 A boutique store is a store that specializes in a particular niche. Typically it's going to be either clothes, accessories, or both. The boutique. Now a boutique store differs from a typical clothing store in the fact that it's for the most part going to be branded and it's going to be branded to that particular niche. You can essentially see a boutique store as a store that has a bigger passion for what they're selling. So they really do believe in their products versus any other store that's just going to sell whatever. Now the great thing about a boutique store or starting up a drop shipping boutique store is the fact that you can charge some pretty high prices. Boutiques typically are not going to be the cheapest or the most economical because of their specialized niches. And customers understand that. Customers know when they go into a boutique store they're most likely going to be paying higher prices than they typically would in any other store. And they're totally okay with that. Totally. This video is going to focus on everything that you need to know about boutique stores and how you can get started with yours. So if you've been wanting to start in the drop shipping business and you've been wanting to open up your own store specifically a boutique store or one that is specialized to a particular niche that you're passionate about then make sure you check out this video all the way through because it's going to cover everything that you need to know. Now how does boutique drop shipping differ from your typical drop shipping? Well it really doesn't. It's the exact same thing. It's the same type of business model. So essentially what you're doing is you're rerouting orders that you get from your customers. A customer is going to come to your store. They're going to place an order and instead of you fulfilling it you're going to reroute that order to your supplier and then your supplier is going to fulfill the order, ship it and provide you with the tracking number. In which case then you go on ahead and you give that tracking number to your customer. It's pretty much it. The price difference that you charge between what you source and what you sell it at is your profit. Now what are some of the advantages versus some of the disadvantages of starting a boutique drop shipping store? Well for one since we are drop shipping you're going to have a pretty low startup cost. You're really not going to have to pay for almost anything at all except for any fees that you incur for let's say your website. Or maybe if you pay somebody to do your logo then in that case that's what you're going to be paying for. But to actually get started drop shipping or get started building one of these stores you can start for pretty much completely free. Of course if you do have a budget that you can start with you are going to be able to scale a little bit quicker. Now because we are drop shipping you don't have to deal with absolutely any inventory. You're not going to have to deal with packaging orders. You're not going to have to deal with driving to the post office or any of that stuff. Your supplier is going to do everything for you. What you have to do is focus on growing your business. And one of the best ways to grow your business is going to be by focusing on product research. So a lot of the time that you're going to save from fulfilling orders you should be reinvesting in product research to get some better products out there. Also with a boutique store you're able to sell your round. You're not going to be limited to specific times of the year. Although during specific times of the year like holidays in particular you are going to have a pretty good increase in sales. A lot of the times for the holidays especially for Christmas people love to purchase from boutique stores for the simple fact that they're going to find unique items on there versus what they're going to find in your typical mall. All right those were the advantages now what about some of the disadvantages. So for one you don't really have control over stock. So unfortunately if your supplier runs out of a particular item let's say your best seller then chances are you might be out of that product until the manufacturer or the supplier restocks. Now one way that you can go around this is simply by having multiple suppliers. Now I know when you have unique items especially some that you're going to be selling on a boutique store it might be hard to find the same item with a different supplier. But if you're able to show them a sample then maybe they can come up with the item for you. So certain suppliers do have product sourcing which in turn can help you bring in a product that another supplier makes. Another thing you can do is go to a different manufacturer and see if they can manufacture the product for you. Now along with not having control over stock you also don't have control over shipping. Unfortunately when it comes to shipping that's something that you're really not going to have absolutely any control over. But you can get in contact with the suppliers and you can come into an agreement with them letting them know that you are drop shipping and certain products might need to be expedited just a little bit when it comes to shipping. Just a little. Also you always always always want to make sure that you get a tracking number. If you don't have a tracking number then you're never going to know where your product is or even when to expect it. So it's absolutely crucial that you get a tracking number from your supplier. If you don't ask them to give you a different shipping method something that does provide a tracking number and if they don't have absolutely anything that can help you out with that then just completely avoid them. Go to a different supplier that will provide you with a tracking number. If you can't provide something so simple then the customers probably aren't going to trust you that much so they would prefer to spend their money elsewhere. There's also a lot of competition but truthfully speaking this is in pretty much any business or any niche out there. At this point every single business especially every online business is going to be oversaturated but that doesn't mean that you can't succeed. It's up to you to really put in the work and try to stand out from the rest in order to actually start making some sales and succeed. But again just because there's a lot of competition doesn't mean that you can not succeed. Everything