Estimated time to read: 7 minutes.
Opening an online clothing store is an exciting subject that makes many entrepreneurs and project leaders fantasize about it. Creating your designs, designing your first clothes, and seeing your first sales appear as an independent or brand, this is a very encouraging prospect.
Interest in online fashion has grown steadily over the past few years and almost all clothing brands have now made their digital transition. In addition, fashion has this secret that makes it possible for new and must-have brands to emerge at any time: it is a matter of timing, trend, and value proposition.
Every online clothing business is unique. Whether you want to open a high-end clothing store, find a creative outlet through fashion, or just learn how to open an online clothing store with no money, this article will give you the steps to build a clothing website with a solid foundation.
Table of content:
- Get inspired and collect your ideas
- Shop with or without stock?
- Business plan
- Your Inventory
- Launch your online store
- Believe in yourself and you will be unstoppable
Get inspired and collect your ideas.
In other words, ‘’brainstorming’’. Whether on your own or with a group of creative and savvy friends, it will help you establish a cohesive foundation from which you can grow your booming business and launch an online clothing business with a long-term future.
Study the market.
It is never enough to underestimate the extent to which good preparation is necessary for the launch of any project. To create an online fashion store, the principle is the same: preparation is essential. Before getting started, you will also need to choose a legal status suitable for e-commerce.
To get started, here are some preliminary questions you should be able to answer:
- What type (s) of product / clothing would I like to sell?
- Who buys these kinds of products / clothes?
- How will I create value for my clients?
- What is the state of the competition and how will I distinguish myself?
Learning how to responsibly assess a sustainable income from your talents is difficult, but it is a rewarding and valuable skill to possess for future endeavors. One of the many benefits of opening an online clothing store is learning business skills that apply to a variety of industries.
Shop with or without stock?
The question to ask yourself will be a consequence of the first. Are you going to open an online store by purchasing a stock of products or not?
To answer this question, you will need to find the business model that best suits you among these 3:
- Buy wholesale to resell in small quantities?
- Become a wholesaler, sell in large quantities.
- Open a dropshipping store, which means selling products without buying them (and therefore having to manage the associated stock)
It goes without saying that if you have little or no savings, it is towards the third solution that you will have to approach: set up a dropshipping site.
Choose a winning product.
Creating your own clothing line takes a lot more work than printing a t-shirt or two and selling them online. You are going to need a business plan, a complete business idea, and a step-by-step plan to bring your fashion business to life. You need to decide what products you want to sell.
If you are having trouble figuring out who your audience is, consider the following questions:
- What type of clothing do I want to do?
- Who buys these kinds of products?
- How will I bring value to my customers?
- What are my competitors doing and how will I stand out from them?
There is a good chance that you will finally realize your dream and launch a fashion line; you will have a rough idea of what you want to create.
However, if you are not yet settled on a particular product, you might consider selling one of the clothes below:
- T-shirts
- Formal shirts
- Sweatshirts
- Leggings
- Dresses
Just to name a few!
The good thing about running a fashion business is that you can work with clothing manufacturers to create a wide range of different products. Alternatively, if you want to reach a specific niche with your fashion brand, you can focus on one thing exclusive.
To keep in mind:
- One of the biggest stresses for customers shopping for clothes online is the uncertainty of ordering the right size. Use a creative method in which customers can determine precise size descriptions - whether through a detailed size chart tailored to your store, or even a tool where they can virtually try on clothes.
- Be sure to include high quality images of the clothes you are selling. You can either work with a freelance photographer or take them yourself with a little research and practice on the photographic products.
- While the short, eye-catching copy always converts, your customers will want more detail about something that will touch their skin all day. From fit to fabric, explain what makes each product unique. This type of detail will help increase buyer confidence and ultimately reduce returns and exchanges for your online clothing business.
Business plan
It is time to budget. Learning how to responsibly assess a sustainable income from your talents is difficult, but it is a rewarding and valuable skill to possess for future endeavors. One of the many benefits of opening an online clothing store is learning business skills that apply to a variety of industries. So, let us make a budget plan for your online clothing business.
As with any business idea for a fashion entrepreneur or designer, selling your own clothes through a private label requires the right strategy. If you want your new business to thrive, you need a step-by-step strategy that includes everything from a marketing plan to an understanding of your costs of production.
