How Do You Buy The Right Inventory For Your Customers?

 

As you are fully aware of, boutiques offer an unmatched unique experience. Your customers come to your stores looking to get away from the mainstream and dull offerings found elsewhere in the marketplace. This is where you come in with your specialized product selection.

 

What you may not be aware of however, is that buying your inventory requires careful research and planning in order to make your boutique successful. To help make that process a little easier, follow this quick guide on how to buy products that align with the wants and needs of your clientele.

 

Buy For The Right Age Shopper

 

Do you have a loyal customer base? If so, what age group do they fall into? 20s? 30s? 40s? Knowing this information is vital. If you don’t know, you need to find out! Being aware and knowledgeable of your customer base makes it just that much easier to buy and stock your inventory.  

 

A simple way to gather customer information is through the email and customer contact forms at checkout. By asking for a customer’s email address at the end of their transaction, you have an easy window of opportunity to collect more data on your customer base. Asking more about them and their preferences will enable you to better understand your clientele and grow your number of loyal customers.

 

Buy For The Right Demographics

 

Understanding the importance of customer demographics is the key to success in the fashion industry. Boutiques live and die based on how well they comprehend the demographic makeup of their customers. Try thinking of demographics as the ultimate categorization tool. How much disposable income does your clientele have? Are they employed? What type of education do they have?

 

Grouping your customers based upon certain characteristics allows you the ability to better serve the needs of your ideal customers. Meaning that you want to sell your products to the people more likely to buy them based upon their unique needs and preferences. By understanding your customers, you can also tailor your marketing efforts to target those most likely to buy the inventory that you have stocked.

 

Buy For The Right Sizes

 

Aside from knowing how much of what product to stock, knowing what sizes to buy for your boutique can be one of the most challenging obstacles to overcome. Going back to knowing your customers can help to answer this tough question.

 

Tracking inventory and making buyer adjustments based on how the inventory moves is a great way to figure out what sizes to stock. For instance, if you find that size 12 is particularly popular in your boutique, buy more of that size. If you rarely sell size 2, keep only one size 2 in each item.

 

As you now know, the better you know your customers, the more likely you can give them exactly what they want. Following this quick and easy guide will make that inventory buying process a lot less painful and a lot more enjoyable!