Building the Boutique

After going over a couple of different ecommerce hosts for the past 2 weeks, I made up my mind and signed up with Volusion earlier today. Yeah, I know, a couple of you warned me about them, and I really do appreciate your input. I really wasn’t 100% happy with any of the potential hosts I looked at. But the whole bandwidth/downtime issue was the only thing holding me off when it comes to Volusion ….whereas I had a whole number of issues with Shopify and CoreCommerce. Although I did have a pretty bad experience with their support people on live chat last night (one basically refused to answer my questions and purposefully LEFT the chat right in the middle of our conversation, and the other told me to import my products by hand and didn’t see it necessary to let me know there was a feature already installed to do it). Not such a great impression, unfortunately.

But otherwise, I’m really excited about Volusion though, mainly because I’ll be saving money. At Yahoo! I was paying $130/mo (plus transaction fees). On Volusion I’ll be paying $40/mo. No, you didn’t read that wrong, I’ll be paying less than a third of what I did before. It really makes me wonder how Yahoo even stays in business these days. At this point they’re technically ripping off their customers.

Within the next ten days or so I’ll be sprucing the site up and getting it ready before I change the domain servers over, so for the time being OohLaLuxe.com will be completely accessible, and there shouldn’t be much downtime. But man is there SO much to do, and so many little things. It really takes a lot of time to get a store set up, but it will save me so much time in the long run.

As I mentioned the other day, I’m planning on moving my store off of yahoo and onto a better eCommerce host. I spent the last couple of days trying out my top three choices. Here are a few notes I took on each…

Volusion
I spent two days going through Volusion and getting a feel of their interface. Tanya commented on my last blog and sent me this, which talks about their problems with bandwidth, so that makes me pretty skiddish.

Plus one of the features most important to me is customization. If I can’t use my own template, I can’t be bothered. And if it’s too complicated I can’t be bothered either. Volusion says theyre customizable, and I played around with their WYSIWYG editor a bit, but the free trial doesn’t give you FTP access so I can’t test my own template out. That’s a major thumbs down right there — I’m not going to give you $150 and then realize later that I can’t use my own design! But beyond just that, volusion is very, VERY powerful. There are actually a lot of features that I don’t need, and some of it is really complicated but if you watch their training videos, you’ll get the hang of it.

Shopify
I’ve heard this place is a bit more “simple” but I don’t really need something as powerful as Volusion. I also like that they use store tags, it seems easier to customize my site than V. Their interface is definitely prettier, although it looks like CJ and Volusions’ looks like wordpress (ew). They say they use store tags but they don’t seem to be as flexible as the store tags on Yahoo! stores…which probably both good and bad. Their tag language is called liquid and they have serverside software called Vision that allows you to customize your store design. If you ask me, “Vision” is pretty pointless, and fully customizable it’s not. The give you templates that you can edit, which is a pain in the butt if your design is already done. And there are sub template pages you have to edit, about six of them, and that makes it even more annoying — imagine having to make the same changes six times. Oh, and on top of that since they’re .liquid files you can only edit them BY HAND and not with a WYSIWYG editor. Yeah, NO way. I’m sure I could have figured out their langauge but I gave up after a while. Since I’ve heard better things about corecommerce anyways, it’s not worth wasting my time.

CoreCommerce
Oh boy, I’ve heard SO many good things about their services, but after starting their free trial yesterday, I have NO idea why. First off, their user CP isn’t very attractive or well designed. And there seems to be a lot of bugs in their system. I go to add something, and it doesn’t show up. I go to edit one little piece of text, and an entire form field will dissapear. Then I tried to customize the layout. Their system for customization seems to be the easiest and the most straight forward — you can upload your design, and they’ll break it up into a header and footer for all your pages. Simple, right? Well, if it actually worked correctly, I’m sure it would be. I uploaded my design, I went back and checked the html files, and all the right coding is there. I clicked view site…NONE of my layout is showing up. There are just a bunch of boxes with logos in them. There’s no layout on any of the subpages either.

Of course, my first thought is to go to support. Oh, wait, they don’t have online chat support. To me, that right there is a major, major site. You can not run a professional business that has anything to do with webhosting without online chat support, preferably 24×7 support. So I decided to be patient and submit a ticket. I waited, and waited, eventually went to bed, woke up, still no response. Over 15 hours later, I finally received a reply from the team…and it was a non answer answer. I really don’t get how anyone can rave about their services. Sure, I’ve only been using them for 1 day but their support is HORRIBLE and that’s not excusable.

So I’m kind of back where I started. I’m not loving any of these three choices, although I’m leaning a bit towards Volusion. But the most obnoxious thing is that none of them will give me ftp access so I cant fully test out my template, which is extremely frustrating. On top of all that, I’ll have to change the urls to my pages after I’ve spent so much time and money building backlinks to the ones I already have. Ugh. I had no idea making this decision would be so complicated!

