- What was the most difficult to figure out on starting the boutique? EVERYTHING! Just kidding, but I have 0 experience running my own business so I've had to figure everything out from the ground up. In all seriousness, the legal side of things as far as getting the LLC and certifications needed to legally run an online boutique. This seems to vary state by state, so googling "How to Start an Online Boutique?" didn't always point me in the right direction. I have heard that accountants should be able to help you with all this, I just didn't go through one to save money.
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What has been your favorite part of the process so far?
- BUYING - I have spent COUNTLESS hours searching through catalogs trying to find the perfect collection for everyone. Y'all know how much I love shopping and now I get to do it for a job. CRAY! I also love knowing I'm going to be finding things that help you feel your best, most confident version of yourself.
- COMMUNITY - I love seeing how much you are all invested in this process as much as I am! Whether it's cheering me on, getting excited about the little victories, telling me your favorite pieces from that weeks launch, helping me decide whether to buy something or not.... it feels like such a collaborative process!
- PERSONALLY - Growth. This is putting me out of my comfort zone SO much. I do everything myself. My mom takes my photos and helps me bounce ideas around, but otherwise it's all me. I do all of the bookkeeping in Quickbooks, e-commerce & website, documents/legal things I need, finances and figuring out what to save/reinvest/taxes, buying & inventory, pricing, #'s for launches. It's overwhelming but it's teaching me SO much.
- What advice would you give to someone in your shoes when the idea was just that? JUST GO FOR IT. You have nothing to lose but time & money. One day you'll look back and say "I wish I went for it" OR you could say "Holy shit i'm so happy I did, this is so successful". Or maybe it'll be "yeah it didn't work out, but it taught me so much". As far as actually starting the business: figure out the name so you can buy the domain & create social media accounts, get a logo, figure out your niche, set your budget. Then make sure you have all the legal documents/bank account done.. and GO!
- What made you want to start your boutique? At the end of the day, all I want to do is help people through sharing my life experiences. Whether you can learn from it, relate to it, laugh from it.. whatever! I always had this pull on my heart to share my life and connect with others. Ever since my Eating Disorder I felt like I learned so much and I felt like I could help people. I re-started my blog and fell in love with clothes & fashion and became obsessed with finding clothes I felt confident in. When I was deep into my eating disorder, I hated myself & my body and I would change 10 times before I left the house, to end up in my 1 staple outfit. I also needed a distraction from everything else going on in my life, so I started shopping and sharing my clothes & got a lot of positive feedback. But, blogging gets EXPENSIVE. When you first start out you're (or at least I was) buying a ton of clothes to share to only make a SMALLL commission if people shopped through my links. I couldn't keep up! It also got super frustrating when some of my staple pieces would go out of stock, so I couldn't even get a commission from them anymore! I wanted more control over making money from what I share, and the style, and price and branding and also tie in charitable donations to different Domestic Violence organizations. Then, I created Love, Sal to bring it all together.
- What do you use for blog hosting? I bought my domain's through GoDaddy, I host my website SalClark.com through Wordpress, and boutique LoveSal.com through Shopify.
- Do you think the initial investment in the boutique was worth it? 100% yes!!! Starting an online boutique can be expensive, but it doesn't HAVE to be. I would say all the legal documents and start up supplies is less than $750, probably even $500 if I really added it all up! YOU decide how much money you want to invest in inventory. My initial investment was about $3,000 of my own personal money, and you decide how you want to move from there. You can definitely wait until you see a return on the clothes you sell, and then put that back into it and work completely off a cash basis. I decided to open a credit card with my business account that has a $10,000 limit because I wanted to be able to have new arrivals weekly, but again, you don't HAVE to do this. I definitely would not suggest doing that if you aren't good with finances. It just works for me to get more inventory while I start out. It's all about re-investing a percentage of profits!
- How did you find the right vendors? I started by looking in my own closet! I looked at the clothes I bought from boutiques & look at the tag to try and find the vendor. It helped me trust quality, sizing, fit... things like that. There is also SO much info out there if you google, YouTube, podcast... you just has to dig for it. I also don't buy anything through the site I shop through that is less than 4.5 out of 5 stars. Sometimes I will take a chance on a vendor I haven't heard of, but I buy a very limited amount so I'm not out a ton of money if it doesn't work out. There are also fashion markets in bigger cities every year, where vendors go set up booths & tables and you can go see & feel the clothes, and buy for the season. My goal is to go next year!!!!
- Do you plan to bring in shoes / jewelry / accessories? Yes, I definitely want to and plan to, I just don't know exactly where to begin. With clothes you can look at the material and style and judge whether it will be a good option, but accessories & shoes are a whole different game! How do you know shoes will be comfortable? Or if the jewelry will be good quality? I just need to do more research!
If you have any more questions, please DM me at www.Instagram.com/ShopLoveSal !! ❤️💕