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Last updated on July 1st, 2024
Do you have a passion for fashion? If yes, you can start a fashion clothing business to fulfill your entrepreneurial dream. With custom clothes leading the way, selling online has become more accessible and can yield a significant return on investment.
The global clothing market is worth $1.7 trillion (as per Statista). Retailers and manufacturers can unleash their immense potential by selling clothes with custom designs or finding a niche market.
Here’s how you can start a fashion clothing business or sell custom clothes.
Identify your niche market
The fashion industry is a competitive domain. With myriad brands competing with each other, it becomes challenging to attract customers. So, finding your niche is crucial. This enables you to understand your audience better and create a fashion clothing line that suits their needs. Since the clothing line has a broad market, reaching everyone and selling to everybody will not work in your favor.
Examples of clothing brands functioning in a particular niche:
- H&M focuses on trendy clothes
- Gucci focuses on luxury fashion
- Billabong focuses on surfing clothing
Choosing a niche works as your core strength. Even when you design custom clothes or shirts, it gives you the exact target audience to focus on and leave the rest. So, you can shift your focus and effort toward your niche to succeed. If you are into custom clothes, find out a specific section of products to personalize and sell. This may include high-quality custom hoodies, personalized leggings, sports gear, dresses, swimwear, and more.
Research, explore, and determine your audience
After you have found your niche, it’s essential to figure out who’re going to buy from you. Since your business is in the initial phase, so finding out your ideal audience makes things easier. Besides, you also need to research and explore the places where they usually visit or assemble, whether it’s online, offline, or social platform. Find out ways to reach them, too.
To understand your target audience better, you need to ask yourself a few questions. This will help you strategize effectively and offer products that they really want.
Here’s a list of questions you can ask yourself to ease the process.
- Who are your ideal customers?
- What’s their budget?
- What clothing brands do they like?
- Do they have any favorite brands?
- Do they follow trends?
- Where do they buy from?
- How frequently do they buy from you or others?
- What factors influence their shopping behavior?
Make a failproof marketing strategy
Once you have an exact idea of your niche market and target audience, proceed to the next step to create a failproof marketing strategy. Don’t go into the bottom of the marketing but create a list of places or platforms where you want to sell your custom clothes. Analyze your competitors and their distribution channel to get an exact idea of their strategy. Based on your findings, create a marketing plan, set an advertising budget, and go promoting your clothing business.
A marketing strategy usually involves plans to market your products leading to profitable sales.
Name your clothing business and make a brand kit
If you haven’t named your business yet, find a suitable name. You can name a business in many ways. For example, you can coin a unique word using two words, choose initials, create a made-up name, or pick a suitable name as you desire. But make sure each name is easy to understand, pronounce, and remember.
Here’s how to choose a business name for custom clothes or s business.
- Choose a name that’s easy to remember and pronounce’.
- Pick your own initials or coin two words.
- Check to see if the domain of the same business name is available.
Once you have found a name resonating with your fashion business idea, make it official. Once done, choose the right font, color, and elements that help create a brand identity. You can use any online tool to create a logo, letterhead, brochure, business card, and other visual assets.
Get your business registered
What’s after naming your fashion clothing business? You need to get your business registered under your state. It’s the pivotal step in making your business legitimate. Registering your new custom clothing business enables your brand to get an EIN (Employer Identification Number) that lets you accept payments for selling your products.
Here’s what you need to consider:
- If you’re a small business, you can opt for Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) registration. The average cost to form an LLC ranges from $35 to $500 for registration. The cost may vary as per the state’s rules and regulations.
- You can register your business with the Secretary of State.
Design your products
You might have a better idea of how you’re going to design or source your products and where they come from. If you are considering selling custom clothes, starting your own merch shop would be profitable. You can also find a POD (Print-on-Demand) platform, design your own clothes, source them, and sell them to your customers. This will keep the upfront costs low. However, your products need the magic of marketing to reach the target audience.
Decide the price of your products
After you’ve finalized the product source, it’s time to decide the selling price. In the fashion clothing business, the price depends on two factors — labour cost and material cost, and the other factor is the niche you choose to sell in.
You can also include the cost of marketing and packaging in the final price.
Market and start selling
The last thing you should do when starting your fashion clothing business is market your brand so that your audience can find it. You can market your clothing business in many ways. However, choose only those channels that your preferred audiences use.
Some of the most preferred marketing channels and plans that you can use for your clothing brands are:
- Social media marketing
- Paid advertising on social media & Google
- Search engine optimization for organic traffic
- Influencer marketing and more
Whichever channel you choose, keep your clothing business in focus.
Conclusion
Starting your own fashion clothing business requires a systematic approach. Whether it’s all-over shirt printing or selling custom swimwear for women, your business needs a legitimate name, registration, and the right marketing strategy to become a sought-after brand. Consider the tips discussed earlier to start your fashion clothing business.