Profile: Caroline Davis, Owner of 8.28 Boutique
The door chimes as a customer walks into 8.28 Boutique; Caroline Davis, wearing a bright floral dress, looks up from her computer and greets the customer with a beaming smile on her face.
Opened online in 2018, 8.28 Boutique was created by Caroline after her mom was diagnosed with cancer and she found she needed more flexibility from her job as a news reporter in Birmingham, Ala.
“I worked weird hours so I couldn’t ever get to a boutique during their normal business hours. I found myself shopping online a lot, and I just noticed that there wasn’t an online store that had all of the same brands that boutiques had,” Davis said.
Caroline saw a need to create a store that carried all the brands she loved. So, she left news in 2017 and had a non-compete agreement with her previous employer so she started working for a men’s wholesale company and gained experience with customer service, public relations and shipping.
“I quit that job in January of 2018 and nannied while I got everything off the ground. I went to market in April 2018 and then launched the website in May,” Davis said.
Since then, Caroline moved back to Lakeland to be closer to family and in 2023 opened her storefront on South Florida Avenue. In terms of her target customers in the local area she said they are more selective.
“My customers are very classic, and they want classic prints. They want things that are going to be in style for seasons and not pieces they will wear one time. I’ve evolved over the years in business and I’ve kind of steered away from low quality items and really catered to my customer,” Davis said.
Caroline’s passion for providing a unique selection of pieces for her customers both in her community and nationally is what drives her business and in terms of her next steps she’s dreaming of new opportunities.
“I’ll keep doing what I’m doing but maybe at some point I’ll open a little kids store, that would be my next extreme,” Davis said.