Queensland entrepreneur Alex Dreise has started an online boutique of the best designer dog products from around the globe. Her small business, Topdog Boutique aims to make chic international dog products accessible and affordable, as she absorbs the expensive import and shipping costs. The result is a carefully curated selection of the most drool-worthy coveted canine products from Australia, Europe, the United States and Africa.
Tell us about Topdog Boutique.
Topdog Boutique is an online retailer of luxury, designer dog products. Launched in March 2019, we offer a curated selection of products sourced from Australian and international designers. From beds and bowls to collars, clothing and accessories, we have everything to spoil your favourite furry family member.
What inspired you to start Topdog Boutique?
After getting frustrated by the quality of the cheap accessories that I was buying for my dog, Romeo, I started falling in love with some of the products on offer from world-leading designers. I noticed that there were no online shops in Australia that I could buy these brands from, which I was really surprised by. Seeing this gap in the market, I decided to start Topdog. With a background in design, and an obsession with dogs – it was just the perfect fit for me.
Tell us about your career and background.
My background is in Digital Design, so I have worked in different roles such as Web Designer, Front-end Developer, and User Interface / User Experience Designer. My work ranges from branding packages to designing websites, software and apps. I am in my happy place when I can be creative and use data to help make design decisions. I love that all these skills I have learnt translate across to so much of what I do at Topdog.
Describe a typical work day for you.
As I still work full-time and Topdog is my side hustle, my typical work day is very long! Ha. In the morning before my day job, and on lunch breaks, I’ll be busy with social media, replying to customer emails and general admin tasks. In the evenings, I’ll wrap the orders for the day ready to send out the following morning. It isn’t until the weekend that I have the time to focus on the business itself, and I’ll be doing things like checking stock levels and re-ordering, researching and sourcing new products, looking into marketing opportunities and working on customer engagement and content creation.
What advice do you have for those wanting to start a business?
My advice would be to do your research, and to just take the leap! I could have launched Topdog much earlier than I did, but I kept putting it off because I would find more and more things that needed to be perfect prior to launch. That could have gone on for years and I never would have launched! So, I think it’s all about just getting something out there for proof of concept, and then perfecting the rest as you go.
What’s next for you, and Topdog Boutique?
The next couple of years, I’ll be focusing on growing our audience and getting the brand out there – I want Topdog to become a household name. As we grow, I’m really looking forward to broadening our range and being able to offer a lot more products and brands to our fluffy customers. I’m also hoping to design and launch our own line of products, which I’m super excited about, as I think there is so much we can bring to the market!
For more info on Topdog Boutique, please click here.
