The Founders of Red Dress Boutique
The name of the business is Red Dress Boutique. It is basically an online shopping website, mainly dealing in the sale of women’s garments. The owners of this business are a married couple named Diana Harbour and Josh Harbour. Both of them hail from Athens, Georgia. They have been mainly dealing with the online sale of women’s garments. They mainly carry on their business online. In other words, they mainly carry on their business activities through their online website. They try to reach out to the millions of women customers who really find it very difficult to manage all the household works and then managing themselves. In other words, through their business, they try to extend their help to all those women that are living in this modern era. Majority of the 21st-century women are working women. However, at the same time, they also have to look after and manage their families (Conversational 2018). They really find it very difficult to manage their home, their kids and then their work at the same time. Most of the modern day families are nuclear families and they hardly have any extra helping hands. One of the most important activities that women have to do early in the morning is to get ready for their work. They have to dress properly before leaving for their work (Smith and Viceisza 2017). However, it really becomes a major problem for the women to take out a good amount of time for dressing up before they leave for their work. Often they do not get enough time to go out for shopping as well. So, it is really very helpful for them to get all the dress materials from an online shopping site. This would really ease their work a great deal and they would also be able to select their dresses from a large number of options. It is for this reason that the founders of this business both Diana and Josh Harbour went to the show called the shark tanks in order to try out their luck and to ask for some financial as well as some good innovative entrepreneurial help. They had earlier made the gross sale of about eight million dollars gross sales before going to the show Shark Tanks. They demanded six hundred thousand dollars in exchange for 15% equity shares in the business.
Josh Harbour and Diana Harbour are the founders or the owners of this business. They are based in Athens, Georgia. This business was basically launched by Diana Harbour as she always had a creative bent of mind and wanted to do something that would be creative in nature and would be for a good cause. She was inspired by her own life experiences and so she wanted to help out the busy women to dress them nicely and easily without any wastage of time. So, Diana along with her husband Josh started this online shopping store that would sell a wide and beautiful range of women apparel.
The Background of Red Dress Boutique
The background of this business is quite modern and family oriented as well. This is because one of the co-founders of this business that is Diana Harbour is a family oriented and a modern independent woman at the same time. She is also a mother. To be more precise she is a working mother. She has always tried to give a personal touch to her business. She has, in fact, got the idea of this business from her own family experiences as well. She is a married woman and has kids. So, when she started working she was literally facing a lot of problems as she had to manage her family life and her work life. It is also evident from the later interviews that she was not really able to cope up with the urging pressure that she was having. Being modern women she could not afford to sit back at home all day long. She decided to work and work for a good cause. She gained enough experience from her family life that how tough it is to manage work and home together. It is evident from her interview that she began her day with a very busy note. She had to get up in the morning, feed her kid, and manage all the other. So, she realized that this is also the same problem that is often faced by most of the other women. So, she wanted to help those women work and manage their family lives as well. Being a woman herself Diana knew that having proper, trendy, colorful and modern attire is of utmost importance for every girl. However, they do not always get sufficient time to dress in a proper way. Even if they do find some time, they will not be able to get a full set ready for themselves. They might also not get sufficient amount of time to set their wardrobes in a proper way. So, Diana along with her husband Josh started their business called the Red Dress Boutique that would sell a complete set of the women wear collections online. As this business is mainly carried online, Diana and Josh wanted to make some kinds of modifications to their already existing website. So, they started their business at Athens, Georgia. They went to the show called Shark Tanks, not because they were totally at stake and was in desperate need of help but because they wanted some kinds of modifications in their website so that they can meet with the customer needs and demands (ABC 2018).
The Main Activity of Red Dress Boutique
The main activity of Red Dress Boutique is to provide the women with a huge collection of clothing right on one platform. In other words, they will be able to buy an entire outfit from one single shopping platform. It has been mentioned by both Diana and Josh Harbour that they always add a personal touch to their products (Red Dress Boutique 2018). They have some very beautiful female outfits for their customers and they make sure that the price they are set for each of the dress is quite pocket-friendly and can easily be afforded by all their customers. The striking features of this business are that they make sure to provide their customers with a fully fledged dress collection so that their clients are saved from the hassle of searching and assembling dresses or different parts of their regular wear. They also make sure to deliver the dresses to their clients at the right time and also attach a beautiful message with them. They provide very flexible options to their customers so that they never face any problem and can easily make the purchases. The customers can place orders for either a complete set of the outfit that is the full outfit or they can just simply order a single piece or a single price of the outfit that they are looking for.
Red Dress Boutique is mainly an online business of women clothing. It mainly carries on its entire business activity through online transactions. The base of this business is however at Athens, Georgia, where the founder members of this business, Diana Harbour and her husband Josh Harbour stay.
