How to Set Up a Yoga Studio Retail Store Online and Offline

Do you know what percentage of your studio revenue is from retail sales?
Do you think you can increase retail sales?
Do you know which demographics are spending the most money on retail products?

Of all the 3 questions above, I believe#3 deserves some discussion and that’s where this post begins.

Yoga Studios Don’t Pay Enough Attention to Retail Sales

I’m not suggesting you turn your yoga studio into a mall. However, and this is a theme of Yoga Baron, your yoga studio is a business and should be run like a business.

Every business should look for ways to leverage its resources and assets in order to increase revenues. An easy way for yoga studios to leverage resources (space where people visit) is to sell retail items.

Retail sales is a trial and error process

It takes time to determine which products sell the best. Try different products and carefully track who buys what. In fact, it’s important that you track who spends the most money on retail products. Why? Because you may decide to design more classes to attract that type of student.

For example, suppose women students over the age of 50 are your biggest retail spenders. If this is the case, you can ask those students what type of classes they like and when they like the classes scheduled. Armed with this information, you can create more classes that cater to this demographic. Promote those classes. With more of this demographic in your studio, you should enjoy more revenue from not only classes, but also retail sales.

Do a cost / benefit analysis

Retail space takes away from yoga class studio space. It could well turn out that your retail space is not as profitable as that space could be if you used it for yoga classes. This cost / benefit analysis is part of the trial and error process. If you decide not to have an in-store retail space, there’s no reason you can’t set up an online retail operation (see below).

Other advantages to selling retail

1. You serve your students

Students may need yoga gear, apparel, and/or other wellness items. Since they attend your studio, it’s convenient if they can buy from you when they attend class.

2. Attract new students

If you sell retail products not available elsewhere in your town, yogis may come by to buy from you. They may become new students.

3. Offer hard-to-find products

Because you’re an industry insider, you can find unique and hard-to-find products that your students may love.

Don’t forget to set up an online yoga store

If you have a website (I recommend you do), there’s no reason you can’t add an online store to your website selling the retail products you sell in your store. In fact, with a website, you can sell a HUGE variety and array of products – far more than you carry in your yoga studio. You can built up a profitable online retail business as part of your yoga studio.

The fact is your website receives targeted traffic (i.e. people who do yoga). As a yoga studio owner, you have access to yoga gear/apparel wholesalers who will happily provide you inventory. Simply by implementing some software, you can set up and build up a successful online yoga store.

Moreover, you don’t have to focus your online store locally. With an online store, you can sell to a global market.

Online yoga retail models that don’t require you carrying inventory

One obstacle to selling online for yoga studio owners is having to carry inventory and dealing with shipping orders. I don’t blame anyone for not setting up an online store for this reason. Packing and shipping is a lot of work. However, you have other options such as:

1. drop shipping

You can enter into a deal a wholesale yoga products supplier where orders from your website go directly to the wholesaler who will take care of packing and shipping.

2. Affiliate/Referral Sales

Yes, I realize “affiliate marketing” for some has an unsavoury reputation. It’s unfortunate because affiliate or referral marketing is an excellent service. However, affiliate marketing is really no different than drop shipping or even selling retail directly. As an affiliate you simply direct buyers to merchant sites. The customer DOES NOT PAY A PENNY MORE. You’re just the middle person who receives a commission. If you sell retail, you mark up the wares. As an affiliate, your customers pay the price set out by the merchant.

With affiliate marketing, you can create what appears to be an online store, but visitors who buy are directed to the merchants’ shopping cart.

An advantage to affiliate marketing is you can provide products from a vast variety of merchants and not carry any inventory. You can choose to display only the best products … products you use and love. This way you serve your students and customers by helping them buy quality products.

As a consumer, I’ve bought many products where an affiliate / referral source earned a commission. In fact, I purposely go to buy through referral sources who help me with my buying decision.

Referral marketing has advanced to where you can create online stores

Many merchants provide a website code that when placed on a page in your website, creates an entire online catalogue. It’s fast, easy, and costs you nothing to set up an entire retail catalogue on your website.

Have fun setting up your retail store

As a yoga teacher/studio owner, you’re probably well-versed with many yoga products … more so than many of your students. You can have a great deal of fun sourcing great products to sell in your studio and online.

What software can you use to set up and run an online yoga store?

There are all kinds of e-commerce software you can use. You’ll want to research the decision carefully.

Ideally, you’ll get software that works in both your offline and online retail operations. However, if you go the drop shipping/referral marketing approach for your online operation, you won’t need to worry about dealing with online shopping carts, shipping, inventory, etc. It’s all done for you.

MindBodyOnline offers a variety of yoga retail options

Again, I recommend you research your retail software carefully. One software option worth looking at is MindBodyOnline. Their software includes in-studio retail software, credit card processing integration, PLUS you can easily set up an online store with their software. In fact, you can set up an online store where you pack and ship OR you can plug in entire stores featuring many merchants where you receive a percentage of the sales you generate.

Alternatively, you can set up both an online store where you pack and ship as well as a referral/drop shipping online store. The sky is the limit.

Note that MindBodyOnline is more than yoga studio e-commerce software. It’s also yoga studio management software (that’s how they got started). Please research their product carefully. It’s not cheap, but it is great ONLY IF it’s the right software for your studio.

I recommend you contact MindBodyOnline and ask them to explain in detail all the retail and e-commerce options they have so you can determine if what they offer is right for you.