If you’re reading an article online in order to learn what your fashion niche should be for your fashion boutique, you’re already starting off on the wrong foot. I don’t want to chide you too much: you’re doing research and that’s a good thing. You’re also being cautious and seeing what others have done and what advice is out there to help guide you through the minefield of starting a new business. However, I believe you should be starting a fashion boutique because you love fashion. You love making it, you love wearing it, you love seeing other people wear it, and you love helping people find what looks best on them. It’s not rocket science. Knowing comes from within. To know what areas of fashion you should specialize in, you simply to have ask yourself which ones you want to specialize in. There’s a market for men’s shoes, for children’s outdoor clothes, for lingerie and formal wear. Choose enough areas—each one relevant to the other—that you can be supported by a slim minority but not so few specialties that that minority is too slim to support you.
The true niche in fashion boutiques is not just what clothing specialty you decide on; it’s what you do with that specialty that will make you stand out and create your own niche. A niche is a crevice in a rock that no one else can squeeze through. Once you’re there, that’s it. No one can even imitate you because you’re so unique. Think of Boy George. Many posers, few successors. That’s the kind of niche you’re looking for—one that is dug from the energies of your own personality.
Once you know what areas of specialization you wish to include in your boutique, the next significant step is researching your competition to see how exactly how they fail and succeed. It’s necessary to know both. When spy shopping on your competition, ask yourself what do I like about this store and how would I improve it? The best way to get the complete lesson is to know what works and what doesn’t wherever you go. There is no store that is perfect, because none of these stores are yours. This isn’t to say your store is static. Stasis and perfection are different. Your store will grow and change with the fashion seasons, but you will always have the attitude that you are attaining perfection, that your boutique is better than the one down the street. That belief will resonate with your clientele and be the color through which all your fashion selections are tinted.
In a nutshell, the best way to figure out what your boutique’s fashion specialties should be is to ask yourself what fashion you wish to be surrounded by on a daily basis. The first few years of owning a new business you will be in that store seven days a week, nearly twelve hours a day. Be around things that excite you. The next step in creating a true niche is to inflect these specialties, these specific categories of fashion, through your unique personality. The displays, arrangement, clothing, and atmosphere should all be yours. Because no one else is you, you will have a monopoly on your niche