The strengths of this business are that their designs are the most unique of their kinds. They make sure that their customers are able to get something very unique and something that would ease their day to day inconvenience of choosing their outfits. One of the most striking features of this business is that they provide their customers with very flexible options that are otherwise absent in the rest of the online shopping industry. They also make sure that their products are not only unique in terms of the quality and the design but are also available at an affordable price. The price of most the dresses that are supplied by the Red Dress Boutique is under fifty dollars. This will surely help in attracting a large number of customers. Being an online retail business, it will also help in saving the time and energy of the customers that would have been otherwise wasted if they went to the physical stores for buying them. Apart from this, Diana Harbor one of the co-founders of this business always wanted to provide her customers with something complete and beautiful. Also, she designs a full set of the dress or full attire for the women clients so that they can have an entire dress ready for themselves in the morning (Red Dress Boutique 2018).
Strengths of Red Dress Boutique
One of the major weaknesses of this business is that they carry on their entire business online that is through the help of their website. Though in the modern day scenario, using the online shopping systems is very common it can happen that some of the clients are unable to access the online website. There can also be a huge traffic on their webpage or on their website that might make the customers let go of some of the very good dress designs that they might like. So they can definitely create a new website for themselves. Another area of their improvement is focusing more on the quality of the dresses that they deliver. There have been several reviews coming in from their customers who have often been dissatisfied due to the lack of proper availability of size and quality of the dress that they deliver.
Another such business that is being carried on in the same geographical area is Dress Up Athens. Red Dress Boutique and Dress Up Athens function in the same geographical areas and can give each other a very tough competition as well. The reviews available from the customers who have shopped from the Dress Up Athens are very happy about the superior quality of the dresses that they have received whereas there have been several complaints about the quality of the dress from Red Dress Boutique.
The actions that they can take to overcome the weakness are by paying more attention to the quality of the dresses that they deliver. Though they make sure that they are paying sufficient importance to the quality and the design of the dress they need to pay more attention towards the quality as well. In the review, one customer complained against the poor quality of the dress material. She was going to wear the dress before a meeting and to her extreme shock, the dress had torn just before she could enter the meeting with her boss. There was another similar kind of a complaint from another client who was u happy due to the lack of proper size of the dress that she wanted to order(Ward 2015).
The existing performance of the Red Dress Boutique can be strengthened by emphasizing more upon the quality of the products. Though Diana Harbour makes sure that she is adding a personal unique touch in all the products that she is designing but she needs to be much more concerned about the quality of the product as well (Red Dress Boutique 2018).
Weaknesses of Red Dress Boutique
In order to survive in the modern business market, Red Dress Boutique needs to expand itself. They carry on their business through their online website which is good as online shopping sites have become one of the most popular mediums of the modern day scenario. However, there can be several clients who are not having proper access to the internet or are suffering from the problem of network traffic. So, Red Dress Boutique must concentrate on expanding themselves by setting up some physical stores as well, so that they can reach out to a large number of customers.
Red Dress Boutique has started its business with a very innovative and fresh business idea or business plan. Diana Harbour wanted to help out all those women who are so busy that they hardly get time to go on shopping or to dress up in a proper way before going out from their homes (Red Dress Boutique 2018). Diana Harbour along with her husband Josh Harbour had this objective that they will extend their helping hand to all those busy working women to dress up themselves in a proper way. Diana Harbour is a very creative woman and she believes that a good color full and unique dress can turn the bad mood of women into a good one. They also try to put forward their best efforts so that their customers are fully satisfied. They make sure to add a beautiful packaging and a beautiful message with all their deliveries so that they can connect with their customers emotionally as well. They mainly carry on their business activities through their online website so they sought help from Shark Tank to create a totally new webpage or a new website through which they can connect with their customers better.
