My Boutique Business - Research Paper Example

Business Plan for my Boutique In this paper I will outline my plan for a successful clothing boutique. I will first concentrate on finding the right area for it. I will specify the type of area, the building I will need, and the rental costs. I will then discuss the merchandise I will carry: its price, quality and brand names. Finally I will describe the relationship I will enjoy with my suppliers: the language I will use with them and the warranties and service I will expect. This will function as the summation of my business plan. I intend to sell upscale, fashionable clothing for a style conscious customer base. To do so, I will first have to determine where such persons congregate. I will need to do a demographics study of my community, focused on average income. I will look at housing prices particularly, as this is the best single indicator of socioeconomic status. I will couple this with a consideration of the average age of the residents as well as number of children. Older wealthy persons have significant financial reserves, but they tend to be cautious in their spending and conservative in their clothing choices. Thus I will look for a business site where there is a large number of young to middle aged person, still working and near the height of their earning years. I will also look for an area where many upper class persons have teenage and college age children. Younger persons tend to be more fashion conscious than older ones, and are more likely to pay a premium for name brands and the latest trends in apparel. My choice will come down to a mall in an upscale area. Malls draw a wide variety of shoppers, an inordinate number of whom are younger and who tend to spend freely. I will need a large storefront, as today’s shoppers demand a wide selection. My budget will need to take this into account, as well as the costs involved in hiring a professional store designer. With my customers, appearance is virtually everything. As I will be selling highly desired products, other concerns for me will be the level of security in the mall as well as my own need to employ anti-shoplifting technology and possibly a store detective to ferret out shoplifters. Items will need tags with computerized chips that will set off an alarm if an item is concealed and the person tries to walk out with it. If possible, I will try to locate my store near the mall’s food court, as it tends to be a gathering place for customers. Alternatively, I will want it to be located near the mall entrance, where customers will see it when they first enter. I do not want them to spend their funds before discovering me. My opening day will be advertised on the Internet, in local papers and magazines, and possibly on nearby billboards. These ads will also need the services of a graphic artist familiar with commercial designs. They will need to convey an air of sophistication, including images where beautiful people wear beautiful clothing. The date of my opening will also be strategically chosen to coincide with peak shopping times. Later July or early August would be ideal, as young people and their parents are shopping for back to school items, including clothing. Also, opening early in the Christmas shopping season would be a good strategy on my part, as then people are purchasing clothing as gifts. I will want my location to be in a part of the mall where other youth and fashion enterprises are located, such as arcades, jewelry stores, and kiosks that sell upscale fashion items. I want to avoid sections of the mall dominated by older persons, as this will repel my desired demographic. I want to be careful not to set up shop in a mall that is already crowded with upscale clothing venues. On the other hand, I don’t want to be in an area which is so small that few people care about current styles. An ideal location would be a midsize community that is just now developing economically and drawing affluent and upper middle class persons. Such a town will likely not yet have a business of the sort I am starting, so I will offer something unique to their area without any competition from older, more established merchants in the local region. To maintain my clothing line’s appeal, I will need to be aware of what trends and styles are currently in vogue. To accomplish this I will read fashion magazines, visit fashion websites, and watch MTV and other media outlets featuring famous, wealthy young persons. I will take note of their clothing and jewelry choices and stock my store accordingly. However, many celebrities wear brands that are beyond the means of even upper middle class customers. So I will need to find “clones” of these items that will match the appropriate price range. Wholesale catalogs and glamour magazines will give me guidance in these decisions. I will need to plan in advance for seasonal changes. People wear different types of clothing during the different seasons. I will need my merchandise to reflect this fact. I will also need a degree of being proactive in watching for emerging trends and make sure that my clothing line changes with those developments. My promotional efforts will be bolstered by significant word of mouth marketing from my customers. Friends of those who purchase my stock will want to know where they can find similar items. I will try to concentrate on items that prominently display the line’s name or the designer’s name. This is like a walking billboard. My customers will literally provide me with free advertising in this regard. Another factor is choosing my line will be the gender balance among my customers. Most people buy clothes for themselves, so if most of my target group is male then I will want to stock accordingly; the same is true if it is female. I will need to be careful in my pricing. I do not wish to sell for too low and be cheated of possible profits. On the other hand, if I price too high volume will suffer. I will need to use similar merchants in similar communities near my geographical region as a benchmark to guide me in this process, and monitor sales for continuous feedback and pricing revisions if necessary. Good relations with reliable suppliers will be an indispensable part of my business prospects. Modern logistics strongly favor maintaining relationships with multip0le streams of supply. This will allow me to locate the best price possible for my stock, as well as help to insure that I can obtain the items I need to carry. for example, supplier A may only have three pairs of the jeans I need, and their wholesale price may be quite high. But supplier B may have two dozen pair for me at half the cost of the first. for this reason I should diversify among my suppliers. (Institute) Cost and selection are not the only factors to be considered, of course. Items are retuned on occasions, and when mine are I will need to ensure that my business partners will credit my account for the defective items. Also, whether or not they can handle warranty situations is another very important consideration for me. One possibility is for me to employ a tailor or seamstress or to contract with one in the local area. For instance, let us say that I sell someone a shirt and the customer returns with it,. complaining that two buttons have fallen off. If I had such a local person, I could take the item to them for repair and return it to the shopper quickly. Good relations with suppliers entails communicating with them while emphasizing courtesy and a professional attitude. If I anger a supplier they will be less likely to provide me with the top notch service I will need in the future. My conversation language will need to be firm but diplomatic, even when I feel they have disappointed me in their service. To summarize: I will locate my boutique in an upscale area of a smaller city where a business like mine has not yet opened. I will select a mall location where younger persons with financial means are likely to visit. I will have my store designed by professional decorators familiar with the image I am trying to create and with my target market. I will rotate items for sale to be current with seasonal change as well as fads and trends in fashion. I will facilitate good relations with a large number of suppliers, so that I can count on reliable and cost effective wholesale purchases. And I will use professionalism and courtesy in my relations with the people. These ideas form the core of my business plan, which I believe will be a successful one. Works Cited Institute for Supply Chain management. www.ism.ws/. Read More