How does this all work?
Ideally you run an independent brick and mortar retail establishment and are a client of one of our distribution partners. Our partners provide us with an inventory feed with product, pricing and stock information. We provide this to you and your customers so they can shop full inventory online.
How are items priced?
The distro sets a price which we use to calculate the Minimum Sale Price. This price will include all Paypal transaction fees as well as potential payment of an affiliate. (more on that below) We will provide you with guidelines for setting a percentage markup. This info lets us set the selling price. When an item sells, you receive exactly the amount based on the percentage you specified.
How about selling my own inventory?
Of course you can. With Boutique Online, you’ll manage this manually with our great web interface. Boutique P.O.S. customers will have their in-stock inventory automatically synced with their online store. The great part is that you don’t really have to worry about it.
Huh?
Here’s a typical flow. When a customer shops on your online store they can make that purchase for in-store pick-up or direct delivery. Either way, when they make a purchase, you will receive a notification email. You can choose for your partner distributor to fill the order. If it’s direct to customer, they will have already paid the shipping costs, if you want it to be shipping to you as a one-off, you will have to pay individual shipping. But, if you have the item in-stock, or want to manually add it to your regular order with your distributor (or get it from someplace else) You may notify the customer to either come-in and pick it up, or ship it to them directly. (customer pays shipping)
You mentioned something about an Affiliate?
Yeah, we did. We are working on building a great network of community forums, bloggers, and industry publishers who will receive 6% of the selling price of any items purchase through their links.
Is this going to be a lot of work?
Well, only if you start making a lot of money. At basic level, your store will automatically be updated with inventory feeds from your distributor.
Every time you receive an online sale, you’ll receive an email. You’ll have 24 hours to check your in-store inventory to see if you already have the item in stock. If you do nothing, the order will be forwarded to your distributor to be added to your next order.
Who is behind this?
We are Reinvent Retail — two partners with backgrounds in distribution and the web. We’re on the side of little box retail and think we’re great the same way small retailers are great, because we can think on our feet, act fast and be contribute to our (online) community.
