How to Compare an Online Boutique With a Store Boutique

Boutiques are retail stores that commonly sell specialized or hard-to-find items to customers. You can sell anything from clothing to vases at a boutique. If you're thinking about opening a boutique retail store, you can either lease a physical location or establish the store online. When deciding, it's helpful to compare the similarities and differences involved when opening and running an online boutique versus a store boutique.

Instructions

1. Compare the overhead costs involved with starting an online boutique as opposed to a store location. In both cases you must pay to lease the location (Web hosting service and domain name for an online store) but it costs much less per month to maintain the online store. You do not have to pay for lights, water and other utilities when you run an online store. However, if you work from home, you may have to factor in additional costs, such as extra use of electricity or water if your business calls for that.

2. Decide how you will handle inventory when comparing an online and regular boutique. For a regular boutique you must keep an inventory on hand but when you run an online store you can make shipping arrangements with a distributor to have your items shipped directly to customers. In this case, you do not need to stock products.

3. Consider the fact that when you run a regular boutique, talking to shoppers in person as they browse your store can help encourage a sale. You lose the personal aspect of communicating with customers when you run an online boutique and will have to invest time and/or money in a different kind of marketing.

4. Plan the design of your boutique early on in the process of starting this type of business. Establishing a store boutique gives you more freedom to add decorations and aesthetic elements to make your store more unique. Setting the atmosphere with an online website design may be a challenge and limited by technology, though technology is quickly gaining.

5. Consider the hours you'll have to spend working at your online boutique compared with the store boutique. When you open a standard retail store the shopping stops when you close your doors. When running an online boutique the store is open 24 hours and seven days a week. You may have to work overtime to fill and ship all orders.

6. Compare the audience you'll attract with an online boutique as opposed to a regular store boutique. Since a store boutique is located in a specific area, you may only attract the attention of customers in that general region. When you run an online retail shop you can attract boutique customers worldwide.

7. Determine how much time you have to dedicate to the maintenance of either type of boutique. If you run an online store, you have to update your catalog online regularly, answer email requests and resolve technical issues. Running a location requires you to clean up regularly, check inventory on the floor and arrange products in the store among other physical tasks.

References

• StyleCareer: How to Become a Boutique Owner