Mall Kiosks vs. Weekend Boutiques

After the Holiday kiosk at the mall I was left with over $2500 in product for my business, sweet & charming and I had a dilemma…what do I do with it now? Another kiosk? eBay? Start an online store? Garage sale? Keep it for gifts for the next 3 years? Then an ad from a local boutique caught my attention one day…”Holy Cow Boutique seeking crafters for Spring boutiques.” (I thought about Seth Godin this week…he’d call it The Purple Cow Boutique.) I called and while I’m not a “crafter”, they liked my princess items and accepted me for their Spring boutique, it was this week–Wed-Sat.

I paid $150, plus 13% of sales for my 10×10 ft space. I had to provide the structure/grid/booth set up and I spent $150 on grid wall and components, I lucked out because I found used materials at Advanced Display in SLC and saved a lot.

I really didn’t know what to expect, but the producers have had this event for 22 years and they said they get 15,000 people over a 4 day period. They weren’t kidding! I was absolutely shocked at the turnout. There were women of all ages shopping like mad. After I stocked my booth I didn’t come back for 1 1/2 days and my booth was nearly empty. I had to restock it a couple of times over the week and only took home a couple of boxes after cleaning up tonight…items priced between $5-10 were especially hot for my niche, but home decor items where higher.

The mall gets traffic, but it isn’t especially targeted to my demographic…teenagers hang out at the mall were I was during the holidays and don’t necessarily want to buy princess boas or foam swords, that’s why the boutique was so great…because Grandmas want to buy those items and if they have been coming to this boutique for 22 years (grandmas were there taking their granddaughters–a seasonal outing), they are ready to buy today because the boutique is a “limited time only” deal…and they know that when it’s gone, it’s gone.

The mall also costs anywhere from $1500-$9000 for a mall kiosk in the USA depending on where you live (per month), plus there is overage and once your sales reach a certain level, you have to pay additional rent. It can be very profitable, but it can also be challenging to manage–keeping up with the mall hours and staffing it.

The boutique I participated in has 3 more weekends this year and you are only required to set up/take down, and keep it stocked. You don’t have to be there unless you want to be…it’s great; almost like an online store, very little effort. It works for my lifestyle right now as a mom of three young children…whereas a kiosk doesn’t–although I’m not ruling it out, I just like the low cost, low effort, high returns at the boutique. I realize that I won’t get rich doing boutiques, but it’s a great way to learn about business and have a venue to sell product that isn’t high overhead and responsibility. Whereas, I realize that if you have a kiosk that does well—you could do multiple locations and that would could be a great business model. You won’t create a national brand with a boutique…a local one, maybe, but not a national one. But you could possibly pair it with an online store–two distribution models that work well for mom entrepreneurs.

Today’s Magic Wand: Is there a boutique in your area you can participate in? Check into it!