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You've decided that you are ready to open that children's boutique. I'm so excited for you, first of all, but now you're thinking like, what are the first couple of steps that I need to take?

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What am I really supposed to like do from here?

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This is a very common comment we see here on my YouTube channel. I have a great video about why you should open one, but like most people are asking, Yeah, Emily, okay, but how do I start actually? So that's what we're going through in this video. So stay tuned. Okay, hi, if we haven't met yet, I'm Emily Benson, and I am a consultant for boutique owners, retailers and product sellers. I really want you to get started with success. And so I actually have written a book about how to start a boutique and it has a workbook that goes with it These are available on Amazon now. I will warn you this isn't specifically about kids boutiques, but it's more general so if you're looking to write a business plan or just looking for some actual numbers on like a How much does a storefront cost? How much is insurance? Things like that. That is all in my book. The workbook goes with the book.

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They go hand in hand.

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And yeah, they're available on Amazon. We'll put the link below. But I don't want to miss telling you about this because I often forget to talk about my book. Okay, step one.

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Step one, I think most people think is like, pick a name, go by the domain name, yes.

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You should do all that stuff, but like for reals for reals, you actually need to figure out who you're gonna sell to. The thing with children's boutiques and kids boutiques is like kids don't have any money So really you're not selling to kids you're selling to their mom their dad. There's you know aunts uncles grandparents friends aunties whatever whatever those family members are. So that's the biggest thing you really want to start with is like, what is the budget of these people? What are they looking for? Do they care about durability? Do they care about it being cute and sweet? Do they care, you know, what, what really is this customer persona for a kids boutique? It's really an adult. And I think the most important thing you've got to look at is what are the ages of these kids that people are buying things for, right? Like I know for me, At my shower when I had my baby We got a lot of gifts that were sized up to like size 12 months and then that's it Then we were like on our own good to go buy her own clothes So it's interesting because now when I buy gifts for people for their showers I'll often buy like size 18 to 24 months or 2t or bigger things because because that's where you run out of clothes, right? So you've got to think about the mindset of people who are coming in to shop for baby showers or self-shop for themselves, right? At what point does the mom start shopping now or the dad start shopping for the kids? There is a certain point where that kind of starts to happen. You also want to think about where else are these people shopping, right? Because They're going to shop at Carter's. They probably shop at Old Navy. They probably shop at Kohl's, some of these bigger stores. They're going to shop there because they're going there for other things as well. What's going to make you stand out? Why is your product line? Why are your prices? I mean, honestly, I wouldn't even compete on price for kids stuff if I were you because you're never going to win. I would compete on on quality of clothes, the assortment. I mean, I will tell you right now, we bought one pair of jammies at a kid's boutique. My daughter would not take them off. So we went back and we bought four more pairs of jammies because they're her favorite now in the world. And yes, we bought bigger sizes so she can grow into them. What I want to convey to you is that it's not always about price point. And I think with the kids stuff, you really think, oh, well, we can't afford a lot. We've got to be cheap. It's got to be inexpensive. I will tell you right now over and over, I am much happier with a brand as a mom that I can rebuy or wash it a lot and she can still wear it, right? So the cheaper it is doesn't necessarily mean better quality. And so I think you want to talk about that in your marketing. You want to talk about that as you're building this customer persona. How does a mom want to be talked to versus a grandmother, versus an auntie, versus a dad?

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We know dads are shopping now.

