It goes first but should you should write it last. It summarizes what your store/boutique is about, highlights of your growth if you are already in the business, your products, and your goals. Here what you need to include in your executive summary: 1. YOUR MISSION STATEMENT This briefly explains what your business is about. What purpose does it serve? Why did you create it? Describe your business in a sentence or two: 2. HIGHLIGHTS OF YOUR GROWTH If you store/boutique has been around for some time, than you can talk about the existing growth. You can talk about any sort of growth, from an increase in sales, average order, customer base, social media following, website visits. All of your growth contributes to your overall online retail business, so this section is important.
3. YOUR PRODUCTS Please, write a couple of brief sentences about what products you are selling and /or intend to sell. You ll have the chance to talk more about your products (and even perhaps services) in a later section. 4. YOUR GOALS Where do you plan to take your online retail business in the future? List your goals below. HOLD UP. What if your online store is brand new or does not exist yet? In this case, you won t be able to fill out sections above. Instead, focus on your experience and how you will be making your business work focus on what kind of research have you done, budgets and resources do you have to make your business succeed?
In this section, we are going to talk about organization and culture of your online retail business. You might not feel like you have a company culture just yet, but you are certainly building a brand, which is nearly the same thing. Remember, the B 1. WHAT SETS YOUR STORE APART FROM OTHER ONLINE FASHION & LIFESTYLE STORES / BOUTIQUES? Take some time to think about this why should someone shop in your store if there are hundreds of established retailers and thousands of small boutiques? In Step 4, we are going to do some competitor analysis, but for now, just think about how your business is different and what you can do to separate yourself from your competition. 2. WHO DO YOU SERVE? Your online store business plan basically revolves around your target market. Who are your customers? Everything that you do for your store should revolve around them! Without buying customers, it will be impossible to grow a community around your store or turn it into a full-time business. So you have to get crystal clear about who you serve. How old are they?
Are they single, dating or married? What do they do for a living? What brought them to your store? How can you help them? What are their future goals/aspirations?
What they do at their free time? Please, keep in mind, even if you are new to the online boutique business and don t have much of a customer base to analyze, you can still take part in this section. Truthfully, online retail business is not about buying wholesale or manufacturing products and trying to figure out who is buying them. It s the opposite deciding who you want to service and then sourcing or manufacturing products that help a particular type of person. 3. WHAT IS YOUR COMPANY CULTURE OR WHAT IS YOUR BRAND ABOUT? You may not be running a business casual office for your store, but you still have a brand and culture to uphold. Branding is how your customers perceive you. When people interact with your store, what do you want them to feel? What words would you use to describe your store personality?
What purpose does your store serve? The answers to these questions will help to analyze what your brand personality is. Developing a true personality for your store means that you are consistent. It s ok to try on different hats at first, but the most successful stores are ones that have a distinct personality. 4. WHAT IS THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF YOUR BUSINESS? This may not be a concern for your at the moment, especially when you are new and have no or a few sales. You have to have a Sales Permit to start and a business license. But in the future you may want to turn your store into a recognized corporation, like LLC. If you are currently running a website and accepting money, than you obviously need to file taxes on that income. However, turning your store into LLC or Incorporation can protect your income and business from things like lawsuits. If you are just getting started, I would recommend waiting to turn your store into LLC or Inc. If you are the only employee at your online store, then you can simply be sole proprietor, which is totally legal.
Before launching your online store, it s important to research your competitors and similar stores/boutiques, so that you can try to stay ahead of the game. A little warning for you: When doing your research make sure of a couple of things: When you are doing research, try to analyze. Do not copy them blindly. What can work for one company might lead to a failure for another. Don t feel let down looking at established businesses. You are not here to compare yourself to them. It is about being analytical and simply doing your research so that you can build your own healthy business. You need to analyze your competition to create your business model. You should not operate from competition mindset. Collaboration, friendliness, and building relationships will take you much further than competing. This section is simply another way for you to research to build your foundation for your future online business. There are following steps in competitor research: 1. IDENTIFY WHO YOUR COMPETITORS ARE. Please, make sure you are not going to compete with someone from the top 500 retailers list. It s unrealistic because they have been in the market for a long time. Also, they have huge budgets, large in-house teams, established suppliers who sell with discounts, etc. Look at as many companies of any size as you want, but make a list of about five main competitors who are in the same niche, sell similar products to the same marketing segment. Five companies are enough to analyze.
COMPETITOR WEBSITE 2. RESEARCH YOUR COMPETITORS PRODUCTS AND PRICE RANGES. Write down their product lines, price ranges, promotions, so you know what your target audience got use to pay.