I’ve been making a lot of last minute decisions recently. Well, not really; these changes have been a long time coming but I expected to put them of for a while. First was changing the entire layout of the site, which I’ve wanted to do for quite a while. I think the store could look a lot more professional and put together, and I think it will improve sales because customers will “trust” the site more (and it’s really hard to get that trust when customers have never heard of you before).

I actually put the finishing touches on the layout today, but I had some problems installing it so I contacted Yahoo! store support about it and, well, their answers (or lack thereof) convinced me that it’s time to move to a better ecommerce solution.

Yahoo Should Probably Go Suck An Egg Or Something
Here’s what happend with Yahoo! that was essentially the final straw. I don’t use templates, I design the store myself, of course. When I first designed it 2 years ago I used a dreamweaver plugin. That plugin is only compatibable with Dreamweaver 7 (and some earlier copies) which was released in 2004. Yes, 2004, a whopping six years ago. And it’s never been updated since. It’s basically impossible to get a copy of Dreamwever 7 unless you spend $600 and buy a used one on ebay or amazon or something. When I asked support if they would ever update the program, he said “Ive only gotten 2 or 3 requests for that in the last 2-3 years”. Really?!? I’m supposed to believe that amongst all your clients who have signed up in the past few years, only “2 or 3″ of them custom design their websites using Dreamweaver? That’s hogwash if you ask me.

It seems that Yahoo! likes to make it’s customers do everything by hand. And updating a layout is just one thing it doesn’t do. It also doesn’t…
-Track inventory by options
-Automatically update category pages
-Cross out original prices when sale prices are added
-Allow you to do mass mark downs on selected products
-Have any apps or image galleries beyond just ONE photo per page
-Allow you to have more than one email account

….and yet they charge $30 more than almost all the other ecommerce services I’ve come across.

Mind you, I contacted their development team back when I first started with them, close to 2 years ago. In the past two years the only upgrade they’ve done has been allowing you to choose items to exclude from a coupon code. Yeah, that wasn’t particularly high on my list of demands.

Choosing A New eCommerce Solution

I’ve pretty much narrowed things down to three options….

CoreCommerce
Volusion
Shopify

And in that order, kinda. Shopify is one of the first that I looked at, but I’m already not loving the support. I’ve heard good things about the first two, slightly more about CoreCommerce but Volusion has all these amazing, free store apps and Ive already gotten a chance to speak with one of their reps (CC doesn’t seem to have 24 hour support). It’s going to be a really, really tough decision, but I have to make one QUICK if I have any shot of getting a refund for this month from Yahoo! And I’m not going to be happy camper if I have to spend another month with them.

Oh boy! It’s been a little while since I’ve blogged, huh?  It’s been another one of those slow periods where nothing major is happening.  In my last blog I recapped the LA Trade Show.  All the merchandise orders have been placed, and yes I did end up canceling about four pieces because I went over budget.  No major changes, but I’m much closer to my original plan now.

Right now I’m just kickin’ back and waiting for those shipments to come in!  That’s when the fun part will start.  Between now and then I’ll start designing the site.  Ive had design block for a while now, but yesterday I thought of something that should be cute; I just hope I can execute it.

Anyways, I was going to blog about something entirely different, but then I saw this comment that Tawny left.  It’s probably the #1 question on the mind of many a prospective boutique owner but it’s also one that doesn’t really have an answer:

  I just wanted to know How much does it cost to start your own online business? How much would I need prox. minus the merchandise? – Tawny

Thanks for asking Tawny!  There really is no approximate  answer, unfortunately.  Here’s what your expenses will be for the most part….

• Advertisement
• eCommerce software, hosting & design
• Shipping materials
• Photography
• Business materials (labels, business cards, letterhead, etc)
• Travel Fees

A lot of times how much you’ll spend on these things will depend on how much inventory you’re taking on.  For example, Advertisement.   Say you’re spending $10,000 on merchandise for one season, and marking that up by 2.2%.  You won’t want to spend more than $11,000 on advertisement because then you’re breaking even (actually you’ll be losing money if you factor in other expenses).  And that’s also assuming you will sell all your merchandise at full price (which is unrealistic).  Of course, when you’re starting a business you’re not expecting to make a profit and you need to get the word out more than anything.  I’m not sure if there’s a rule of them when it comes to an advertising budget but I would say stick to 50%-75% of what you spend on your merchandise (example: $7500 across 3 months).

With your eCommerce needs you’ll need a good shopping cart system plus a merchant account.  The costs for this vary.  I will probably use Yahoo Shops which costs around $100/mo and that includes credit card processing and hosting.  You could also choose to use a free script like Zen Cart and host it on your own, which will run you around $50/month for a good VPS on a host such as Knownhost.com.   For a merchant account, theres 2Checkout.com and Google Checkout, the latter of which charges significantly less for each purchase made.

And also as a part of ecommerce, you’ll need a web developer who can design and probably customize your site.  This can cost as high as $1000 or more, it really depends on what you need done and who you’re asking.  And if there is anything you’re going to spend a lot of money on it should be this because web developers are EXTREMELY FICKLE!

