Ashley Alderson walks through six steps to launch an online boutique: build your audience first, test products you actually like, handle the legal stuff (EIN, sales tax permits), set up Shopify, shoot your own photos, and track your metrics. She points to wholesale sources and the Boutique Hub community.
Six tips.
May 21, 2020.
600 wholesale brands.
Over 5,000 boutique owners.
QuickBooks Online, "starts at 10 bucks a month".
Hey. Welcome to the boutique hub, the connection point for the global boutique industry. And every tip a boutique owner, a retailer, and an e commerce store must know. Hey, guys, it's Ashley, and I'm here at my new kitchen office to give you some tips. I know you have so many questions about starting and growing your online boutique, so I'm going to give you six tips to help make it super simple. Okay, tip number one. Even before you have product, you have an idea. The first thing you have to do is build your audience and build your brand. So who are you? What's going to be the name of your business? And start showing up as if, right? Everything in life is about deciding where we want to go, who we want to be, and showing up as that person now and not waiting until someone gives us validation to be there. So what that means for your boutique is even before you have all the products that you love or your website's ready, show, show up. As you start cultivating and curating your audience, build a community around your brand. Talk about your own fashion inspiration, your lifestyle, your tips, how to dress your body, how you love to pair outfits together. And the more you can show up and serve your audience before you start to sell your audience, they're gonna respond better when your online boutique is ready to go. Okay, tip number two is to curate the pieces that you love. I know it's really easy when you start a business to see what everyone else is doing online and feel like you've got to do the same. But, girl, be the best version of yourself and not your best imitation of someone else. So what do you love? There's tons of apparel markets in the United States like wwd, Magic, Atlanta Apparel, Dallas Market Center. There's also amazing online resources like Fashion Go and Tundra and Faire. And even at the boutique hub, we have 600 wholesale brands inside. So there's all kinds of resources. But find what you love and then test it with your market and see what your audience responds to and then go deeper into that product. Okay, tip number three. This is a big one, and that is to get legal. Yo, the IRS will find you, I promise. There's two things certain in life, death and taxes. So make sure, number one, you're protecting your Social Security number. So get an EIN number. You can go to IRS.gov, get your EIN, make sure you're legal, and then go and make sure you have your sales tax permits from your state, state government. You also might want to check and see wherever you live if there's other regulations around starting your business, usually your local chamber of Commerce or an SBDC center. They can answer those questions for you. But get legal with the paperwork and then make sure that you are starting to track your numbers right now. The second that you offer one single thing for sale, you're a business, right? And the IRS can come after you. So we use QuickBooks online for all of our reporting. It starts at 10 bucks a month, so super simple. It allows you to track all of your income, all of your expenses and to manage as you grow to a multi million dollar brand all of your numbers right there so you can pay income tax and sales tax and make some profit. Tip number four if you're going to be online, you've got to know about Shopify Shopify is my go to when it comes to E commerce. Super simple to use, no code needed and tons and tons of integrations. So go to shopify.com there's a million and a half tutorials, although we have tons more tutorials inside of the Boutique hub to help you get your boutique started online. A couple of key important factors make sure on your homepage you're really identifying who you are and why someone would want to shop with you. Specifically what's going to connect you to your ideal customer? Or do you just look like every other boutique on the market? What makes you different? Share your about page, start to build trust with your audience and then get great photos that are not stock photos. Then make sure your product page is solid. You've got a really solid description that truly talks to someone like she's in the dressing room with you and not just shopping online, but also some other product recommendations so you can cross sell and upsell multiple products across your website. Tip number four is you've got to master your photos right? There's stock photos out there from every vendor that you shop with, but that makes you look like everyone else that shops with that vendor. So know how you like to shop with certain boutiques. Usually it's their photography that draws you in. You have that same opportunity. So master the flat lay, the mirror selfie and the model photo to really build a brand that speaks to who you are and captures the attention of your ideal audience. Last tip and if you want to make any money at all and make this a business and not a hobby, please hear me when I say this. You got to know your numbers. So just like I told you, it's really important to know QuickBooks and to start to track your income and your expenses. It's also important to understand in shopify, where to find and understand your numbers. Things like sales by class, sales by vendor, sales by size. Right? We have to know what's actually working, what does the data tell us that's working before we can go on and continue to grow the business. You also need to understand your traffic numbers. How much traffic am I bringing into my online boutique every day and what channels are helping me acquire that traffic. And we have something that we call the Boutique traffic formula inside of the hub that's also going to help you understand based on what your revenue goal is. How much traffic do I need to drive, what is my average order value need to be and what's my conversion rate going to be? I love teaching all of those numbers. So get started with the basics of understanding sales data, vendor data and traffic data. You guys, that's it. That's really simple boiled down version of what it takes to start and grow your online boutique. I am so excited for you because I know the sky's the limit and with the new normal you everybody wants to shop from the comfort of home and you want to run a successful business from home. So reach out to me anytime. Make sure you subscribe to the channel. Leave a comment below. I would love to personally answer you and find me over on the Gram J. Alderson shoot me your questions or at BoutiqueHubBusiness. And if you want to join a part of our community of gosh, over 5,000 boutique owners from around the world to share in our sisterhood. Well there's a lot of guys too. I say sisterhood but the community shares tips and tools and resources every single day. Wholesale brands. We have a training library packed with resources. Everything you need to grow your business is inside of the boutique hub@the boutiquehub.com so I will see you soon sister. Thanks for watching guys. Leave a comment below if you loved this video and make sure to subscribe to our channel if you want to connect with us anytime. It's Boutique of Business on the gram or the boutiquehub.com.