Their main plan for coming to the shark tank show was to get a good amount of money and technical help from the entrepreneurs so that they can work on opening a new website or a new webpage. As they carry on their business only through online transactions, they often suffer from then the problem of webpage traffic. Their webpage often gets overcrowded or overburdened and as a result of this, their customers are not able to access the websites properly. They were, however, a more or less successful business prior to their arrival in the shark tank show. They had a gross sale of about 5 million and after getting the expected help from the Sharks, they would try to take it to as high as a target of 12 to 15 million this year. They basically had the plan of creating a new webpage for their business so that they can reach out to all their customers in a proper way. They also received sufficient amount of help from one of the entrepreneurs that are from Mark, who was greatly influenced by the business idea and the concept of Diana Harbour and Josh Harbour(Red Dress Boutique 2018). However, Diana and Josh accepted this fact that they have received a huge amount of help from Mark. The help was not only in terms of finance but also in terms of technical support as well. Diana and Josh wanted to construct a webpage of their own and they did not have a proper tech team or a website design team that would help them to develop a new webpage for suiting their business purpose(Contributor 2018). However, their previous and existing webpage has really helped them a great deal as they have really been able to increase their sales a great deal. There can also be several problems in using this new webpage for all their business. The customers may not find it very tough to adjust with the settings of the new webpage. Though they might get many options on the new webpage that the company created but at the same time, the customers will also like sticking to the previous and the existing webpage. So, Red Dress Boutique must consider using all the newly available technologies to develop their existing webpage since the customers are also very well acquainted with that webpage itself. Apart from this opening the physical stores along with the online retail stores will also be very helpful
Competition with Dress Up Athens
The changes that need to be conducted in the business will surely be very helpful for the business and its personnel. Opening the physical stores along with the online sites will be helpful and flexible for many customers. Setting up new physical stores will be helping to attract the number of customers and this will surely be helpful in increasing the overall sales and the revenue of the organization. It can so happen that many of the women clients are not being able to use the online shopping app for some reason or the other but they can happen to peep in and drop by in any of the physical stores of Red Dress Boutique while they are traveling across the streets of Athens in Georgia. On the other hand, if they use the available funds and the technological means to work upon their existing webpage rather than working on a new one, then it will surely be very much helpful for the customers(Jary and Wileman 2016). They will find much more flexibility and options on the webpage. Lastly, if they focus on improving the quality of the products then it will also help in attracting the attention of a large number of customers. Customers who had issues with the size and the quality of the products will surely be happy if they see a good improvement in the quality of the products. As customer satisfaction is the key to the success of any business, Red Dress Boutique will also have to ensure that they are not leaving their customers dissatisfied in any way.
All these changes will have to be managed by the personnel in the Red Dress Boutique business by implementing all the recent technological knowledge and the available funds within the existing webpage rather than investing it on opening a new webpage. This will be helpful for the customers in two ways as it will help them to get many new varieties of dresses at the same existing platform. Apart from this, they must also concentrate in opening new physical stores in different outlets so that they can also extend their services to those customers who do not find it easier to make transactions online (Lutz and Hoffmann 2017). Lastly, they must focus on the quality of the products by ensuring that all the products are available in all the different sizes and colors. They will have to be very proactive while getting their products manufactured so that there are no quality issues (Ward 2015). They must also ensure that their clothes are made from the best fabrics possible so that there are no issues with them getting torn.
Actions to Overcome Weaknesses
They will have to be very careful about the raw materials and the process of manufacturing their products so that their customers are never dissatisfied with their products. They will have to keep in mind that there will be a demand for getting different sizes of dresses by different women. So, it is of utmost importance for them to make sure that they have a large number of sizes of their products so that they can be purchased by all the different women having different sizes. They cannot afford to lose their customers on the quality issue. They have to focus on all round customer satisfaction Red Dress Boutique. 2018.
The improvements in the performance of the company’s business over the previous two years are indicated by the trend graph or suitable reporting format.
Sales, gross margin, and profit of Red Dress Boutique Company are observed to increase gradually over the past two years in the graph above. As the apparel industry is always highly populated, this makes it difficult for the competitors to attain success. So, attaining increased growth in this segment is a great accomplishment for this company. Over the past two years, this retailer is observed to achieve high scores for both its growth in web sales and five-year compound yearly growth rate. The web sales of this company increased by 60% in the previous year as per internet retailer ($22.3 million in 2017 from $13.9 million in 2016). This is far ahead of 18.1% yearly sales growth of all its competitors in apparel industry (Digital Commerce 360 2018). Red Dress Boutique Company was ranked 20 among 111 apparel retailers in sales in the second 500. Moreover, the merchant attained growth of 207.2% in the past five years that is 10 times high than the 21.6% category average in the same period. However, it is gathered that profits are not factored into the scoring system of internet retailers (Digital Commerce 360 2018). For this reason, numerous merchants ranked within internet retailer’s international e-commerce publications are deemed to be private and determining their profitability it gets complex.
The merchant has also attained increased marks for its social media marketing. Red Dress Boutique Company attains 5.7% of its traffic from all its social networks (Digital Commerce 360 2018). It also gathers more followers and likes in comparison to its nearest business rivals. For instance, the apparel company has more than 230,758 followers on Instagram that is a social media platform. The company attained increased visibility in this platform through publishing product pictures that are highly effective for the apparel retailers. However, the company’s close competitors namely Stein Mart and Ulla Popkin have 3,593 and 488 correspondingly. Red Dress Boutique Company also has more than 17,981 followers on Twitter in comparison to its competitors Stein Mart’s that have 5,590 followers and Ulla Popkin’s that have 495followers(Digital Commerce 360 2018). Over the past two years, the company also gathered a competitive advantage through tapping into the innovative manner of showcasing its apparel products in front of all its online consumers. The boutique serves more than 3.6 million consumers and is drastically enhancing its performance over the years.
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