The most startling statistic is that more than 95% of all purchases will be made online by 2040. Online clothing sales accounted for 46% of all online purchases in the US last year. Take those two figures together, and it's plain to see that owning an online Clothing Boutique has enormous potential for success in the years ahead.
There are five secrets to eCommerce that work for all businesses. These are your website, advertising, organic posting, communicating by e-mail and SMS, and live selling. This article will look at how you can integrate these elements into the other ideas about making things hum in your online clothing boutique.
Must-Do Attention to Your Website
Think of your website as your storefront. One of the first steps is to choose a name and domain for your online clothing boutique. Your niche product and your target customers will influence your choice.
Once you've done that, you need to choose an eCommerce platform. We are assuming that you have already decided on your logo and brand colors and have images of your products. You will need these when getting to grips with an online store builder to create your website.
Getting all these things right from the get-go will make launching your online store so much easier.
While you can do all these things yourself from scratch, BitBranding already has the broadest overview of the best options. As marketers, we incorporate design into your eCommerce website to maximize UX (user experience) and customer engagement.
Discuss the features you want on your eCommerce website with Bitbranding. We will probably suggest a few more that you have not thought of. That's because we've got our eye out for the latest tech in web development that guarantees a longer life for your website.
Advertising Your Clothing Boutique
Marketing on Instagram has endless possibilities that seem tailor-made for online clothing boutiques. With so many different types of ads to choose from on Instagram, you can make your feed lively and captivating for existing and potential clients.
Posting possibilities on Insta include:
- Photos
- Videos
- Stories
- Collections
- Carousels
Instagram has the advantage of call-to-action buttons, which can take users directly to your store. Another marketing musts include branded hashtags.
Of course, Instagram is not the only social media platform out there. Still, its popularity and creative possibilities work very well for online stores, especially those with niche clothing and fashion items. Thriving niche markets exist for plus-size boutique clothing, children's boutique clothing, and vintage clothing for men and women.
Paying attention to your Instagram analytics will help you improve your ads as you go along. The Bitbranding team, with its background in digital marketing, can help you get started or manage specific campaigns for you.
Paid advertising on Facebook is an option, but so is organic posting on Instagram.
Digital Marketing and Organic Posting
Any eCommerce clothing boutique should read up on the latest digital marketing techniques. The internet is full of great advice ranging from content marketing (such as blog posts on your website, backed up by stories on Instagram) to digital advertising.
Organic posting on Instagram involves users posting sponsored ads. This mechanism has been around for about two years. It allows influencers to enter into "paid partnerships" with advertisers. The net effect is increased reach for your brand.
A word of warning, though: read guides published by the Federal Trade Commission to avoid violating consumer protection laws.
If you're going it alone on Instagram, the best thing to do is to follow your competitors or successful online clothing brands and see how they operate- And then do the same - only better!
SMS and E-Mail Communication
Unless you're going into wholesale boutique clothing, your main income stream will come from B2C sales.
The term business-to-consumer (B2C) means that you are selling directly to your consumers. There is no middle person. This means that you need to maintain good relations with your customers to ensure they return.
The B2C business model relies on eliciting an emotional response to their marketing in their customers. Personalized customer relationship management, such as on-site chatboxes and periodic customer newsletters or SMS alerts when new products they are interested in are available, are all ways to make your customers feel special.
E-mailshots and SMS notifications about sales, promotions, and new products have anecdotally proven to increase sales. If you keep on top of this type of communication as well as populating your Instagram and other social media feeds with interesting content, then you'll be well on your way to owning a successful online clothing boutique.
If you find e-mail and SMS a little outmoded, why not consider the opposite? The latest gamechanger is live selling.
Up Your Game to Live Selling
Live selling has taken the digital world by storm and has captivated so many consumers that we have made an entire podcast on live selling and how it can double or even triple your sales revenues. Go from thriving to uber-thriving. And yes, the podcast is talking about live selling for a clothing boutique.
Use live selling to move from being just another online fashion store to creating that warm, fuzzy "clothing boutique near me" feeling" for your customers. This really is the best thing since sliced bread!
Gear Up a Notch
The scope of this post does not really allow too much space to give you solid advice, such as vetting your clothing suppliers and the quality of the clothing they supply. Any recommendation we make about possible partnerships with 3PL (third-party logistics companies) for your shipping arrangements would be highly subjective and would not take your location and the location of your customers into account. We figure you've got the smarts to work that out for yourself.
What we can do is help you make the best online clothing boutique possible. To get you started, we're offering you a free 15-minute video on how to get up and running really quickly.
We touched on our special Ecomm Accelerator Process in the article outlined above designed to make your online Clothing Boutique grow. If you want to find out more, contact us and schedule a strategy meeting. We will be more than happy to help you flourish in this exciting new digital world!
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