High style, low overhead

When customers in Los Angeles or New York buy a $300 cocktail dress from the website www.ShopToken.com, they most likely don't know their purchase is being wrapped up in the land of Nordic sweaters and flannel -- and in the owner's childhood bedroom in her parents' house, no less.

Several local clothing boutiques, such as Hot Mama and Covered, have recently taken their shops online. But at least one small fashion retailer, www.ShopToken.com's Andrea Huspeni, sells online only.

Huspeni wanted to star a fashion website when she moved back to Minneapolis after working as a brand representative in California for several years. In late 2005, the 26-year-old launched www.ShopToken.com by setting up shop in her parent's house in Apple Valley.

She thought an online boutique would make some high-end lines accessible to people who didn't live in a fashion capital. The site now averages 200 visitors and 1,500 page views a day.

"When I started the website, I thought it would be for people in Minnesota," Huspeni said. "But the opposite has been true. I do get Minnesota sales, but not nearly as much as from the East and West coasts."

Like other boutique owners, Huspeni scours the booths at clothing markets in Los Angeles and New York to pick out fashion-forward lines such as Rebecca Taylor and Rozae Nichols Convertible.

But by running her business online, she is able to avoid the expenses of leasing a physical store and employing salespeople. Her parents even help her with shipping and giftwrapping.

Www.ShopToken.com reaches fashionistas around the world. She said customers often find her site while searching online for a specific brand.

Huspeni competes with massive fashion sites, such as www.shopbop.com and www.activeendeavors.com, where you can get lost in an online warehouse of upscale clothing lines. But she thinks customers flock to her website because, like a small boutique, she focuses on key brands and adds personal touches. She includes hand-written thank-you cards with each purchase.

"I try to keep it more like a boutique by not offering as many brands but doing deeper penetration into the brand," she said. "The reason I do that is because sometimes when I go on bigger sites, I get overwhelmed by all the brands, and I even know about them."

The perk of pre-shopping

Websites offer boutiques a new way to interact with customers, even if they only live across town. For local owners, the Web can help attract national interest as well. At Dinkytown's Covered, a denim boutique, owner Stacy Larson said premium-denim fans check her website to see the latest deliveries of popular brands, such as Serfontaine and William Rast.

"The website lets people take a peek and see what we have in before they come down to the store," Larson said.

Megan Tamte, owner of Hot Mama, has expanded her company in the last three years from a single store in Edina to seven stores across the Midwest. Earlier this year, Tamte added a website and found it's done more than bring in new business: With about 40 percent of customers coming from outside her stores' home bases, she can better predict where a new actual store might find success.

The challenge for online-only retailers is finding a way to sell clothes that customers can't try on. Huspeni said she quit offering a lot of jeans and pants styles for that very reason. She tries to answer e-mails as quickly as possible so customers can get information about fit before they buy.

"If I was going to offer jeans, I'd have to bring back a popular, well-known jean," she said.

In the end, it's all about comfort.

"I try to make it the easiest possible shopping experience," Huspeni said.

Lora Pabst • 612-673-4628