Kelsey Bulmer and her mother, Jill, opened Cerulean Boutique together in 2011 after they noticed a lack of personalized shopping services in Edmonton and St. Albert. The pair had been enjoying travelling to the US to shop for the designers they loved, and they noticed that lots of other women did the same. It didn’t take long until the Bulmers decided to turn their passion into a business opportunity.
“We would go shopping in the ’States and come back and everyone would love what we bought,” Kelsey says. “So we realized that this was something that we should try and make a business out of.” Duties and tariffs on importing clothing presented a challenge to Cerulean Boutique early on, but with Kelsey’s degree in marketing and retail, and Jill’s background in start-ups and bookkeeping, they became determined to offer their customers better prices than they could get shopping online or in the United States. All it took was some careful planning and buying before they were able to do just that, Kelsey says.
Along with great prices on brand-name products, Cerulean Boutique takes pride in its reputation as a specialty store, where their customers' needs are tended to personally. Kelsey and Jill go the extra mile by writing style tips on clothing tags, so customers can wake up and get dressed without spending extra time coordinating their outfit.
