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How Much Does it Cost to Start an Online Boutique?

Today, we’re talking about your budget and how much it costs to start an online boutique.

First, I’m going to talk about the factors that will affect your cost and budget and then I’ll go over a sample online boutique cost and budget in a video for you.

What are the 6 things that are going to affect the cost of your boutique?

1. The type of online boutique.

The two different types of online boutiques we’re going to talk about today are dropshipping and inventory based.

A quick overview of the difference between dropshipping and inventory based is that with dropshipping you don’t handle any product. Your vendor will ship directly to the customer.

An inventory based online boutique is where you will purchase the wholesale inventory in advance and when it sells, you ship it to your customer.

There’s pros and cons to both of these which I go over more in depth in my free workshop.

As far as cost goes, a dropshipping boutique is going to cost the least amount of money to get started because you’re not spending any money on inventory.

The main things you need to include in your budget for dropshipping are:

A website domain and platform. (I recommend Shopify.)
An email software to capture customer emails for email marketing.

And those are really the only two absolute necessities you’ll need to set up a dropshipping website.

For an inventory-based online boutique, you’re looking at the investment of the dropshipping boutique PLUS your inventory and supplies. Supplies for example could include shipping supplies like tissue paper, business cards, stickers, etc.

2. Product Type

What I mean by product type is exactly what will you be selling if you’re buying wholesale inventory. Will your boutique carry jewelry, shoes, dresses, coats, or candles?

All of these products vary drastically in their wholesale cost. Wholesale cost of a coat is going to be much higher than a candle.

You also need to know how much of each product type that you’re going to buy. This I’ll cover more in a little bit.

3. Price Point

Another thing that affects cost is your price point.

So, if you’re selling shoes in your online boutique – what brand or type of shoes are you selling? Are they high end or affordable shoes? Maybe you’re selling jewelry, are you selling costume jewelry or diamond jewelry?

The price point you’re selling at will also affect your cost and how much you will need in your budget to get started.

3. Marketing/Launch Strategy

There are two main ways that you can drive traffic to your online boutique. This is with organic traffic which is free and paid traffic which obviously costs money. This would be like running Facebook ads to your website.

Clearly this is going to affect your cost because one is free and the other could cost a lot depending on what your advertising budget is.

Check out my series here on 4 different ways to drive traffic to your website.

4. Available Funds

You could budget and plan all you want, but if you don’t have the available funds, you won’t be able to execute your ideas.

You either have the funds or you need to get them.

A few ways I have personally used to fund my boutiques are my own savings, bank loans, credit cards, and reinvesting from my boutique’s profit.

So, this one is really important. Please do not put yourself in a bad financial situation to try and start your boutique business.

If you are living paycheck to paycheck or are already having a hard time paying your bills, now might not be the right time for you to start a new business.

Be patient and wait until you can invest in your business without being stressed about it.

I saved for a year before I bought my first inventory which was $700.

As time went on and I made more and more sales, I continued to reinvest back into my business until I was where I wanted to be with sales and inventory.

Then I was able to take out a loan for my brick and mortar boutiques.

So if your initial investment is low, start small and keep saving. But please be financially responsible with your personal life as well.

5. Profit Goals

How much you spend starting your boutique will also depend on your profit goals and how much you want to pay yourself or reinvest back into your business.

You have to know what your profit goals are to know how much inventory to buy to meet those goals.

Let’s go over a sample budget for both a dropshipping boutique and an inventory-based online boutique here in this video.