You may think that it’s too late for this, but why not? Think of the possibilities – you could make a much-needed change in the world of fashion without breaking your bank. Let’s not beat around the bush; starting an online clothing business is no rocket science. It can be done within a few hours. With a positive mindset and a bit of creativity, you are bound to enjoy immense success with your online clothing business. In this tutorial, we are going to help you learn how to start an online clothing business and how to scale it
Determine your niche
You’ve probably heard the term “niche marketing” and wondered how it could help you as an online clothing retailer. Some people believe that niche marketing is only for business-to-business or service businesses, but it applies to any business. In this article, we’ll show you why it’s important to have a niche and how it can help you build an online clothing business profitable. The best way to pick out a niche is to understand what motivates people to shop for certain products. One easy way to look at a niche is by a keyword, but you have to make sure that the niche has enough search volume. For example, if you have a ski clothing store, then you may want to rank for the term “ski clothes for sale” or “ski clothes cheap”.
Key Takeaways
• Picking a niche determines the type of audience you reach.
• Picking a niche will affect your business model and operations
• Picking a niche can determine your success
Determine the business market level to suit your brand
For anyone wanting to start an online clothing business, the early research and planning stages can seem daunting. How do you even decide what market level you will operate in? The answer is, like everything in business, no set rule fits all scenarios. The choice you make about which market level to choose for your brand will be influenced by your goals, target market, and product range. Here are a few things you need to consider when making this decision;
- Who is your target audience?
Your target audience will help you build up your strategies and determine which marketing methods will be more successful for your brand. If we take the example of Zalando, they have three online clothing business marketing strategies available for their consumers: home delivery, shop now, and mobile shopping.
- What do you want to achieve?
- What is your budget?
- Create a Business Plan
The startup world, and the business-planning process, can seem daunting to experts and amateurs alike, but it doesn’t have to be. If you have a basic understanding of your business’s needs and a clear idea of your goals and mission, writing a business plan is just like making a shopping list. Just like shopping, there are countless articles and resources out there for you to help you create a plan that works for your business.
The first step in creating your business plan is to start with a strong foundation: what do you want to spend, why, how much, etc. From there, you can move into determining what your startup costs will be to get things up and running.
Designing your shopping list of startup costs is almost exactly the same as designing your business or project’s marketing plan.
Now that you have your idea start creating something!
- Pick Your Materials. Pick fabrics you’d like to use, whether it’s cotton or polyester, and a color. If it’s based on the color of your logo, make sure the fabric can be seen in the correct shade.
- Design
Product development is one of the most exciting stages in starting an online clothing business. Even if you only have a design concept for one product in these early days, start getting it on paper or screen as a sketch. Once you’re ready, turn rough ideas into nailed-down digital sketches. Programs like Adobe Illustrator can do a lot of the hard work for you.
However, if you’re a skilled sketcher, feel free to continue this old-school technique. Sketches add personality and give ideas a human touch that computer drawings sometimes lack. At this point in your business, you will need to make decisions about your product’s overall look. This involves choosing colors, logo design, materials, sizing, and more. Your competitors might be making similar choices at this point, so try to avoid jumping ahead of them, as it will grant you more time to sell.
Create Product samples
The next step in the process is to get a good sample of the product and photographs. Creating a good product sample is very important as it is the first thing your potential customer will see. You can do that with companies like GearBubble or Thrive Screen Printing. You can produce a prototype on your own, but this can be costly. You have two other options;
You can use a professional sample maker. You can have a design company make the sample for you.
The decision between these two options depends on your budget and the quality of the product. Either way, you should still look to market test your product before committing to mass production. This will help you refine your idea and increase sales once you do launch your item.
Market your product and sell online
Taking them to market can be a great way to test your product without committing to the full product run. Market trading spaces, school fairs, and online platforms like Facebook Marketplace, Instagram, can be great places to start, take notes, ask your customers all the time for their feedback on the product and anything else they’re looking for. Posting your products on a well-known e-commerce platform, like eBay, Etsy, or Amazon, will allow you to reach a broader audience and take your business to the next level. Some of these platforms are more hands-on, with you having to take care of the selling, while others are more hands-off, leaving most of the work on the platform itself.
Scale Up
If you’re planning on scaling up your business, maybe you should look at improving your business. so here are my 3 tips for scaling up:
- Work out what you want
Before you do anything, ask yourself, what do I want? Is it to make money, or do you want to see your clothing company as a fully fledged brand eventually? This comes back down back to knowing who your customer is. If you’ve already done that, then you know exactly how much to charge for your clothing and thus will be able to know roughly how much money to make every month at minimum.
- Collaboration with other brands
Have other companies approached you to create a product for them? Working with other brands can be of great benefit to you both. Always be on the lookout for brands that compliment your product so that the collaboration can appeal to a wider audience. Let’s say, for instance, you sell women’s accessories. You may want to work with another women’s clothing brand on a line of bags or scarves.
- Brand awareness
When working in collaboration with another brand, there is always an opportunity to work towards an image in which both brands are familiar. This could consist of branded merchandise sold separately from the main product line and is good for overall brand awareness.
The thing is, plotting the next steps for your company is less about indulging in dreams of grandeur and more about carefully crafted plans to ensure business sustainability. With the right growth in place, expanding a physical or online clothing business can be a good long-term strategy.