The surging growth of ecommerce, and particularly mobile commerce and social commerce, mean that starting a boutique is one of the great ways of creating a solid income stream on either a part time or full time basis.
How Profitable Are Online Boutiques
Forbes indicates that average income from an online boutique is $6 013 per month. While setting up an online boutique is easy (can be done in minutes on ecommerce platforms like Shopify), success in this line of business requires getting all the pieces of the puzzle right.
Successful boutiques are not successful by sheer luck. Below are some key characteristics of successful online boutiques.
High-Quality Products
Selling high quality products is a non-negotiable if you are looking to build a successful online boutique. Make sure you include fashion forward clothing and unique accessories in your product offerings.
It is also crucial to make sure that you curate your clothing selection and go for collections that resonate and satisfy the nuanced needs and preferences of your customers.
Key to selling high quality products is identifying a lucrative niche that has a laser focus on meeting the needs of a highly targeted market segment.
You also need to keep pace with the ever evolving and shifting market trends as well as consumer preferences to keep your product offerings relevant to your customers.
User-Friendly Website
An online boutique takes the form of an eShop or an eCommerce website. Having a well-designed website is critical for crafting a successful boutique brand online.
In setting up a boutique business you have an option to set up your own stand-alone web commerce website or to leverage robust ecommerce platforms like Shopify.
While setting up your own stand-alone ecommerce website gives more control over the ecommerce digital property and cost, this option turns out to be more technically demanding and costly.
This is because you will need to pay developers for the key functions, features and integrations to make your ecommerce website fully functional.
On the other hand, leveraging an ecommerce platform such as Shopify at a minimal monthly fee ($19 per month paid annually), gives you access to world standard ecommerce features and functions.
Shopify enables you to build a visually appealing and intuitive, mobile friendly ecommerce website that affords your customers a seamless online shopping experience.
Effective Marketing Strategies
Having a solid product offering and a strong ecommerce presence are just part of the success equation, success for an online boutiques requires a robust marketing strategy.
You will need to build a strong and compelling presence on social media platforms and create engaging content that you can ride on to build a captive audience.
You will also need to make use of email marketing campaigns to build a lucrative community around your product offering. The fruits of effective omni-channel marketing is highly targeted traffic volumes and customer engagement.
Leveraging ecommerce platforms such as Shopify is a great way to position your online boutique for success.
The platform offers many tools and features for effective digital marketing. Below is a breakdown of some of the key digital marketing features offered by Shopify.
Store Customization and SEO
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a foundational aspect of digital marketing. If your boutique product pages are not visible on search engines then your business is missing out on organic and targeted search traffic.
Shopify enables you to define and customize the meta titles and descriptions as well as URLs of your online boutique pages.
If you implement these customisations using relevant keywords you will improve the visibility and findability of your online boutique product pages across the search engines.
Shopify Shoppable Blog (Bloggle)
The Shopify blog app, Bloggle; enables boutique owners to easily build high end and visually appealing blogs attached to their online boutiques. With Bloggle you can publish blog posts, embed products, boost SEO and monetise.
This is an excellent way of converting blog posts into shoppable content by targeting high performing blog sections and making use of buttons, videos, newsletters and various calls to action.
Bloggle comes with high converting templates for different use cases such as guides and recipes, etc. You also have an option to create your own template.
Email Marketing and Automation
With Shopify you can make use of powerful email marketing features to send newsletters, promotions and automated messages.
The platform has intuitive automated features that enable you to follow up on abandoned cart recovery to remind customers to complete their purchase intents. Shopify enables us to connect with email marketing platforms such as Mailchimp.
Social Media Integration
Shopify has robust social media integration and capabilities that make social selling and sharing a breeze. With these features you can encourage customers to share products on platforms such as Facebook, twitter and Instagram.
The integrations come with a social media shopping functionality which enables your target customers to execute purchases from within the covered social media platforms.
Promotions, Discounts and Affiliate Marketing
Shopify has useful features for discounts and promotions. On the platform you can create discount codes, free shipping offers as well as BOGO (buy one get one) deals. Shopify is also affiliate marketing enabled.
This means that you can set up affiliate marketing to incentivise the purchase of your products while giving your online boutique brand maximum mileage.
Analytics and Reporting
If you are keen to run a successful online boutique, detailed analytics are a non-negotiable for making data driven decisions. Shopify ecommerce platform will furnish you with data and analysis on sales, website traffic as well as customer behaviour.
You can leverage this data to improve user experience, streamline your inventory management and improve the overall shopping experience of your customers.
This data is also crucial for making well informed decisions for marketing your online boutique.
Running a successful boutique online also requires that you run with a reliable payment processing partnership and integration.
A Reliable Payment Gateway
If you are running a thriving boutique, particularly with a customer base outside your own country, you need to integrate your online boutique with multiple payment gateways to give your shoppers sufficient payment options.
Instead of hiring a developer to implement integrations with each payment gateway you need as an option on your shopping cart, robust ecommerce platforms like Shopify come with dozens of payment gateway integrations ready to be added onto your online boutique.
Shopify has over 100 payment gateways that cater for mainstream credit and debit cards as well as digital wallets.
An eCommerce Platform is a Make or Break
Your choice of an e-commerce platform is going to be one of the crucial determiners of success.
