This recent article from Daily Finance, How Walmart Turned the Tide Against Archrival Target, highlights a big shift in shopper perception.  People have moved from caring about brands to caring about value.  If you can brand your store or business as having consistently competitive prices, you can stand out among your competitors – even if your competitors come off as hip, cool and stylish.  This doesn’t mean huge slashing discounts, but maybe a careful evaluation of how much product to carry, how to market as well as keeping prices low.  That doesn’t mean that you can’t remain hip and cool at the same time…but that message should be secondary to the idea that you offer lower prices every day to your customers.  Remember also that value doesn’t mean cheap – you can carry high end goods, you should just carry them at the lowest profit margin you can afford.  this may seem obvious and you may be thinking that you are having sales and discounts, but are you really marketing yourself as a store that offers exceptional values?  Some suggestions to make your boutique stand out:

• create a value section where discounts are highlighted
• start a marketing campaign where your value is highlighted
• add some additional lines of lower priced but still quality goods
• offer a consistent discount for higher purchases (i.e., free shipping for orders over $100)
• offer a VIP discount to repeat customers or newsletter subscribers
• have weekly or daily sales items and market them – even 2 – 3 items a week could be effective