The Really, Really Good Parts of Being a Boutique Owner

Owning a boutique is such a unique experience.

You get to create something from an idea, fill it with things you love, surround yourself with people, become part of your community and watch this little thing you dreamed up become part of other people's lives.

Looking back on our years as boutique owners, some of our favorite memories aren't necessarily tied to a specific sales day or milestone. They're the people we met, the things we got to create, the women we watched light up in a fitting room and the community that formed around something we built.

There are so many reasons to love this job. These are some of ours.

You Get to Be Creative for a Living

How cool is that?

You get to walk into market and choose the pieces that will eventually hang on your racks. You get to imagine how they'll be styled, how they'll look in a window and which customer is going to absolutely lose her mind when she sees them.

Then you get to merchandise them.

Photograph them.

Style them.

Market them.

You get to dream up events, plan photoshoots, create window displays, design graphics, rearrange your store and build an entire brand and experience around your own point of view.

There aren't many jobs where you get to use that many different parts of your creativity every single day.

Your boutique becomes this living, breathing representation of your taste, your ideas and your vision.

And you get to call that your job.

You Get to Build a Team

One of the coolest parts of owning a business is getting to create opportunities for other people.

You get to hire someone for their first job. Teach someone how to sell. Help someone discover that they're really freaking good at merchandising. Give an employee ownership over a project and watch her absolutely crush it.

And sometimes, your boutique gets to be someone's fun job while she's working toward something completely different. Maybe she's studying to become a nurse. Maybe she's going to school to become a teacher. Maybe she's figuring out what she wants to do next. For a little chapter of her life, your business gets to support her while she works toward the next one. You get to give her a place to earn money, make friends, learn how to work with people, build confidence and develop skills she'll carry with her long after she leaves your shop.

You have the opportunity to mentor people, build their confidence, teach them skills and create the kind of workplace where people genuinely enjoy showing up.Some of the people who walk through your doors as employees will eventually move on to incredible careers and adventures of their own—and you get to know that your business was one little piece of their story.

That's pretty special.

You Get to Be Part of People's Big Moments

You're never just selling a dress.

It's the dress she wears to her baby shower. The outfit she buys for her birthday. The top she wears on a first date. The gift someone picks out for her best friend.

The outfit for family photos. The dress for a bridal shower. The Christmas gift that gets wrapped up and placed under someone's tree. The vacation outfit that ends up in photos she'll keep forever.

You chose that piece.

At some point, you saw it hanging at market or spotted it in a line sheet and thought, My customers are going to love this. And now it gets to become part of someone's life. There is something incredibly special about knowing that pieces you picked are hanging in closets all over your community, attached to birthdays, weddings, babies, holidays, vacations and memories.

You Get to Help Women Feel Really Freaking Good

If you've owned a boutique, you know the moment.

Someone walks out of the fitting room, turns toward the mirror and— Oh. You can literally see her expression change. She stands a little taller. She smiles. Maybe she says, “I never would have picked this for myself.”

And you're standing there thinking, I KNEW IT. The right outfit can completely change the way someone carries herself. Sometimes all it takes is handing someone something she never would have chosen and saying, “Trust me. Try this.”

Watching another woman walk out your door feeling beautiful, confident and a little more like herself is one of the very best parts of the job.

You Get to Make Your Little Corner of the World More Special

Think about the neighborhoods and downtown areas you love. They're usually filled with little places you can't find anywhere else.

The coffee shop with the cute patio. The bookstore with handwritten recommendations. The restaurant everyone knows. The boutique with the window display you always stop to look at.

Small businesses give cities personality.

Your boutique adds something to your neighborhood that didn't exist before you created it. It gives people another reason to walk around, grab a coffee, pop into the shop next door, meet a friend and spend an afternoon in their own community. Your storefront becomes part of what makes your city feel like your city.

And you get to say, I helped create that.

You Get to Know People's Stories

Customers become regulars. Regulars become familiar faces. And familiar faces sometimes become friends.

