M OV E R S & S H A K E R S
How important is it to merge
content with commerce?
To me, it’s crucial. Commerce is about
convenience and content is about giving context
to why you shop. Shoptiques is all about
cultivating the boutique experience, so it is
important to provide the customer with content
around that experience. How can Shoptiques recreate the experience of shopping in Paris in
Marais? All through content: we utilize videos:
interviews with boutique owners, profiles of
stores and neighborhoods, articles and advice
how-tos. This allows our customers to feel like
they are physically present shopping in Paris
even though they are on shoptiques.com.
Shoptiques is a platform that promotes discovery
and exploration.
you can offer a very personalized differentiated
experience as a competitive advantage. Online
enables you to have enormous amount of
information that you never had before and the
merge between online and offline allows retailers
to optimize that data for in-store experiences as
well. I think it is an incredible time for the retail
industry. Lots of change is happening and it is
always fun to be part of that transition!
We, at Shoptiques, sit right in the middle of
Online and Offline. We feature over 150 local
boutiques with real offline presence, yet all of the
items they sell are very differentiated and you
can't find them anywhere else except in physical
boutiques or on our site. That's a powerful
position to be in as we avoid competing on price
with other large retailers.
How are boutiques chosen? Do you Have you found your dual cultural
seek them out or are they finding upbringing aided in any way to
making Shoptiques a success?
you?
We receive high number of inquiries from
boutiques worldwide every day, but have reject
the majority of the stores because they don’t fit
our uniqueness of clothing and/or quality
standards. We really want our customers to enjoy
their experience at the actual boutiques if they
ever visit a particular city and stop by the
boutique. Outside of inbound inquiries, our
largest team at Shoptiques is focused on
boutiques. They are constantly out and about
finding local gems. We speak to local trendsetters
and boutique shoppers to find the best of the best
and read publications that focus on identifying
the best local shopping destinations. It is much
more of an art than a science. Once a boutique
has been identified as the one we want, we reach
out over the phone/email/in person to the owner
and sign them up to join. After tha