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Millennial dads are more involved than they've ever been, right? And so there's definitely dads out there shopping for their kids. How can you appeal to them? These customer personas should be the first jumping off point. This is where a lot of people skip and they say, I'm going to go and go on GoDaddy and just RyanandRose.com and name it after my kids. I mean, I joke, but that's what I hear people do, right? Don't do that yet. Figure out this person, figure out your customer persona, because that's going to drive everything. If you don't know who you're selling to, you're not going to sell anything. Now that you have that, step number two is you are going to find product to sell to these people. You're probably saying, Emily, where do I buy product? Go to Alibaba or you know these China places or sheen or God I just don't even want to go down those roads again if we're talking high quality kids products they exist okay people are out there making them there's some beautiful things available on the market you just need to go to where these people are selling them so where do kids and children's apparel get so a couple of places. One is at trade shows. I highly suggest that you go to a trade show, whether it's local to you or you have to travel a bit. There are shows kind of all over the US. So in Dallas, there's Kids Con. In LA, there's Kids Market Week. In Vegas, you're gonna get ASC Market Week, which I spoke at. You also have the ABC Kids Show. And then in New York, you have Playtime and the Toy Show. These are all easily Google-able. You can go to these if you're just starting up. Just look at the requirements for attending the show. It's generally three to four days. In a location, you go and you get to shop a ton of different brands, a lot of different booths. And at some of these shows, you have a mix. You have some toys. You have some games. You have all different kinds of things, plus clothes, right? So you've got to think about what's going to be the best market for you. Go online. Line, look at the market, see the vendors, look up the vendors, see what they're selling, and figure out what's going to be the best fit. Personally, I'm a fan of trade shows, especially for a new boutique owner. You get to touch, feel, talk to people, make relationships. Honestly, just touching and feeling things is such a huge piece of it. And honestly, after the experience, about with PJs for my daughter, touching and feeling things has now become even more important to me as a mom consumer. The other place you can look is online for online shopping. So we always have FAIR. You can always join FAIR with my link down below. And it's free to sign up. It's an online platform where where lots of people sell their goods for wholesale and there's so many children's apparel and gifts and toy vendors on there. It's a great place to start. Now, do I think that going to a China-based vendor like an Alibaba and finding vendors through there and getting things made or buy things from that is a good idea? Yes and no. I mean, the thing about Asian vendors is like, you don't ever really know what you're going to get because until it's shipped to you, until you see the quality and all that stuff, you're just looking at pictures online. So if that's the route you want to go, do it. But no, you might have to invest some extra money to get samples and to see what vendors you actually want to work with. It's going to be a little bit trickier just because it's far away. It takes a while to get those samples, whereas like going to a show and meeting people and seeing where it's made and It's just more of a connection.

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Neither way is right or wrong.

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Neither way is more profitable or not. It's just how do you want to operate your business? What are you willing to, like, hoops to jump through? The money you want to invest? What's going to be the best route for you, right? Like, you're investing in either samples from Alibaba or you're investing in a ticket to LA to go to the Kids Mart, right? Like it's it's neither here nor there but finding good quality products is always what's going to make you stand out so if there's one place to invest right up at the front of your business planning like idea ideation and business planning it is going to be searching for inventory and having the best inventory you can now if you want to learn more more about how to buy inventory, what my processes are, and then some vendors that I love. You can always sign up to get our inventory guide. It's free. It's 18 pages. It has a ton of great knowledge, and it has vendors in it.

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So if you want to download that, you can click the link down below in the notes, or you can comment inventory below this video. And we will just post the link right under your comments. Speaking of business plans, you're probably sitting here thinking, I don't need a business plan. I'm going to tell you, you do. More often than not, if you are in a situation where this is your first business or your first product-based business, you want guidance. You want to have a plan. You want to have a time timeline, cost laid out, at least a rough business plan. Too many people jump into this, they buy the domain name, they buy product, they slap it up, and they think, oh, my business isn't working. That's when a lot of people end up finding me. And I'm okay with that. Please find me eventually, right? But the really the right way to do this is to create some kind of business plan, whether it's more formal or more rough, because you want to know what your costs are going to be. What are your ongoing costs? What's your marketing plan? What are the channels that this customer profile is buying from Are they buying on Instagram or TikTok? I think the first thing that most new boutique owners try to do is they say, oh, well, everyone says TikTok works, everyone says buy from Alibaba, and everyone does this. None of that is true.

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though and I do sell a more comprehensive education with charts and graphs and workbooks and videos and Q&A sessions and for someone like you, Boutique Basics Bootcamp is the best place to go even if you've already started. Come back to Bootcamp. Bootcamp is the course I think everyone should take if they want to start a boutique because it walks you through all the steps from beginning like we've talked about here in this video all the way through what's your launch plan, what's your reorder strategy, how are you going to actually grow your business. That is all in that course. So if you're interested in learning more about bootcamp, we have the link below or you can comment start below this video and we'll actually send you a free training that we've done about how to start. It's kind of like a prequel to the course, and it's free. It's a free training called How to Start a Clothing Boutique, and it will work for you too if you want to start a children's boutique because the principles are the same. So take that free webinar, see what I can give you even more next steps from here, and then if bootcamp seems like a good fit, we'd love to have you. But everything I've given you here today is really good. If you love this video, if you're like, this was actually really helpful, Emily, I did try to buy a domain name and, you know, do that. Listen, subscribe to my channel. Click the bell so that you get notifications. We're going to do more content around children's boutiques because you guys all love it. So comment below any questions as well. Thank you so much for joining. I'll see you on the next one. Bye, guys.