Your Inventory
Inventory is a critical component of the success of your online clothing business. Under-stocked and frustrated customers will not be able to get what they want. Overstocked, and your financial resources are running out of resources. Have a responsible person (like you) take care of the inventory! Keep an eye out for popular items and make sure you have plenty in stock. You will want to check back regularly to keep items from dropping too low, so consider what systems you can put in place to track sales.
Fortunately, you do not need to keep all of this in a ledger (unless you want to). Having an online clothing business instead of a physical store means software can save you time. When a product sells, it automatically updates that product's inventory. However, it is up to a responsible person (again, like you!) To update this inventory count when they want to sell more products.
From a statistical standpoint, keeping an eye on the inventory has serious advantages. It allows you to identify which types of products are selling the best, while others are not selling well at all. You might even notice that some items sell for more at certain times.
It can look like comfortable sweaters that move faster as the weather turns. However, you may also notice that a trendy dress moves faster on the weekend after most of your customers have been paid on Friday. This information can help you plan for the future of your inventory by identifying which product offerings you want to expand and which you want to reduce.
When your online clothing business takes off, having a well-organized inventory is incredibly useful, especially during times when there is high demand for products, like the holidays or during a wild sale.
An attractive store
You will want to be consistent in your brand's imagery, from text to colors to photos. Personalization allows you to take a design template and tailor it to your specific needs.
Launch your online store
There you are! Your site is created, your products are loaded and there is nothing left to sell!
The launch of your store is a crucial step in your project. This should set the tone for the rest of your development and therefore should not be overlooked.
To help you, here are a few things to keep in mind when preparing for the launch of your online fashion store.
Create a launch strategy
Like any project, the launch of an online brand is prepared.
To optimize your launch, we recommend that you break down your launch into key stages: this will allow you to see more clearly and to carefully prepare each point.
As you prepare your strategy, think about the different channels and methods you are going to use: are you going to use Facebook advertising? Instagram influencers? Publications in the press?
Prepare your email marketing strategy.
E-mailing is a must in the fashion industry in e-commerce. It allows you to attract new prospects but also to retain your customers or relaunch abandoned carts and thus increase your sales.
Before the launch, prepare a newsletter to which your visitor (s) can subscribe, this will allow you to keep a point of contact with many potential customers.
At the same time, prepare your coupons / coupons and associated emails: they will be of great help when you want to boost sales after the launch; or during the launch.
Prepare your social networks.
The social aspect of a fashion brand is paramount: this is where brand image, customer loyalty and their appetite for your products come from.
Before the launch, think about creating a presence on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram or even Pinterest and SnapChat. You can also use the pretext of the launch to tease and collect a few subscribers before even opening sales.
Measure your launch.
What is a successful launch?
Hard to say without the right tools, in fact, there are many tools you can use to quantify the success of your launch.
Here are some tools you can use:
- SemRush (paid): to quantify the natural / paid traffic of your competitors as well as yours
- Google Analytics (free / paid): the must-have for any e-merchant to quantify additions to the cart and behavior.
Attract traffic to your online store
After a store is launched, there is often a decline in traffic: the first visitors have left, and the effect of the launch campaign gradually wears off. So, it is time to get down to business.
Acquiring traffic.
Indeed, it is the quantity / quality of traffic you receive on your online store that determines your sales (although the conversion rate comes into play, editor's note).
To attract traffic, it is necessary to think in terms of channels. This does not mean that there is not a synergy between these channels, however.
Here is a summary of the main e-commerce acquisition channels:
- Organic traffic (SEO)
- YouTube
- SnapChat
- Google AdWords
- E-mailing
- Press relations
Believe in yourself and you will be unstoppable
We know that some steps in the step-by-step process of launching your fashion brand can seem overwhelming. Moving forward in the clothing industry is hard work. Like starting a new business, you need to think about your business name, angel investors, crowdfunding, production costs, etc. On top of that, you need to figure out what kind of clothes you are going to sell and how you are going to create them. However, despite all the challenges, launching a successful clothing line can also offer many incredible rewards. So, believe in yourself and you will be unstoppable!
Stay tuned with SHOPLAZZA blog!
