Any Experience in Opening Your Own Boutique?

I have done a little retail consulting. These are the basic questions I usually ask.

Have you ever worked retail?
Large store, mom and pop store?

If not..

Either consider an online store through etsy or
I suggest you work for t least 1 year to make sure you and your family can handle the hours of you just being an employee in retail. It is like the waitressing of the retail industry..

If you can work the 40 hours assigned to you for an entire year and your family can survive it, you may then think about how owning the store you will be working ALL of the hours your shop will be open. Because remember, hiring help is expensive. If you have an employee working for only $10. per hour.. How much merchandise is this person going to have to sell to pay for themselves?

How old are your children?
Do you have people that can care for them in the evenings and on the weekends?

Do you have e business plan?
There are workbooks at the book store that will help you.

Do you know where you want the store to be? What are the leases like, per month, the insurance? How long will the lease need to be? Some people require more than a years lease.

How much will you have to sell just to meet the lease? Most people make sure they have the amount of the lease for 2 to 3 years, just so they do not have to worry about it till the shop starts to make a profit.

What is average electricity bill? How many hours would you be planning on working?

I opened and managed 3 different family owned stores.

Our hours were,
10 - 6 - Monday - Sat, One store was also open on Sundays 11 - 5. And on Thursday nights till 8 pm.

Another store we were open 9:30 - 7:00 Mon - Sat.

That meant we had to be there an hour before to accept deliveries, and then stay late to close up the store.. Usually took about 20 minutes to usher people out, count money, turn off everything and lock up.

Remember the only holidays we had off was New Years Day, 4th of July, Thanksgiving day, and Christmas Day.
Because shoppers like to shop for holidays..

Do you know exactly what you want to sell?
Do you have vendors? Or artist that you can depend on?

If it is new merchandise, you would go to market in California.. Either the apparel mart or the gift mart. There are vendors that sell online, but you need to know the quality of the merchandise.

You will need a tax number to get into market and each show room will expect you to meet their minimum purchases per their vendors.. Meaning you can go into any showroom and purchase from them, but they sell for different companies and every company has a minimum dollar amount you need to meet to open to be able to order their items.

As an example if you want to carry small gifts, to open an account with many of the vendors you would need to purchase between $500. to a $1000. for the first order.. just with one vendor.

Example - Caspari paper goods. Those beautiful paper plates and napkins you see in cute gift shops. You need to spend at least $500. Wholesale for your first order.. After that you can reorder but it has to be at least $100. And you purchase in their set Quantities.

Sometimes a small individual will let you purchase $100. Minimum..

This is in no way to discourage you, it is a realistic beginning of things you need to consider.

I have had very wealthy clients decide to take over a cute gift shop, because "it looked like fun" and" they had always wanted to open a little shop"..
6 months later they were calling and crying, because they had not seen their children in weeks, had not had a day off, were always so busy, but still not making enough to even break even. They wanted to take a vacation and did not have anyone to watch the store.

So planning and having a stash of cash to support yourself while a storefront can establish itself is important.

I did once in Indonesia. I did survey on my friend's children age and gender. Then I bought some clothings that suits that age range and offered them to my friends when they visit or when I came to their houses.
It was kinda embarrassing at 1st, because you really need to sell the product. I told them that my clothings are 100% cotton, it won't strech and the pattern won't fade away.
I only take small percentage, like 10 percents, because I believe in sells more with little profits will be better in long terms, rather than big profits but then customers will think you take too much from them ( they won't come back).
You need to know what makes your products is special( the model, the fabric, or the comforts).
There are also sometimes naughty customers, who return the products after using it and said it is not suitable( but they already use it twice or thee times). You need to set the policy and stick to it. Friendly but firm.
I opened a little store finally, and I use my son as walking advertisement( because I only sell children clothings).
Start by little, and see how it works. With this, if this doesn't work, you don't lose much money.

Even with a tiny storefront, you will need a solid business plan, good tax and legal counsel.

When you find "the spot" make sure it has easy acces to get in and out of, busy area, foot traffic, etc.

We don't have a boutique but we own our own company and yes, there are some trying times but overall, we are proud to call it "ours" with no financial help from anyone but ourselves. We do have excellent tax and legal counsel and our sales should hit $4 million by the end of 2012. We are in raw materials... nothing glamourous, just a bunch of plastic!!

Are you thinking of selling handmade items? If yes I would start with etsy. I have a little shop there where I sell my diaper cakes. It's just a VERY small little side business for me, and I've only made a bit of money so far, but word is spreading and it's given me some encouragement to consider selling my items at some upcoming craft fairs so we'll see how it goes!
If you're thinking of reselling items that you've purchased in a leased space I'm afraid I can't help you there. Hopefully you'll get some good advice here :)
Here's a link to my etsy shop if you want to check it out:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/BabyCakesbyMamaZita

Location, location, location...you should find a small place with a lot of foot traffic, especially on the weekends.

I used to live in Santa Monica in the 80's and there were a ton of great little shops with used and antique items. You have a very educated group of buyers there and a lot of people with a lot of disposable income.

My recommendation is that you stick with what you are very good at. Small boutique meaning what? Clothes for whom? Knick-knacks? Antiques? Rent is high in Santa Monica, so you should ask around what local retailers are paying.

Perhaps as you ask around you could rent a corner of a store to start and see if what you are offering will do well.

You also have the option of sharing a space at Venice Beach to start interest up in what you are selling.

GL!