How to become a Personal Shopper: 10 Duties, Education and Soft Skills

In order to assist clients who are either too busy or unable to shop for themselves, personal shoppers are compensated to shop and complete errands. It’s the perfect home-based business for someone who enjoys shopping.

So what does it take to convert a passion for buying into a lucrative personal shopping career? This guide includes the duties, compensation, educational requirements, and how to become a personal shopper.

Who is a Personal Shopper?

An individual who shops for others as a job is known as a personal shopper. The majority of personal shoppers purchase clothing and accessories for their clients, though they might shop for anything from groceries to furnishings. Others work for boutiques or department stores that provide personal shopping services. Personal shoppers can work directly for clients or their personal stylists.

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Personal Shopping Job Description

Individual shoppers receive the most individualized and personalized customer care available from personal shoppers in addition to expert guidance. Personal shoppers turn become dependable advisers for customers who want a better shopping experience by providing individualized attention and in-depth product, service, and trend knowledge.

As a professional adviser in this position, you will build strong, long-lasting connections with your clientele and engage in proactive communication with them on a frequent basis. In every retail establishment, personal shoppers set the bar for customer pleasure and the highest standards of customer service for sales.

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Key Duties of a Personal Shopper

You will be in charge of developing a clientele of devoted buyers who make frequent purchases in your capacity as a personal shopper. You will design a simple, motivational, and successful shopping experience for customers through a range of communication channels. Your personal shopper initiatives should lead to increased sales ticket averages and a highly customer-focused environment. These among others are the responsibilities of a personal shopper:

1. By offering suggestions, direction, and top-notch customer support, assisting customers in making the best possible purchases.
2. Assisting clients with phone, internet, and in-person order placement and payment processing.
3. Resolving customer issues and requests in a timely and efficient manner.
4. Recommending to customers products that are available in place of outdated, discontinued, or unavailable products.
5. Bringing up customer complaints, supply difficulties, and subpar goods with management right away.
6. Interacting with clients and making sure any particular instructions are carried out.
7. Ensuring the precise selection, scanning, and packing of orders.
8. Helping where needed with order collection, packing, loading, and payment.
9. Keeping track of product availability and offerings.
10. Working in conjunction with retail departments to guarantee effective service delivery.

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Communications Responsibilities

Through correspondence via postal mail, e-mail, telephone, and in-person meetings, personal shoppers manage their customer relationships. Speaking is not as vital as listening because you will need the material to fill out the comprehensive reference files you will be keeping.

Personal shoppers use their clientele’s files to suggest new products and store events. Customers will welcome your interactions with positive expectation and enthusiasm due to the suitability of your recommendations. By encouraging regular visits and frequent purchases, you will encourage customers to shop at your establishment.

Sales Responsibilities

Although many customers demand it, you will also build relationships with regular shoppers who are not accustomed to a personalized shopping experience. Typically, appointment numbers, sales quotas, and customer satisfaction objectives are set for personal shoppers to meet.

Because of your in-depth familiarity with the consumer and the available products, upselling and suggestive selling will come naturally during the personal shopping experience. You may give your consumers specialized product knowledge as well as broad perspectives on current and upcoming developments in the retail business by staying educated.

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Skills and Requirements for Personal Shoppers

• High School Diploma
• A marketing bachelor’s degree or a similar qualification would be preferred.
• Experience in retail from the past would be helpful.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
• The capacity to multitask in a busy setting.
• Strong verbal and written communication abilities.
• Basic Computer and Math Solving Abilities.
• Ability to endure noise, lift and carry objects, stand, walk, and sit for extended durations.
• A capacity for both independence and teamwork.
• Willingness to work erratic hours, including on weekends and at times when stores are busy.

Prior Experience Required

Not your typical entry-level retail position. Retail employers will be searching for someone with a strong track record of sales success, preferably with the same types of products or a similar business, as personal shopping services are employed for competitive differentiation.

Although some businesses could be willing to give someone with broad sales experience product knowledge training, you’ll be a stronger candidate if you already have a passion for the items and the sector.

