How to Become a Personal Shopper and Start Your Own Personal Shopper Business

Business Overview:

If fashion and customer service are your two passions, you should look into how to become a personal shopper and start your own personal shopper business. A personal shopper offers advice to his or her clients on the latest fashions and helps purchase and deliver clothing or other items to clients. Today many career professionals need to look their best but don’t have the time to do the shopping necessary to put together the wardrobe they need. Busy people also need help buying gifts for various occasions like birthdays, office parties and Christmas. When you research how to start a personal shopper business, you will likely find these and many other opportunities to put your shopping skills and people skills to work for you. But before you quit your current job and set up your new personal shopper business, you should formulate a business plan in which you determine who your clients will be. As previously stated, your clients could be business owners and busy executives, but they can also be families or the elderly. You may decide to focus your business on more than one of these groups which is a good idea since there is such high demand among many different client types. Grocery shopping for the elderly could be a very rewarding part of your business. If you have high-end clothing retail experience, you may want to focus on wealthy businessmen and businesswomen. As you can see, this business opportunity can be tailor fit to whatever your skill set is. You can work as much or as little as you like and the startup investment for this business idea is minimal. As your client list grows, you may need to hire a staff of shoppers to handle the growing demand of your clients. Eventually you can concentrate on managing your staff and securing new clients.

A Day in the Life of a Personal Shopper Business Owner:

Your day will vary depending on who your clients are and what their shopping needs are. If your client needs high-end business clothes, you will likely visit a local department store or boutique to research the newest arrivals or, if your client has given you a good idea of what he or she wants, you may make some purchases and deliver the clothing to your client. If your clients are elderly individuals who need groceries, visit with them to see what they need and make a trip to the grocery store then deliver the groceries. Family clients could need anything from groceries to sports equipment. If you have a staff of shoppers, give them their assignments and follow up with your clients to make sure their needs were met. Spend some time marketing your services in areas you visit throughout your day (department store, grocery store, etc.). Finally, you’ll want to check on your finances to ensure your bills have been paid and your clients have been sent their invoices.

About Your Customers:

Your customers will be individuals or families who need help shopping for various items.

What You Need to Start:

• Business plan
• Vehicle
• Eye for fashion (if your focus is clothing)
• Computer with finance software
• Filing system (either paper or digital) to keep track of all clients’ preferences, sizes, purchase history, etc.

The Good:

• There is great demand for this type of business.
• You can specialize in a variety of client needs.
• You get to spend your day shopping.
• You can run your business part time and ramp up to full time.
• You can charge top dollar for high quality customer service.

The Bad:

• Running all over town can be exhausting.
• Ramping up your client list can take some time.

Resources:

• Association of Image Consultants International
• World Association of Image Consultants
• Wikipedia on Personal Shoppers

About The Author

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