If you’ve ever considered or fantasised about starting your own online clothing business, now is the opportunity to understand how to launch a clothing business online. According to recent research, the online clothing sector is booming, with year-over-year growth. With a wide variety of online clothing stores from hand-painted clothes to fandom t-shirts and designer outfit combos, you have an array of options to choose from if you don’t already have an idea.
Since the past few years, fashion designers have opted to sell their unique designer outfits online rather than working at an existing boutique or store as it allows them to showcase their own skills and earn money through it.
However, considering opening an online clothing store and actually doing so are two separate things. It’s easy to fantasize about a future where customers swarm to your company and you become a cultural icon overnight, but getting there requires a lot of backend effort. Nevertheless, if you are prepared to forge ahead and invest the necessary time, resources, and dedication, the payoffs can be huge.
This blog is a comprehensive guide, jam-packed with useful advice and resources on how to start an online clothing business or boutique from home with no money.
Step 1: Determine If There Is a Market Need
We are sure you have brainstormed and have a few ideas shortlisted for your online clothing business but don’t finalize your niche before doing thorough market research. One of the most likely causes for new business failure is that nobody really wants what they’re attempting to sell.
Picking the right clothing niche, delivering high-quality customer service, and selecting the best e-commerce solution are the cornerstones in this highly competitive market. Market research is classified into two types: primary market research (data collected on your own) and secondary market research (data obtained from other sources who have already conducted the research).
If you are on a tight budget, stick to primary research which includes searching for trends on Google for specific items to see what is currently popular and what isn’t. Another way to research is to use Facebook Analytics to learn about the likes, interests, and behaviors of potential customers or target audiences.
We recommend you do competitor research to observe the general public’s likes and dislikes and build on the negatives. Come up with innovative solutions to ensure you can provide your target audience with what your competitor lacks. This is an essential step in the guide on how to start an online clothing business.
Step 2: Determine Your Core Demographic
Because your items will be needed or desired by a certain group or groups of individuals, recognising a need and determining a are interdependent. And those are the people you want to reach. It’s these people with whom you will find yourself attempting to engage and communicate to sell your clothing.
To attract the customer base of your choosing, you need a better understanding of your target audience’s demographics and psychographics. Demographics include age, gender, income, marital status, and geographic region while psychographics pertains to their likes and dislikes, hobbies, interests, lifestyle traits, purchasing habits, including which brands they currently trust to order online from and why, and the challenges people face in their lives and how you may assist them.
For example, if your core business idea revolves around selling maternity clothing, then your core demographic will be pregnant women and new mothers. To design clothes that cater specifically to the needs of pregnant women and new mothers, you will need to perform thorough research regarding their needs.
Checking negative comments is essential as they will help you identify the common issues your shared target audience faces and it gives you an opportunity to come up with a solution to cater to your customer’s needs giving you the competitive edge you need.
Step 3: Make a Thorough Business Plan
A well-thought-out plan is essential when establishing a business since it outlines how your company will run. Usually, a good business plan involves the following:
- An actual report that gives a high-level overview of what your company wants to achieve.
- A description of the business, including products, client demographics, and strategies for staying competitive.
- A list of the products and services available.
- An evaluation of the marketplace’s data and statistics, such as average sales, the number of other suppliers, and expected growth rates.
- A market analysis that focuses specifically on competitors in the same region, including their strengths and limitations, as well as potential approaches for a new company to acquire an advantage.
- A marketing strategy that includes both online and offline marketing tactics.
- A look at pre-planned sales methods.
- How financial support will be procured, including the amount needed and how it would be obtained.
- Financial plans for the immediate future as well as the long term.
The first three to five years of your apparel business should be covered in your business strategy. Naturally, things will not always go as planned, but you must have a goal to strive for. Plus, potential investors and partners would only come on board if you have a lucrative business plan.
