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- 1). Develop a business plan for opening a kid's resale boutique. This includes determining how to generate financing to purchase gently used items for resale and establish your storefront. Include information on ways to market to parents, businesses and other individuals with used kids' items to sell and who might be potential customers. Detail the process by which you'll purchase resale items from people, including things to look for when inspecting each item, what constitutes "gently used" and how to deal with customers who have items you don't want to purchase for resale. A business plan should also address business goals, which might include expanding your resale business to include more than one storefront or including adult resale items as well as children's.
- 2). Obtain the appropriate licensing to open your kid's resale boutique. According to Entrepreneur.com, depending on your state, you may need to obtain a "resale permit/license, seller's permit, certificate of authority, use and sales tax license/permit sales and use tax, application to collect/report tax, transaction privilege (sales) tax, resale certificate." You may generally get this type of permit through your state's division of corporations or department of business regulation.
- 3). Select a retail site for your boutique. Optimally, you might select a location that offers plentiful natural traffic, such as a location in a shopping center or mall. Because yours is a kid's resale boutique, also consider retail spacing close to a kid's entertainment complex or kid-friendly shops or restaurants. The space should be roomy enough to house your inventory and to accommodate each element of the resale boutique, including an area for people to bring items to sell to you and an area for people to actually shop for items.
- 4). Advertise for items to resell. For customers to become familiar with your reselling efforts, they have to know about you first. Run ads in your local newspaper and on local TV stations advertising the fact that buy back gently used kid's items, from toys to clothing. You might also run classified ads and circulate fliers in places where families tend to frequent, such as kid's play centers or child care facilities.
- 5). Determine the price points that you're willing to pay for children's items. Depending on the market for resale items in your area, you want to pay enough to be competitive, but also enough to turn a profit when you resell the items. Determine the value of items using a guide, such as the Salvation Army's "Valuation Guide." Stock up on a little bit of everything to give yourself an ample breadth of inventory. After you open your doors, you may continue the process of buying and reselling items to restock your inventory as it's depleted or to meet customer demand.
- 6). Clean the items and prepare them for resale. Because you're selling the items for profit, it's important that they look as new as possible. Properly arrange items in the store to look like a funky boutique and less like a store full of used items. Hang clothes on retail clothing racks, display the more colorful items and items that are in better condition on walls and in window displays, and arrange jewelry on retail accessory displays.
- 7). Market your business. Become involved in local kids' events and market your services with fliers, collateral and business cards. Hold special purchasing days at your location when people can get 10 percent more for their resale, or have discount days where customers can enjoy two-for-one specials on resale items. The more visibility your business has, the more successful it will be.
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