3. RESEARCH YOUR COMPETITORS STRATEGIES, TACTICS & GOALS. When you determined who your competitors are, take some time to research them. Go through their websites and social media accounts. For online marketing I recommend using my favorite ever tool SEMRush to research their SEO, backlinks, traffic etc. What they promote and how do they promote it? Are there any strategies that many of your competitors seem to use? (Like particular promos, contests etc.) What sets each competitor apart from the other competitors on your list?
What their goals are? What based on your research they try to achieve? 4. CREATE A LIST OF YOUR COMPETITORS STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES. The competitor analysis is an excellent way to get more tuned into the trends and strategies that work in your niche. After you have done your research, stop checking out their sites. You need to decide what s from their strategy will work for you, what will not, and start moving forward with your business. COMPETITOR #1 STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
COMPETITOR #2 STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES COMPETITOR #3 STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
COMPETITOR #4 STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES COMPETITOR #5 STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
In part II, you identified who your target market is. Now, you need to go further. 1. RESEARCH YOUR AUDIENCE BY DOING A SURVEY. Surveys are killer way to understand more about your audience without having to guess. You can use free sites like Survey Monkey or Typeform to create your survey and then you just need to share it with your customers via email, blog (if you have one), and on social media multiple times during a 1-2 week span. What will you use to create your survey? What are three of the most important questions you can ask that will help you learn more about your customers? QUESTION #1 QUESTION #2
QUESTION #3 How will you deliver your survey to your audience and get people to take it? If your customer base is small or currently non-existent, then rather than doing a survey, you just pay close attention to social media, especially Facebook groups where your potential customers hang out. 2. WHO ARE YOUR POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS? CREATE A SHOPPER PERSONA. How to create personas? Best ways are Interview your real/prospective customers, Look for behavioral trends, do analysis and research. Persona s example: Section 1: The Who Background job, family (corporate, married with kids). Demographics age, income, location (35, 100k, Los Angeles). Identifiers demeanor (calm), communication preferences (emails, social media). Section 2: The What? Goals primarily (have a stylish look), secondary (outfits should make her look slim). Challenges primarily (she is busy, don t have too much time to shop and try things on), secondary (to save money). What can we do to make a customer happy?
Section 3: The Why? Here s where you can input real quotes form customers surveys and interviews you conducted for your shopping persona research. You can also input common objections reasons your ideal buyers have said they would not want to buy your offering. Real quotes I m not sure if this will fit, this might make me look fat. Common objections why would they buy your product if I buy and it won t fit, I have to send it back, and I don t have time, I can t see clearly from the picture what kind of fabric it is. Section 4: The How? Marketing Messaging how should you describe your solution to your persona? Elevator pitch sell your persona on the solution this dress will make you look slim. It has the combination of excellent quality & price. We ship the same day with free returns/exchanges. Plus, we include a free gift in all packages. 3. HOW CAN YOU SERVE YOUR AUDIENCE BETTER THAN YOUR COMPETITION? You don t have to create a bicycle here. Use the best strategies that worked for you if you have an experience or the same that others do, but put your brand personality and extra special things
1. EMAIL LIST. Email list is your primarily asset in any online business. Which Strategies will you use to grow your email list? 2. SOCIAL MEDIA. Which platforms & strategies you will use to grow your community?
On which platforms will you put the most emphasis? I suggest to pick no more than 2-3 because it s really time consuming unless you have a skilled Social Media team. Which platforms your target customers visit the most? What strategies will you use on each platform in order to grow your audience and community? How will you find your target audience on social media and bring them to your store?
3. WHAT STEPS WILL YOU TAKE THAT YOUR AUDIENCE FEEL CONNECTED TO YOU AND CAN RELATE? People like to buy from people who they like and can relate. 1. DESCRIBE YOUR PRODUCT MIX. List each product line separately:
2. DESCRIBE YOUR SUPPLIERS. Describe existing or potential, and how you plan to find and approach them. 3. HOW YOU ARE PLANNING TO CARRY YOUR INVENTORY? Are you planning to have inventory in house, do drop shipping or have both? 4. WHAT IS YOUR PRICING STRATEGY?
5. HOW IS YOUR PRODUCTS DIFFERENT FROM COMPETITION? Go back to your competitor analysis and see what your competitors are selling and how they are promoting it. Is there anything you can do about your product, packaging, promotions, prices so that they will be even more valuable than competitors? 1. HOW WILL YOU MARKET YOUR WEBSITE AND PRODUCTS? White down what acquisition and retention methods you will be using
2. WHAT IS YOUR MARKETING BUDGET? Monthly / yearly budget? 3. WILL YOU HAVE IN HOUSE MARKETING TEAM OR OUTSOURCES? Describe your marketing team: 4. HOW LONG WILL YOU SPEND ON MARKETING & PROMOTING PER DAY / WEEK / MONTH?