at this point is going to have a lot of competition so don't let that discourage you. Also if you're starting a boutique in particular in order to succeed you are going to need to build your own brand. When you have a boutique store you're not going to have a general store. You're going to have a branded store and that's why you're able to charge a little bit more than all of the other stores can. But don't be scared building a brand is actually a lot easier than you think. One of the main things that you need to do and keep in mind is just stay consistent. Stay consistent with your brand values. Stay consistent with your logo. Stay consistent with your fonts and your colors. Everything needs to stay consistent. Let's say somebody sees the color green and black and that's your brand color. That can potentially remind them of your brand. Also make sure your logo is relevant to your niche or to the business that you're in. Don't have a logo of a camera lens and you're selling kitchenware. It's really not going to make absolutely any sense and it's not going to help your brand awareness either. If you're selling camera equipment or anything that has to do with photographs then a lens is perfectly acceptable as a logo. But if you're selling kitchen equipment try to stick something that has to do with kitchen stuff like knives, whisks, chef's hat, you know stuff like that. Nice knife. Now what about your products? What are you going to do with your products? Where are you going to source them from? Well obviously you're going to need some reliable suppliers for your dropshipping store or your dropshipping boutique store. You can't just go with absolutely anybody. You can go to a generic one like let's say AliExpress and shop around there and just check out some of the different sellers that are on there and see which one of them match your brand values, maybe your brand colors or your overall style. And remember it's crucial that you don't just stick to one supplier. Look for multiple suppliers. If you're sourcing from AliExpress look for different sellers that are on there that are somewhat similar and don't just stick to AliExpress. Look for different suppliers as well. Check out CJ Dropshipping, the HK and if you really want to niche down and be specialized in a particular niche then I highly suggest checking out Etsy as your dropshipping supplier. Etsy is the boutique superstore. Everything on there is essentially already a boutique. And the best thing is is that everything that you purchase from Etsy you can resell. You can use Etsy as both a selling platform and a supplier. Something that you really want to look for in your suppliers is a big product catalog. At least a big product catalog in your niche. You don't want to go with a supplier that has a lot of kitchen supplies if you're solely selling accessories. Because they might not have what you're looking for. And they might run out of particular products a little bit quicker than others. Especially if they're not specializing in that particular niche of that product. We don't sell pies, we sell donuts. Sorry I don't really know if that made sense. But pretty much what I'm trying to say is simply look for suppliers that have your style products. Look for suppliers that have products in your niche and have multiple products or a wide range of products. Don't look for suppliers that have a wide range of products in a different niche than yours. Make sure that your suppliers align with your brand with your niche and with your style. Another thing that you want to look for in a supplier is making sure that they have the proper return policies. You want to make sure that they for one actually accept returns to begin with. Some suppliers aren't going to do that. And if that's the case and your customer wants to return an item it's going to be on you. You're going to end up losing money if your supplier doesn't accept returns and you're going to have to accept it yourself because if you have a defective product that went out it's going to look bad if you don't take it back. So always make sure that your supplier has proper return policies. Same thing goes for their shipping policies. Make sure that your supplier ships out items quick. Don't choose a supplier that's going to ship out an item two weeks from the day that they get the order. Because that's going to be two weeks that your customer has to wait and then they're going to have to wait even longer because of the time that the item is going to be in transit. So always make sure that you have a supplier that has quick shipping as well. If possible choose a supplier that has items that ship within 24 to 48 hours at the most. And also check to see that they have local warehouses to wherever it is that you're drop shipping to. So if you're drop shipping in the US make sure that you have suppliers that are shipping from the US. That way you can guarantee some pretty quick shipping. If you're solely sourcing products from China then your shipping is really going to vary. Sometimes it can be two weeks. Sometimes it can be a month. Sometimes it could be one week. It's not going to be consistent. Now if you are looking for a supplier that has some pretty fast shipping that can sometimes even rival Amazon and some high quality items with a return policy then you want to make sure that you check out the AutoDS marketplace, their suppliers and the warehouse. So to gain access to this what you're going to need is an account over at AutoDS.com. If you don't have one though it's totally okay. You can get started right now with the trial period for just one dollar. But once you're signed on this is the one thing that I want to show you which is my absolute favorite. So navigate on over here to the marketplace and once you're on here you can choose a supplier. You have three options. You have Amazon so you can source your items from Amazon from AliExpress or the AutoDS suppliers. Make sure you check out the AutoDS suppliers. Then you want to check out a particular category you can but this is a few of the things that I want to show you. So some of these ship out really really fast. The shipping times that you see here are actually business days for the item tickets to your customer rather than for the item to get shipped out by the supplier. So scrolling through you can see that a lot of them are about two weeks to get to the customer but some of them are even faster than that. Like this one in particular has a four to six