Awesome product, I can see this working very well in the online shopping industry. A very impressive part of the article: "[...] she interviewed about 800 boutique owners around the country, trying to understand their frustrations, and how an e-commerce site could help, and why this idea didn't exist already." - I'd say a very key advantage which Shoptiques will have in the future.
This website is great. There were at least 3 boutiques shown that were within 3 blocks of where I'm sitting, and they're high quality places. Props to them for launching in a bunch of cities. Is there a similar platform for men?
Am I missing something or this is Milo for boutiques?
You're missing at least three major differences: 1) everything is unique (the opposite of Milo), 2) Shoptiques will coordinate photoshoots and listings and 3) Shoptiques handles order creation and payment. I'm not sure how much the remainder resembles "Milo for boutiques" or even if that's a "bad thing".
How is being the "milo for X" a bad thing? ebay bought them for $75 million.
If going broke and closing doors is your view of success then yes milo is a bad thing...