Step 4: Determine Your Business Strategy
Choosing a business strategy is a prerequisite to developing your online clothing business plan. There are four common options in the eCommerce clothing retail world: on-demand printing, custom cut and sew, private label, and drop shipping. Out of the four, the easiest business strategy is dropshipping as it requires you to work as a middleman between consumers and manufacturers.
On-demand printing on the other hand requires you to have a stock of standard solid t-shirts and pants which can be used to print the design given by the client. This business strategy’s target audience majorly includes companies or organizations or groups that require customized printed outfits – usually logos or pre-determined designs. This approach either requires you to have your own printer or hire a third-party printing service that doesn’t produce enough overhaul.
Custom cut-and-sew, on the other hand, requires a lot of management because you’ll be in charge of sourcing and managing your own pattern designers and manufacturers, as well as procuring your own fabric. This means you’ll require a lot of money and time upfront to launch your initial line. This online clothing boutique business strategy is ideal for people who wish to start from the ground up and create a comprehensive clothing line.
Private label business models are a hybrid of print-on-demand and cut-and-sew. They offer more clothing line customization as compared to the custom cut-and-sew business strategy. Private label clothing companies work with leading vendors to create unique clothes to sell under their own label.
Private label clothing demands a larger investment because it entails finding a dependable manufacturing partner and paying an additional fee for branding. This method, on the other hand, allows for greater batch size and sample flexibility, allowing stores to test products and fine-tune strategies without spending a fortune.
In the end, it is up to you to decide on the business strategy and come up with ways to acquire necessary funding which will require you to approach sponsors and sell them your business plan.
Step 5: Creating an Online Clothing Business
Now comes the exciting part: setting up your online clothing business or do you prefer calling it an online clothing store? Your domain is the first thing you’ll need. We recommend purchasing this separately as soon as you have laid out your core business plan. Make sure to get a unique domain name for future brand awareness. Now comes the website development.
Unless you are a web developer, we recommend you leave that up to a top-notch web development firm. Website designing itself has become easy with readily available templates to choose from but developing and maintain a website requires experts.
After that, you’ll need to decide on a platform and this is undoubtedly one of the most crucial decisions you’ll have to make. Why? Because the design and usability of your website are just as important as the clothes you’re selling and shouldn’t be rushed. Some of the most widely used eCommerce website platforms are Shopify and WordPress. Shopify is the most widely preferred eCommerce development platform followed by WordPress for fashion & lifestyle websites.
Step 6: Branding & Launching Your Online Clothing Store
It’s time to open your online clothing store after your products and online business plan is in place, logistics are organised, and your website is complete. Having a launch strategy is a good idea. With social media, it has become easy to reach your target audience as long as you know how to use it correctly.
PRO TIP: Launch your social media marketing with accounts like (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.) at least a month before your website launch. This will allow you to run social media ads in conjunction with the launch and promote your online clothing business to your growing followers. Remember to include your marketing campaign in your strategy to create brand awareness and improve brand loyalty within the social media fashion community.
Step 7: Implement Strategy to Attract Your Target Audience
This one isn’t easy but is the most essential step after the official launch of your website. You need to ensure that your brand name reaches the correct customer base to generate traffic on your website. Email marketing, PPC, content marketing, social media, guest articles on famous blogs, and influencers are the top traffic generators.
If feasible, we recommend you hire a firm that provides SEO services in the eCommerce clothing industry. Apart from SEO, you will also require digital marketing services who will be responsible for running social media campaigns, Google Ads, etc, to increase brand visibility and reach a wider target audience.
Extra Tips to Grow Your Online Clothing Business
- Begin with a soft launch, and then look for further funding and partnerships.
- Make SEO a top priority.
- Establish an effective content marketing strategy.
- Ensure a simplified and user-friendly website interface.
- Offer well-known payment methods.
- Set attainable sales and distribution goals.
- Make sure your website design matches your product style. (E.g., if you sell clothes for kids, ensure that the website design has bright colours and an interactive interface but if you are selling elegant pure cotton handmade clothes, a minimalistic design with muted colours would attract the right customer base.)