business day shipping time and if you want to see items that ship even quicker you can just sort them by fast shipping. And then once you do that you're going to be prompted with a bunch of different items that ship even quicker. Like look at this one. This one gets to your customer between two to four business days. See what I'm talking about when I say rivaling Amazon? Now the best part of this whole thing is that you can connect your drop shipping store to your AutoDS account and doing so will enable you to import products to your store like this. If you find one that you like if you find one that goes along with your brand let's say I'm selling a boutique shoe store and I want to import this product over here. All I have to do is simply click on import draft and that's pretty much it. It's going to be ready to sell on my store within minutes. Now when you are getting ready to open up your own boutique these are a few tips that you should keep in mind when you're getting started and as you're getting started. So for one focus on your brand. Make sure that you pay a lot of attention to your brand because that's what people are going to remember. So make sure you have an eye-catching logo. Make sure that you have a logo that represents what you're doing or what your store represents. If you don't know how to build a logo then that's totally okay. You can use websites such as Canva to help you create one. They have tons of templates on there that you can easily click drag and drop in order to start creating your own or you can have a professional make it for you on a website like Fiverr. I love using Fiverr because on there you can find a variety of different experience levels for the artist that you're working with and that's also going to vary the pricing as well. So you can find some logos that will start off as cheap as five dollars and some that'll go up to five hundred or even a thousand dollars. Same goes for your website. Make sure that your website follows your brand style and goes along with the logo. Again, if you don't know how to create your own website you can use Shopify. On Shopify they have a ton of super easy to use templates. These templates are very easy to customize and they're very beginner friendly. Aside from that you can also hire somebody from Fiverr or if you don't want to deal with your own website at all another place that you can start up your own boutique store and be pretty successful because this is one of the main places for boutiques is simply open up an account at Etsy and start selling on there. The great thing is that whether you choose Shopify or you choose to sell on Etsy either way you can still automate your store with AutoDS because AutoDS supports both platforms. Also make sure that your customer service reflects your brand as well. Your customer service has to be top notch. Don't let that go. As drop shippers customer service is going to be on us. So always make sure you provide the best customer service be friendly no matter how dumb some of the questions might be but always be as friendly as possible. And after a while once you actually start scaling your business you can even outsource the customer service. You can find virtual assistance on Fiverr that can help you out with this part of the business. Another tip is to really consider your product research. Make sure the products that you're going with align with your brand style. Not just that but also make sure that the products that you're getting are trending. Don't just go with absolutely anything. If you want a resource to help you out with this then if you sign up for AutoDS you can also check out the TikTok ad spy. On here let's just go ahead and click into it really fast. So this is pretty much a library of different TikTok ads with a ton of different products. Here you can see the engagement rate. You can see the comments. You can see the links and you can see the videos themselves. So very quickly let's just go ahead and check out this video right here. I'm just going to click on see TikTok ad. Okay so this is a pack and order with me style video. So on here you can see that they were just packaging some jeans and this is all the information that you get from the ad itself. So you have for one the total number of impressions. This is going to encompass everything. You have the number of likes, the number of comments, shares, the total interactions and the interaction rate. Aside from that you get some extra information. So you have the video description. You have one it was posted, one the last time it was that it was seen. And if you keep scrolling you can see the products that are advertised in this ad which is all of these right here. So if you're wondering how you can start doing some proper product research or how to be a little bit extra when it comes to your product research definitely check out the TikTok ad spy. Aside from that though you can easily just search up TikTok yourself. You can either go on TikTok or Instagram Reels and just look up certain hashtags. Some of them being hashtag TikTok maybe buy it and see what's trending on there. One quick tip look for videos that are fairly recent. Try to stick to the last month if not sooner. Anything older than that can potentially just not be trending anymore. Best seller sections are also another great way to look for trending items that are currently being looked for. So let's say you're on Amazon you can just go ahead and click on over here and you can either go into best sellers or new releases. Typically best sellers are going to show you things that people are actually looking for and new releases is obviously going to show you items that have just come out but don't sleep on the new releases section. You can find items here before they're actually trending. So you can be the one to start the wave rather than the one that rides it. Another tip is to look for the best shipping possible. If you're shopping on let's say Aliexpress for your items then you're going to have a lot of different shipping items. Let's say you find the same exact product through two different sellers. One of them is going to offer you $10 shipping that's going to take a month while the other one can offer you free shipping that's guaranteed shipping within maybe a week or two. Always make sure you shop around for shipping and check out the different options that the sellers offer. Trust me you're going to find a lot of different options on this. As mentioned earlier also