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Salary

The annual salary of a personal shopper ranges from $25,000 to $100,000 or more, including commissions and bonuses. Your beginning base pay may not be much higher than that of any other retail salesperson or cashier. However, if your clientele and productivity increase, you should be able to bargain for a better package for yourself, one that includes perquisites beyond the typical retail employee benefits, such as cost reimbursements.

Benefits

Those who work as personal shoppers gain the following advantages:

• Sponsorship of foreigners for visas
• Payment for tuition
• Health protection
• Flexible hours of employment
• Employee stock ownership program
• Health protection
• Food for the internal staff
• Maternity leave
• Shop reduction
• Fuel savings

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How to become a Personal Shopper

The personal shopper’s professional path and day-to-day activities are distinctive in certain aspects. Try the following steps to learn how to become a personal shopper:

Research for the Job:

Make sure that your career goals match the requirements of the profession before deciding to enter it. You should not mind constantly moving, operating a vehicle, or attending to the needs of only one person. To learn more about careers as personal shoppers, consult the links below:

• Websites of fashion schools
• Website forums
• Other Personal Shoppers
• Reviews

You can look at the career page on the websites of fashion schools. You can contact the career staff through email through the website. Personal shopper forums will benefit you because they provide as places for people with similar interests to exchange ideas. Websites for job searching offer reviews. Additionally, there are some personal shopper videos online that describe working life and offer customer perspectives.

Select a Niche:

Jobs as a freelance personal shopper service a variety of businesses and personality types rather than just one. You might work as a personal shopper for a lawyer, executive, or doctor. You’ll most likely require word-of-mouth recommendations if you want to work for prominent people or celebrities. You can find yourself shopping for a variety of items, depending on the type of service you do and the lifestyle of your client.

Another market to take into account is senior citizen shopping. Seniors could desire to enjoy their retirement or they can have health issues that make going shopping difficult. In this scenario, you might not necessarily be shopping for the latest fashion trends but rather for groceries or to pick up prescription medication from the drugstore. When working with senior adults, you should be adaptable and understanding.

You can choose to focus on particular products. For instance, you can either buy for clothes or groceries. For their prestigious customers, retail apparel stores employ personal shoppers. In fact, one of the finest ways to develop expertise as a personal shopper is to work for a business.

Become knowledgeable about the sector:

You must have excellent networking and people skills as well as a resourceful and accommodating disposition to succeed as a personal shopper. Your customers will view you as a professional consultant for your client, therefore they will expect you to be knowledgeable in both your field and, to some extent, at least when it comes to shopping, theirs as well.

Make friends with the store managers so they can let you know when new inventory comes in. Discover the platforms that other personal shoppers use to promote their services. Learn the rationale behind other personal shoppers’ use of those channels. Next, decide which platform best suits your expertise and area of expertise.

Acquire the Certification:

School is the ideal setting for learning how to be a personal shopper. Online personal shopping certification programs are available for personal shoppers, the majority of which are in the fashion industry. They consist of:

• Clothing Designing and Styling
• Clothing Design and Accessories
• Image Guidance
• Fashion Communication
• Costumes and Wardrobe Design Specialist

You can achieve your goal of becoming a personal shopper by enrolling in degree programs in communication and sales. The fundamentals of selling and customer service are covered in these courses. Therefore, it would be simpler for you to become a personal shopper if you have some experience in the marketing or sales industry.

Polish your Abilities:

Practice regularly if you want to excel at what you do. Offer your services to your family members before you receive your first paying clients. Inform them that you are starting a new career and that you want to use your newly acquired talents. Ask them to be completely honest with you. Maintain a constant effort. Your close pals should also receive your services. Utilize their comments to develop and learn.

Working as a volunteer is another way to get experience. Some charities assist people in enhancing their image. You can gain a lot of knowledge about strengthening your personal brand and taste by volunteering in these groups.

Stay current with Trends:

The fashion business is always evolving. Every year, new designs are released. The client, however, ultimately decides whether to purchase the newest fashionable clothing. Customers that want subtle brands exist. You can meet the needs of various clients by staying on top of fashion trends.

Browse the internet and the social media accounts of well-known fashion influencers to learn about the newest trends. Websites with customer reviews are a fantastic additional resource for data on fashion trends. Magazines and fashion websites are among more well-liked resources.

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