Going Into Retail

07Oct08

After 11 months of operating online with Pink Boutique, my partner and I have always been on the lookout for a good retail space for our boutique. Yesterday, we visited a new mall here in the city to look for a possible location. We’re pretty excited to take our business closer to our shoppers. I know I’ve blogged before the advantages of having a business online, but going into retail has its advantages too.

If location is good, you get steady traffic for your store and there would always be an opportunity for a sale. In an online retail shop, good traffic is highly dependent on how you market your site. For a boutique like us, it’s also challenging to get shoppers to buy if they’re particular about the fabric, cut and dimensions of a particular piece.

Going into retail would give us a chance to further establish our brand here with our market. When a brand is marketed well and is highly visible, there’s an opportunity to attract more loyal customers. What’s even more important is that we would get to interact with our shoppers more, and get to know what their needs are. This, I believe, is one of the key essentials in growing a business. 

There’s one thing to look out for in going into retail though. We have to make sure that our sales could cover the overhead expenses we would be incurring like rent, manpower, utilities, taxes and so on. We’re already crafting our business plan so we would know our capital requirements, financial projections and sales forecasts among others. I personally think that given the right numbers, the retail component of our business would complement our online presence well. It would allow us to attract a wider customer base, and moreover there’s nothing compared to a full product experience which can never be offered online. 

Wish us good luck. We’ll be opening soon.

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Tags: business opportunity, business plan, marketing a brand, online store, pink boutique, retail store