How To Launch a Successful Clothing Business
Planning to start an online shopping business? Check out these practical tips to create an awesome website, the right content and make the decisive steps toward your ultimate success!
How to Break into the Online Clothing Business
Have you been dreaming of breaking into the fancy industry of high fashion and becoming someone like Karl Lagerfeld or Manolo Blahnik? We can’t promise that you’ll reach those heights, but we can tell you where to start and what steps you need to make to stay afloat in the clothing business.
Keep on reading if you want to find out what how to create a perfect website with exciting content, how to build your own brand, what skills to develop as an entrepreneur, and how to handle common problems at the very beginning.
Intrigued? Let’s get it started!
The Art of Prioritization
Your organization means a lot and making a structured business plan should be the first step after you visualize your business.
A business plan is like a list that you write before you go to the supermarket. Without it, you will make chaotic purchases and more likely forget something that you really need. Plus, a detailed business plan is a must-have for the lenders (in the case, if you need a loan). The investor would like to know if the business is worth lending money. If someone asked you about the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) of your company, would you manage to answer?
The next question is “Why do you need to prioritize?”
Well, the business coaches say:
Priorities lead to decisions.
Decisions lead to a destiny.
A good business plan is a perfect way to map your future. If it contains a Plan B, it will help you to overcome unpredictable situations and fails faster with a less loss.
It’s also an excellent way to manage cash flow. If you are not good at allocating money, a business plan or a good financier will help you. Still, remember that a good financier would like to have a salary while a business plan wouldn’t.
We won’t dive into the peculiarities of the business plan brainstorming. You can find plenty of worthy blogs on this topic or even order it!
What’s about Your Brand Identity?
Yes, it’s always a good idea to create a brand out of your company but speaking of the clothing line, it’s a condition.
To overcome the competition and stand out, your business needs a breathtaking story, extraordinary conception, and, of course, things that create an identity. Every well-known company has a story. Even a “started from the bottom now we’re here” story is a success story that will draw more clients.
Before creating a clothing line, you should figure out what you would add to those things that the marketplace already has. For instance, your brand can focus on the lower prices, additional sizes, extraordinary colors, rare materials, etc. It would become a base for your identity and the hallmark in the future.
The successful entrepreneurs recommend building a brand around your personality. You can focus on your experience and reflect it in your apparel templates. The customers are smarter than you think – they will figure out when it’s real.
The Right Place to Sell
Nowadays, the Internet is one of the best places to sell clothes. Yes, you can open a local store or rent a fancy room in the mall somewhere in Milan, but you will face competition with the well-known brands with a loyal army of the committed shoppers.
So, starting online is a good idea. The competition is also high, but you have more opportunities to stand out and save money at the same time! Yes, leading business online is not so costly nowadays as you could ever think.
The first thing that you will think about (or should think about) is a quality and convenient website.
The modern e-commerce platforms are affordable and easy to use. Plus, most of them are customizable. So, it won’t take much time for you to tailor a website toward the conception of your clothing line.
Remember! Your website should also reflect the style of your clothing line. Nothing scares the online clients away more than a ridiculous or slow website.
When it comes to creating a website, you have several options. You can hire a team of the developers and designers, but it will hit your pocket. In fact, you don’t always need a team of professionals to create a good website. You can do it on your own. Here is a brief guideline on how you can do it:
- You should visit the page with hundreds of ecommerce templates from TemplateMonster.
- As your second step, you should choose the platform for your future shop. On TemplateMonster, you can choose from WooCommerce, Magento, OpenCart, VirtueMart, Zen-Cart, X-Cart, PrestaShop, and, of course, Shopify.
- Here lies your most complicated step because you will have to choose the template out of hundreds of them! The good news is that you will definitely find something to your taste!
By the way, familiarize with our three multipurpose bestsellers that will fit any kind of business!
Eveprest - Multipurpose PrestaShop Theme
Eveprest is an excellent multipurpose theme with 4 additional child themes for fashion, furniture, electronics, and spare parts. It’s fully responsive and contains a pack of the useful plugins that will simplify the navigation on the website. TM Collections, TM LookBook and Advanced Filter, Mosaic Products are one of the most significant ones.
Woostroid - Multipurpose WooCommerce Theme
This fantastic template with two e-commerce plugins, free updates, and 24/7 customer support was designed for effective sales! It goes along with free tools, jewelry, lingerie, marketplace, handmade, electronics, kids, accessories, and cosmetic demo.
Magetique - AMP-Ready Multipurpose Magento 2 Theme
With more than 600 satisfied clients and 20 free theme updates, this stylish multipurpose theme has 5 premium topic layouts and 4 color schemes. It gives you an excellent opportunity to customize your website until you get the perfect unique variant.
Want to get more? Check out this page!
Time for the RIGHT Marketing
The role of the marketing is priceless, but the first thing you should do is thorough research of your competitors. Google will tell you what are the leading and “gaining popularity” clothing brands.
Your task lies in checking out their websites, their structure, and the content, their marketing strategies (advertising, social media, etc.), pricing policy, etc. The findings will help you to understand what you can offer because you should offer something new and better to stand out.
When you start testing the products, don’t produce more than you can sell. It’s okay to create a limited edition and test it on the targeted audience. After you get feedback from the customers, you will manage to make changes and improve the products. Testing your clothing line is crucial because if your product isn’t worthy, there is no way to get substantial investments and stable revenue, in the result.
Speaking of the marketing and promotion, it’s crucial to invest. At the very beginning, a clothing line needs intensive promotion. You should create a website and social media accounts and stuff it with the quality and stylish photos. The photos should have a particular conception. A good idea would be to develop a distinctive style and filters for Instagram. The caption makes sense too.
You also need a well-organized marketing strategy. It’s essential to plan your presence on Facebook and Instagram to be useful and not be obsessive.
Some experts recommend the young entrepreneurs to focus on the paid advertising on social media. The working principle of the Facebook advertising is so specific that it covers very tiny niches of the targeted audience and, probably, you will reach the right people.
Don’t forget that customers tend to trust celebrities. If Kylie Jenner wears these jeans and has a perfect fit, so do I, right? In most cases, the “recommendation” of the celebrity will draw more clients. You can reach the Instagram celebrities and bloggers with more than 500k subscribers to test this option.
The Biggest Tip We Can Give You
The business coaches and experienced businessmen recommend the beginners to keep their startups low-cost. In the case, when you are opening your own clothing line, the clothes will become your biggest expense. If you are ready to produce them yourself, then you only need a basic equipment. Once you see the demand on your clothes, you can think about the more professional equipment.
Another thing you should think about is insurance. Once you are small, it will cost you less than an owner of the big company would ever pay. You can choose from basic business insurance, freelance insurance.
Some companies also buy professional indemnity insurance. This type of insurance will save you from the unsatisfied clients, but its major option is to cover the expenses when another company claims that your branding is a rip-off.
A clothing business requires a business plan along with a well-developed strategy, good marketing, extraordinary team, creativity, enthusiasm, and burning eyes! If you have all that, purchase insurance and go for it!
Read Also
6 Things to Keep in Mind While Planning to Launch an Online Shopping Store
20 Best Free WooCommerce Themes to Build Conversion-Oriented Stores in 2018
A freelancer, who is nuts about traveling, art, and learning foreign languages. Excited about exploring new cultures. Particularly jazzed about conveying ideas with words in an outstanding way. Instagram
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