There are many options that you can choose from when it comes to ecommerce platforms however Shopify stands many notches above the rest for many reasons that I outline below:
User-Friendly Interface
The Shopify platform has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to build online stores. The platform also offers themes that have been designed to render a user friendly shopping experience to end users (customers).
The good part with Shopify is that you do not need to have insane coding or any technical skills to build a high end online boutique.
The platform has intuitive tools and features – user friendly for both beginners and experts to build successful online boutiques that are aligned with their unique branding.
Customizable Themes
With Shopify you will have the luxury to choose from a wide range of highly customisable themes. With this platform you have themes to cater to various aesthetics and niches.
You could go for modern minimalistic themes or settle for chic variations to satisfy your branding preferences. Whatever niche your boutique is in, it is possible to find a theme suited for your brand.
Inventory Management
You cannot run a successful boutique without solid inventory management. Efficient management enables you to avoid overstocking and understocking.
With Shopify’s inventory management you can easily track stock levels and set alerts for low inventory levels. Shopify even allows you to automate product restocking ensuring that you don’t run out of stock.
Payment Processing
Reliable payment processing is another important aspect of running a successful online boutique, we have touched on this earlier on.
Shopify online boutiques ship with the various payment gateways seamlessly to power secure and efficient transactions. Shopify supports multiple (over 100) payment options.
You can set up your boutique to receive payments through credit cards and digital wallets.
Easy Setup and Maintenance
Based on its user-friendly platform, Shopify makes setting up an online boutique a breeze for both experienced users and beginners. Running a successful online boutique requires that you keep tabs on the soundness of your digital infrastructure.
This means keeping your ecommerce website updated, secure and continuously keeping to the latest technological trends to maintain a high end shopping experience for your customers.
This is another area where leveraging an ecommerce platform makes more business sense than running your own standalone eCommerce website.
Shopify takes the technical aspects of your online boutiques off your hands, enabling you to focus on marketing and inventory management to grow your business.
Shopify is also great for these features:
- SEO and Marketing tools
- Beautiful and Mobile-Responsive Themes
- Seamless Integration of Payment Gateways
- Marketing and SEO Tools
- Robust Inventory Management
- Customer Support and Resources
Online Boutique Success Stories
Example 1: ASphalte
Asphalte makes about €25 million per year. Since 2014 the brand has leveraged Shopify‘s interactive features, particularly TypeForm, to set surveys and enable customers to be co-creators of the brand’s teeming catalogue.
Example 2: UrbanAccessories
UrbanAccessories, an online boutique with a laser focus on unique jewellery and accessories, saw a significant jump in sales as well as customer engagement after migrating to Shopify.
With Shopify‘s inventory management, order fulfilment processes and highly customizable themes and marketing tools, the brand transformed its online presence and started to expand its customer base exponentially.
There are thousands of brands that have leveraged Shopify’s robust ecommerce platform to run successful online boutiques.
Tips and Best Practices for Online Boutiques on Shopify
As I conclude this guide, it is important to wind up with some tips and best practices for online boutiques on Shopify.
To build a successful online boutique on Shopify strongly consider the following:
Optimizing Product Listings
Craft clear and compelling product descriptions. Also make sure you use high resolution images to showcase your product offerings effectively.
Leveraging Marketing Features
Make the most of Shopify’s marketing features such as SEO features, email marketing, abandoned cart recovery and email campaigns, to re-engage customers and boost sales.
Monitoring Analytics and Sales Data
To be successful you will need to consistently analyze your Shopify data and analytics to gain insights into customer behavior and adjust your strategies accordingly. This is also crucial for balancing your stock levels.
The devil is in the detail. Data enables you to map out growth points of your boutique and implement relevant measures to grow and scale your business.
The devil is in the detail.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take for a boutique to be successful?
For most online boutique ventures it takes about 2 to 3 years to reach optimal success. For some it takes a shorter time span while for some it takes longer than 2 to 3 years. It all depends on various factors such as marketing, inventory management and market trends.
How much does it cost to start a boutique?
To launch a successful online boutique expect to invest between $35 000 to over $130 000, the figure varies based on the location of your store.
There are also other low start up cost approaches such as dropshipping where you can start an online boutique without inventory. In this case you need between $100 and $500 to cover platform fees, basic marketing and internet access.
The biggest cost areas in this start-up are store preparation and initial inventory. You can keep this manageable by starting with a handful of items just to get going.
How many pieces should you start with for a boutique?
The best practice is to have at least 12-15 styles in your catalogue. Here is a good example: If you are selling dresses, you should aim to have at least 12-15 styles in your inventory.
What equipment do you need to start a boutique?
Here are critical items you need to start a boutique, take note that these items are not required if your online boutique doesn‘t have a physical presence (shop). However if you want an integrated approach then you need the following items for the physical front of your boutique brand:
- Hangers
- Mannequins
- Window dressing materials
- Accessory cases
- Item showcase structures
You will also need office and sales equipment like computers, telephones, office furniture, cash registers and point of sale (POS) systems.
Final Thoughts
Success is an attainable goal in the online boutiques sector. You need to have the right approach and the right tools. Settling for a solid ecommerce platform like Shopify takes care of about 60% of what it takes to run a successful online boutique brand.
The rest goes to branding, marketing and inventory management and overall customer service and satisfaction.
Running a successful online boutique is an attainable goal. You can test your business ideas by experimenting with Shopify’s free trial to explore (for free), world class ecommerce features and functions that will vault your online boutique venture into success.
All the best!
