Everything You Need to Know About Opening a Sneaker Boutique

It's not just about the shoes.

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For a lot of sneakerheads, the dream is to one day open their own sneaker store. Whether it be a consignment store like RIF or Flight Club, or a boutique like Rare Breed Footwear or Packer Shoes, the important things about getting your sneaker store off the ground and successful is all the same. It's the same as many other businesses in fact, except it's sneakers. Which is where your passion comes into making it truly successful. 

In order to make sure we covered all the bases for starting a successful sneaker boutique, we reached out to a few owners to informally discuss what challenges they faced along the way, what things they'd do differently and what things came up that were completely unexpected. So after you check out Everything You Need to Know About Opening a Sneaker Boutique be sure to check out Extra Butter, Sole Lab and Primitive because they've got years of success doing exactly what you want to do. 

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It's not going to be easy.

Find experts in their field.

Location is everything, almost.

Use all the resources you can.

Trust your instinct.

Don't get ahead of yourself.

Remember the Pareto Principle.

Know your competition.

Network. Network. Network.

Footwear accounts don't just magically happen.

Just because you like something doesn't mean your customer will.

Know your customers.

Provide a sense of community.

Sneakerheads don't pay the rent.

You will have to educate your customers in order to sell to them.

Ask other shop owners about their experiences.

Don't hang on to your inventory.

Use the power of the Internet.

Say hello to every customer.

When you think you know it all, you really don't.