendor that specializes in that younger look for all types of demographics. If you would like to learn more specifics about licenses and costs to starting a boutique you can click here or visit the many blog posts on this website that will enhance your knowledge on what steps to take first. I encourage you to visit a fashion show near you where you can meet other boutique owners and vendors and come away with invaluable information and resources.