You learn names. You hear about kids, jobs, vacations, weddings, pregnancies, promotions and everything happening in between. You recognize the woman who always comes in with her mom. The friends who make your boutique one of their regular stops. The customer who walks in and says, “I need something for Saturday,” and trusts you to take it from there.

When I closed my store, a customer came in on our last day and cried. She told me how much the space had meant to her. She said it had become a safe space for her and her mom - a place where they would come together to shop, talk and simply spend time with each other.

I'll never forget that. Because I realized that while I had created a boutique, I had also unknowingly created a setting for someone else's memories.

And I think that's something every boutique owner deserves to remember: Your store probably means more to someone than you realize.

You Become Part of a Very Unique Community

There's something really special about meeting another boutique owner.

You instantly have something in common that very few people get to experience. You meet people at market. You connect with other owners online. You become friends with the shop owner down the street. You trade ideas, recommend vendors, celebrate each other's milestones and cheer each other on. People who technically could have been your competition become your friends.

There are boutique owners all over the country building completely different stores, in completely different cities, for completely different customers—and somehow you're all part of this wonderfully specific little community together. Some of the relationships you make through owning a boutique can end up being one of the greatest things you take away from the entire experience.

You Get to Create Little Moments of Joy

Sometimes someone walks into your store looking for something special. And sometimes they just walk in.

Maybe they grabbed a coffee and decided to wander around. Maybe they're meeting their mom or a friend. Maybe they have 20 minutes to themselves and want to look at pretty things. They browse. They try something on. You chat. You laugh. They find something they love. And they leave happier than they were when they walked in.

That's a pretty wonderful thing to create.

Your boutique can be someone's favorite Sunday afternoon stop. Their friend groups post happy hour tradition. Their place to meet their sister. Their go-to when they need an outfit. Or simply somewhere they know they'll walk in and see a familiar face.

You aren't only creating a place to shop. You're creating a place people enjoy being.

You Get to Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is

One of the most empowering things about owning your own business is that you get to decide what your business stands for. You get to take the money, time, energy, space and platform you've built and pour some of it back into the things that matter to you.

Maybe that's hosting an event in support of LGBTQ+ programs in your city. Maybe it's donating a portion of a weekend's proceeds to a civil rights organization. Maybe it's rallying your customers around a local family's GoFundMe, sponsoring a school event, supporting another small business, donating clothing to women who need it or stepping up when something is happening in your community- or in our country - that you deeply care about. And it doesn't always have to be something huge.

Sometimes it's donating a gift card to the elementary school's silent auction. Sometimes it's a hosting an event to drive cold-weather donations. Sometimes it's sharing someone else's story with the audience you've spent years building. Sometimes it's simply writing a check.

You get to put your money where your heart is. There's something incredibly powerful about realizing that this business you created can become a vehicle for doing good.

Every sale allows you to keep building your business, supporting your team and creating something you're proud of—but it can also give you the resources to turn around and support someone else. You get to decide what matters to you. You get to decide what kind of impact you want your business to have. And you get to use this thing you built to make your little corner of the world a little better.

That's a pretty incredible privilege of owning a small business.

You Get to Say, I Built This.

At some point, your boutique was just an idea in your head.

And then there was a name.

A logo.

A first purchase order.

A storefront or website.

A rack of clothes.

A first customer.

A first employee.

A first regular.

And little by little, this idea became a real place filled with people, stories, friendships and memories.

You created jobs.

You supported other businesses.

You added something unique to your community.

You helped women feel confident.

You celebrated people's biggest moments alongside them.

You supported causes you believed in.

You created a place people wanted to come back to.

You built something that existed because you decided it should.

And whether you're just opening your doors or looking back on years of owning your shop, that's something worth being really freaking proud of. Because owning a boutique gives you the opportunity to do something pretty incredible: You get to create something people get to experience.

Something they wear.

Something they remember.

Something that becomes part of their traditions, their celebrations and their stories.

Something that creates jobs, supports your community, gives you a voice and allows you to put a little more good into the world.

And somewhere along the way, this little business you created becomes part of your story, too.

How lucky are we that we get to do this? Shopping for a living ain't so bad after all.

• boutique ownership
• community
• small business