make sure you have good customer service. This tip is absolutely crucial. When a customer reaches out to you regardless of the inquiry try to get back to them at a maximum of 24 hours. Anytime after that chances are your customer is not even going to remember that they sent you an email and by that time they probably already made their purchase somewhere else. That did not go well. Now one major factor that plays into this is choosing proper suppliers. If you have a question that you don't know the answer to then you're going to have to reach out to your supplier and see what they tell you. If your supplier takes a week to get back to you unfortunately that's how long it's going to take you to get back to your customer because you're just not going to have the answer. So whenever you're choosing your suppliers always make sure that you send them an email as well. Make sure you just send them a quick test email to see how fast they get back to you and so you can make sure that there's no communication issues either because a lot of the times the suppliers that are overseas there's potentially going to be some sort of communication barrier. So make sure that that barrier is as minimal as possible. Now this next tip is one that is probably one of the most crucial ones and one that a lot of people tend to avoid which can actually end up causing the total failure of their store and that is selling copyright items. Do not sell copyright items, period. I had one store that was banned on Etsy because I was selling copyright items. The items I was selling had trademarked characters on them. I was selling certain anime t-shirts and certain anime merchandise that was cracked down on pretty quick and my store got shut down after I think it was three or four months. After my store was shut down I had to start building from the ground up once again and trust me when I say that that is not fun because I really had to relearn everything over again. I had to learn how to sell things that are not copyright. I had to learn how to come up with my own items, my own designs, and pretty much just get into a completely different niche overall. So if you don't want to start from scratch or have your store shut down don't sell copyright items. Completely avoid that. On top of that you can also get in some legal trouble. Now I mentioned earlier that the holiday season can be very good for a boutique shop and that's 100% true. People love to spend money during the holidays on their loved ones and a lot of the times they prefer to look for unique items from smaller shops. Not just because they have unique items but because people also really like to support local shops. They like to support small businesses which if you have a boutique you're considered a small business. Trust me, when I was selling on Etsy Christmas time was absolutely crazy. I was making so much money inspired. So if you have the option to open up your own Etsy store I highly suggest you do. If you can open up your own Shopify store and your own Etsy store do it. The more places that you can sell the more eyes you can get in front of. And the last tip that I'm going to leave you with is to make sure you use unique marketing tactics. Make sure you market your store appropriately. There's a bunch of different ways that you can market your store depending on the platform that you're selling on. Primarily speaking though you're going to be marketing your store more if you have your own website. If you're selling on Etsy then you can still run ads but you're going to be running ads on the actual Etsy platform. If you're selling on Shopify then you have a few more ways to be able to bring in traffic. So for one you can do Facebook ads. Facebook ads are pretty much king when it comes to dropshipping but right now there's another one that's creeping into it which actually might have already surpassed it and that is TikTok. So you can also run TikTok ads but you don't have to run ads on TikTok sometimes ever. You can do organic marketing on TikTok as well. What this means is simply order your product, start making videos, start making content and start posting it on TikTok. Same goals for Instagram Reels. If you're posting on TikTok post on Instagram Reels. Now on social media there's no shortage of influencers. So look for different influencers in your space. Look for some that have 50,000 followers some that have 100,000 and more. Of course this is really gonna vary on the platform itself. On Instagram it's a lot harder to build an audience than it is on TikTok but that's beside the point. Look for influencers in your space and reach out to them. See if they'll make a video for you. See if they'll promote your item. Find out what they require in order to do so. If you can get an influencer to show off your product in one of their posts or one of your videos then you can get your brand or your goateek store in front of the eyes of a ton of completely new people. Most of them being potential new customers but make sure that the influencer that you decide to work with falls in line with your brand values. You don't want to go to an influencer whose page is primarily about cars and you're selling girls clothing. It's just not going to work. The audience that this influencer has is not going to be interested in girls clothing. So let's say you're selling girls clothing a type of influencer that you can go for could be a mom, a mom influencer or a mom influencer. That's what this mom is for. So make sure that your brand values align with the influencers and that's pretty much everything that you need to know about starting up your own boutique drop shipping store. If you found this video helpful if you found it informational please make sure to smash that like button. Also I want to hear your thoughts on this. What do you think about boutique stores? Do you think they're worth starting up? Is it something that you've been wanting to do? Do you prefer generic stores instead? Let me know down in the comments below. Huge thank you to all of you for watching especially if you made it all the way to the end as always it truly means a lot. If you made it this far of course that means you enjoyed the video. So make sure you just smash that like button make sure you hit that subscribe button and make sure you ring that little bell notification so you don't miss out on any future videos. Huge thank you once again to everyone for watching. My name is Mario with AutoDS I'll catch you guys next time.