Setting up a women's boutique

Soledad

I have a property in an ideal location which I am considering converting into a retail premises in order to sell women's clothing.
Can anyone give any advice on how to go about sourcing clothes to sell. Where should I be looking.
This is at the initial 'just an idea stage' but I need to move fast and come up with a plan or my other half will insist we let the premises out to a third party.
Any ideas anyone?
I am totally new to this area.....

surfin

Hi!
Cool, i really hope it takes off for you.
I would firstly love to know what kindof market you are aiming at and then you will be able to narrow down where you look for stock.
Are you going to do Shoes, bags and accessories also? If so i would highly reccomend travelling to Italy to a shoes fair called Micam in Milan - also stocks bags and accessories. The best shoe fair in Europe, you may be able to visit some suppliers through their agents in London or Dublin or alot of suppliers have agents in Belfast for some reason.
Its hard to say what stock labels to visit where but say you're heading along the lines of Elaine Curtis in Carlow, then most of their brands would have agnets in London, agents may come visit you or they may arrange an appointment for you at a 'show room' in Dublin.
I love 'see by Chloe' you should look into stocking that and also cacharel and Noa Noa and i love the my dress / my shirt range all very cool.
Can you say where you are opening your botique i love fashion, i'd love to work in fashion and hope to get into retail some day.
Wishing you all the best ask if you need any other info?
Best of Luck

Soledad

We are actually looking at fashion for larger women as there is an opening we think for it in our area. We are in Cork county.

onedmc

1) Trade Shows - Dont know the names but has to be loads, Futura in Ireland, must be other in the NEC birmingham, also in france belgium etc
2) Find the shop that you want to emulate, rob the labels, them do a search on the web their head office will put you in touch with local agents
3) Check out places like Fashon City

Before you open a retail store you need to do at least 6 months research and probably 12 months. I dont know but I would expect that the big brands will want you to order 6 months in advance.

onedmc

If you dont come from a fashon background, please please please get a job in a shop for 12 months before you go it alone.

Soledad

Why would you say that?

onedmc

You need to get a feel for the job, how boring is it going to be, what stock levels to keep (no of weeks), how the fashon season goes (styles, colours), when to discount, how returns work, taking forward orders/deposits, how to merchndise, what sizes to order and what quantities of each, what type of product is a regular re-order, what level of credit do they get from suppliers, how the staff are managed, even simple things like the end-of-day. As I said I dont know anything about fashon so I would think there are loads of other things to be consider.

So while your researching your products, getting ideas from others, perhaps travelling to trade shows and checking out ever single shop that you pass you might as well get paid and get hands on experience.

In general 1 out of 3 new shop fail in the first 2 years. When you include that multiples rarely fail then it must be nearly half. The most prepared people are the ones that suceed, so really I'm saying be totally prepared just coz the rent will nill dosnt mean that the cost of stock, staff, heating, rates etc will be nil.

Dubhelp

Could not agree more with above. We were going to set up a wedding shop after we got married and I managed to persaude my wife to take a position in Next to see what it was like working in Retail. 3 months later she went back to her old job.

lomb

The rent being nil definately helps. prime rents inclusive of service are up to 150 euro per square foot per year. an insane amount. although bear in mind these are shopping center rents with high footfall.
u can source your clothes from the various fashion importers located in fashion city, off the m50 at the ballymount turn off.
they have 'retail' display type areas, and there must be 20 of them there at least.

lomb

onedmc wrote:

When you include that multiples rarely fail then it must be nearly half. .

no but multiples can absorb large losses because persumably they have profitable stores. they can also weather storms that little retailers cant. hence thats why they are still there 20 years later..