A Shop of One's Own: Women Who Turned the Dream into Reality - Hardcover

Victoria Magazine; Epstein, Rachel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1588161048 ISBN 13: 9781588161048

Publisher: Hearst, 2002

Synopsis

Whether flowers are your fancy, hats your madness, or paper your passion, you can open a store selling the things you love. To thrive in a shop of your own, however, requires myriad skills best learned from those who already know. Victoria introduces a group of women entrepreneurs who, with little inventory and big dreams, created a rewarding niche in the retail market. Their triumphs and failures, practical advice and insider secrets, provide invaluable lessons for fledgling shop owners. Here's just the right advice to take you from getting establishing credit to choosing a space to developing a solid partnership with vendors. Find creative and inviting ideas for displaying your wares so customers will linger longer, and smart ways to get the biggest bang out of your advertising dollars. The profiles of female shop owners will offer inspiration and provide invaluable role models.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

For many women who love to shop, running one's own boutique is the ultimate dream. In this coffee table book-turned-entrepreneurial guide, Victoria magazine's editors offer readers practical tips and realistic advice to help them realize that fantasy. Highlighting gift shops and stationery stores, gourmet emporiums and millineries, the authors carefully explain how to launch a venture, establish credit, choose a space, create a solid partnership with vendors, arrange one's wares, advertise and more. The pretty color photographs show how women entrepreneurs have set up their own stores, offering advice on making customers feel welcome, avoiding failed partnerships, creating innovative displays and attracting the notice of passersby. Savvy readers will recognize some of the featured businesses, which include Eileen Fisher, Barefoot Contessa and Papyrus. Acknowledging that being in charge can mean worrying when things are slow or financially uncertain, the authors also agree that when you're an entrepreneur, "days are never boring" and owners get to spend "time with the things they love, making people happy in the process." The visually pleasing book will appeal to serious readers with concrete plans to open a store and those who are just plain curious about the behind-the-scenes processes of their favorite shops. A resource guide lists appropriate books, magazines, associations and Web sites.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

All about women, retail, and being your own boss, this offering from Victoria magazine will help readers understand what it takes to open a business--and thrive. This is not about high finance, real estate, and merchandising--after all, there are enough MBA-like instructional books extant--but about personality, perseverance, and the ability to bounce back from adversity. Three chapters center on the ABCs of getting started, finding success, and managing people; detailed profiles of female shop owners follow, along with interior and exterior color photographs. Quick tips, lessons, and helpful instructions are abundant, like a location checklist, ideas for finding support, and professional rules of the road (e.g., rent a site that's on the shady side of the street and in the coming-home commuter traffic pattern). Best of all are the profiles--real-life examples that anyone can relate to. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Hearst
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1588161048
• ISBN 13: 9781588161048
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224