Online clothing store business plan? So you have decided to start your own online clothing store. It’s no surprise why? With online apparel stores being a multi billion a year industry, it’s by far one of the most popular eCommerce niches.
With the market reaching $759 billion in 2021 and predictions it will reach $1 trillion by 2025, there is a lot of potential online business within the fashion industry to cash in on.
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How to start an online clothing business from home? A successful store is dependent on the niche you choose, the branding you create, the quality of not only your clothing products but your site, the customer service you provide, and fulfilment strategies.
Just because a niche is popular doesn’t mean you have instant access to potential customers. In fact, the opposite is true. With increasing popularity comes increasing pressure to differentiate your store from the millions of others already online.
Step 1: Choose Your Online Clothing Niche
Fashion boutique business plan examples? Before you can choose your products, you need to decide which apparel or clothing niche you want to sell in. Choosing your niche ensures you choose products and create your whole clothing line business plan around the type of potential shoppers you want to appeal to and ultimately ensures you are able to position your store in a unique way.
The trick is to be very specific and really drill down your niche, as this will enable you to identify and market to your potential shoppers more easily. This will also help you develop your product list to appeal to your specific target market, allowing you to limit your competition and increase your chances of customer loyalty long-term.
An awesome example of this is the online apparel store human. Their niche? Pop culture. How do they cater to it? By using bold humour: a unique expression that appeals to what they call pop culture nerds. And what appeals to potential shoppers in this niche? Not fancy chiffon skirts or name brand shoes, but tees, hoodies and socks.
Read also: Realistic Objectives of Online Businesses in the Philippines
Step 2: Choose Your Online Clothing Store Products
Once you have a clothing niche, it’s time to choose your products. Will you be selling short-sleeve shirts or dresses? The clothing and apparel market is almost infinite and you can be sure there are a bunch of options within the niche you’re selling in.
However, if you’re tempted to jump in and sell everything, this could be your undoing before you’ve even started. When you’re starting an online store, it’s always advised to start off small and slow and then branch out your lines as you grow.
A great example of this is one of our top merchants, Mrs Bow Tie. Mrs. Bow Tie made a name for themselves selling bow ties that are uniquely ‘Made in Britain’. Their success with just one product line was so big that within three years they have added neckties, pocket squares, cummerbunds, suspenders and cufflinks to their product lists and sold to over 300,000 customers.
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Step 3: Choose Your Online Clothing Store Business Model
Online clothing business ideas? Now that you know your niche and have an idea of the types of products you want to sell, it’s time to pick an online clothing business model for your online clothing store business. This is where you decide if you are using a clothing manufacturer, white labelling or opting for dropshipping to build your clothing company.
There are four types of business models that online clothing and apparel stores fall into:
- Print on demand
- Custom cut-and-sew
- Private label
- Dropshipping
Each online business model has its own pros and cons and choosing between them should be based on your overall fashion store objective and budget and your skills or potential for hiring a team.
Read also: The Best Sample of Business Plans for Online Clothing Stores
Step 4: Outline Your Online Clothing Store Business Plan
You have your niche, products, and business model; it’s time to outline your business plan. You should be outlining your:
- Market (drilling down your potential shoppers into segmented markets or fashion audiences)
- Products (deciding what makes them unique)
- Biggest competitors (listing your top competitors)
- Online business model/fulfilment strategies
- Brand identity/clothing company description (how you want your target market to view your fashion store brand)
To quickly grow in such a saturated market, investing in building a strong brand identity is super important. Brand identity is more than just a logo and a name; it’s how your brand is perceived. It’s the human side if you will. This is where creating a look, feel and voice for your fashion brand comes into play.
When it comes to eCommerce strategy, you want to make sure you’re answering questions such as where your traffic (potential shoppers) will be coming from and what will make your products appealing to that traffic.
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Once you know the costs, you are then able to work out your margins, where you’re looking for a margin of around 30-50% if using cut and sew models. However, at this stage you should also be looking at your biggest competition for pricing, ensuring you are not pricing yourself right out of the market.
Step 5: Creating Your Online Clothing Store
The first thing you will need is your domain. We suggest buying this separately upfront as soon as you have your main idea. You want to make sure that the domain is still available after you have designed your range and built your site.
Step 6: Launching Your Online Clothing Store
Once your products are in place, the online business plan is set up, fulfilment is organised and the site is done, it’s time to launch your online clothing store.
Step 7: Bringing Traffic to Your Online Clothing Store
The last step? Bringing traffic to your newly launched online clothing store. The biggest traffic drivers are email marketing, PPC, content marketing, social media, guest posts on popular blogs and influencers.
For a new store without a fashion brand name, established SEO, or email database list, you will want to concentrate on Google Ads for eCommerce and social media ads particularly Facebook and Instagram to get potential shoppers to your new store.
But not any potential shoppers, your key target market audience. Don’t forget your influencer marketing paid partnerships; including Instagram sponsored posts.
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Conclusion
How to start an online clothing store with no money? There you have it on how to start a successful online clothing business in 7 steps. The key to any successful eCommerce business is being able to tap into buying intent. It is not only about figuring out who your fashion audience is and what they would be willing to buy and for how much.
You need to penetrate a saturated niche (messaging and targeting) and separate yourself from your closest competitors (brand identity) and then follow it up with awesome quality clothes, unique designs and good service.
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