5. IF YOUR STORE IS NOT LIVE YET, WHAT STRATEGIES WILL YOU USE TO LAUNCH / OR RELAUNCH IT? If you are a new store how will your potential customers find out about your boutique? What strategies can you use to launch your store and get customers excited about what you sell and how you sell it? How make them choose your store over your competitor? 6. WHAT IS YOUR GROWTH STRATEGY? What will you do to continue growing your customer base, average order and selling more products? Think in which acquisition strategies you will invest the most?
1. DESCRIBE YOUR TEAM 2. LIST IMPORTANT PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS & PERSONAL TRAITS FOR EACH POSITION. For an online business, you will need as a minimum following people (unless you can do some work yourself). Web Developer to code (or configure) website and other technical aspects.
Graphic Designer to create web & social media, and email graphics, and retouch photos. SEO Writer to write original product descriptions, category/subcategory text, email copy & social media content. Marketing Coordinator to manage Email Marketing, Social Media, and Influencers. Photoshoot Coordinator who would book photographer, models, plan shoots, locations, create photo references.
Photographer / Videographer E-Commerce / Online Marketing Project Manager to oversee website development and implementation as well as to create a marketing strategy and manage the execution. Shipping & Customer Service
List of all in-house positions List of freelancers List of third party agencies
1. SHIPPING What is your shipping policy? How is it better than competitors? What is your return/exchange policy? Who is your shipping carrier?
What countries will you ship? 2. PACKAGING What kind of packaging will you use to make your customers feel happy from the moment they have their purchase in hands? Is it regular or branded packaging? Here you can mention each packaging detail (gift bags, tissue paper, ribbons, free gifts, etc.) Please, remember that companies are often underestimating the value of packaging. Majority of Fashion & Lifestyle buyers are women, and they love beautiful things.
1. WHAT KIND OF PHOTOGRAPHY WILL YOU HAVE ON YOUR SITE? E-Commerce, Lifestyles, both, flats, etc. 2. HOW OFTEN WILL YOU HAVE PHOTOSHOOTS? 3. WILL YOU HAVE A PHOTOGRAPHER IN-HOUSE OR OUTSOURCED? 4. MODELS Who will be your models, where will you find them (agencies, casting calls, friends, etc?)
List all hardware, software, marketing, management, analytics, educational and all other business tools you need for your online business: 1. SERVERS, COMPUTERS, PRINTERS, IPADS, PHONES, HARD DRIVES ETC. 2 PHOTO & VIDEO EQUIPMENT. 3. SOFTWARE All computer programs
4. ALL WEBSITE RELATED Domains, hosting, e-commerce, email service provider, lead magnet, blog theme etc. 5. WEB & SOCIAL ANALYTICS, SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT, SEO, KEYWORDS, COMPETITOR ANALYSIS TOOLS. 7. EDUCATIONAL COURSES For your business to fill gaps in your E-Commerce & Online Marketing knowledge. They will help you to stay on the top of industry standards.
The answers from previous sections should be able to help you to calculate your business budgets. A traditional business planning usually includes break-even analysis, projected profit and loss, projected cash flow, projected balance sheet, business ratios, and sales forecast. I believe creating all of this is a waste of time because it s fiction. You have so many other things to do, so each minute counts. You should list your expenses in thirteen columns: onetime cost plus twelve months. I suggest instead to create a one-year budget in the following format: 1. REVENUE STREAMS You can have one stream or multiple streams depending on nature of your business: STREAM #1 STREAM #2 STREAM #3 STREAM #4
2. FINANCIAL SUMMARY OF MARKETING CHANNELS, AND ALL POSSIBLE EXPENCES BY CATEGORY. I suggest to create this document in Excel. 3. DETAILED BREAKDOWN OF MARKETING, OPERATING, SITE DEVELOPMENT, INVENTORY, HARDWEAR, SOFTWARE, TOOLS, PERSONNEL AND ALL OTHER APPLICABLE EXPENCES. You can find out the complete budget Excel document in my Products section. I hope it was helpful! Enjoy your planning and remember, if someone could start, build, promote and profit from her store, you can do it better! Best Regards, Viktoria Website: VKEcom.com Instagram: @OnlineBoutiquesMBA Facebook Group: BIT.LY/OnlineBoutiquesMBA Email: info@onlineboutiquesmba.com