Another major cost is product photography, which once again depends on how much inventory you’ll have.  I’ve been quoted between $400 and $800 for one session for a maximum of 40 high resolution photos (think front and back of twenty items), possibly less for the following sessions.   You’ll need to do a session at least once a month with shipments coming in every two weeks.  And on top of that a mannequin will cost you $200-$300, OR hiring models, hair and make up will run the bill up even more than that.

Everything else is a minor fee if you ask me, except perhaps travel fees.  That depends on where you live; you might not have to travel at all or you might have to fly across the country several times a year to check out the showrooms and trade shows.  So airfare, hotel rates and meal costs should be taken into consideration, but the good thing is it’s a vacation that you can write off on your taxes as a business expense!

I know I didn’t give a definitive answer here, but I really cant.  Every situation will be different and it depends on what you want to do and how much merchandise you want to start out with! I can tell you that I plan on spending around $6000 (not including travel) ON TOP of the merchandise I’ve purchased (but doing my own design saves me a ton of money).  But that very well may change so always allow for more.

I hope that helps put things in perspective?

I’ve talked  a bit about this before, but this question sent by Madeline made me realize I need to go more in depth about it all!  There’s a lot of paperwork that needs to be done before starting any kind of business.  It’s not fun and it’s not glamorous but it has to be done!

I am also a 22 year old recent grad with a dream of opening my own boutique! I JUST got my business license on 12/31/07!

I have been roaming the net for some inspiration and information and stumbled across your site.. it’s awesome to follow your progress and all sounds sooo exciting! Congrats!

Mainly, I have a question about obtaining a resale license? Everywhere I look online regarding a resale license seems like a hoax/gives mixed messages and I as wondering if you could advise me on how to go about this and what other licenses are necessary? (I plan on having an online store, which is in the works right now, and a physical boutique as well)…

I plan on selling jewelry, clothing, accessories and other nick knacks (some of which will be hand made! I just started casting and making my own jewelry!)

I really, really hope to hear back from you! It’s so awesome reading your blog and seeing another young girl out there with the same dream and actually pursuing it!

Hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,
Madeline

Hi Madeline, the licenses are so tricky and confusing. Luckily my dad runs a business and knows a lot of this, so he helped me along the way.  Here’s what I had to get….

1. DBA/Fictitious Business Name
2. Wholesale/resale license
3. EID (employer ID #)
4. Zoning papers
5. Business license

And in that exact order, because you have to have certain papers before you can file the others.  I wasn’t aware that any of these things could be done online, but I wouldn’t fill ANYTHING out that doesn’t have a .gov extension, just to be on the safe side.  The only one I know of that you can do online is the EID.

The Franchise Tax Board is where I got my resale license.  I would highly suggest looking them up in your town and either going down there or calling them up and asking what you’ll need in order to get your license and where to go to get the other things on the list.  And things might be slightly different since you’re in a different state so it’s always good to ask! It’s tricky and it’s a lot of running around because I had to go to three different places and do a bit of waiting to get all of my papers.

Also, a DBA isn’t necessary, but it’s good to have.  What it does is it allows you to operate under a name other than your own, you can open a bank account in that name and it also protects your name in your own area (it’s not like a copyright or trademark though).  Your DBA will be good for five years and once you register it, you’ll need to run an ad for it in a newspaper for four weeks.  I suggest looking for smaller local newspapers and not going for the New York Times or something of the sort, because it will cost you more money that way.  They might give you a list of accepted newspapers when you register your DBA; if not be sure to ask, or make sure a paper is acceptable before giving them your money!

I hope that helps, but let me know if you have any other questions.  It’s so cool that you’re starting a boutique too! What lines do you plan on carrying?  And did you go to school for fashion?  Definitely keep us posted about the progress of your boutique and what it’s like to actually plan a physical store!

Kim

Got a question?  As always, send it in to kimberwynATgmailDOTcom.

There’s so much that goes into opening a business. When I wrote my business plan, I realized it. Just to launch this boutique alone I’ll need to….

• Obtain merchandise, obviously.
• Find a photographer who will take decent pictures of that merchandise.
• Secure an ecommerce site.
• Design the ecommerce site (which I will be doing on my own)
• Get packing and shipping together.
• Do invoices, which involves math. Yippie.
• Create an advertising campaign.
• Fill out paperwork to start a business.

I’m sure I’m forgetting something. It’s not even that these are so many different things, it’s just that they are so many things that are so different.

That last step is what I started yesterday and will finish tomorrow. I have a DBA and now I have to get a resale license, business license and something else since I’m running my business out of my home. They really gave me the runaround; I went to fill out forms for one thing and they told me I had to fill out forms for something else and have processed before I could have the original form processed, plus file another form and whoops….I filled out the wrong form.

No but seriously, so far I actually am enjoying even the most unglamorous thing having to do with this project.