Introduction
Purchasing clothes from a wholesaler and starting with your clothing retail store is one of the
oldest ways to start with a business. This helps to cut down on production costs for you, as you
would just be purchasing clothes from a wholesaler and then putting logos, designs, prints, etc.
on these clothes. This is a safer way of taking a plunge into the clothing business world by
starting on a smaller scale.
Starting on a small scale is a lot better than starting on a big scale. This helps in minimizing the
investment costs and saving you from any losses. Furthermore, before you take a deep dive
into the retailing clothes business, you must survey the market to find the best deals from
wholesalers. You should have your goals planned out from before and how you plan on
achieving these goals. This paperwork is a must before starting your business.
Just like any other industry, the clothing industry, too, is saturated, but it should not stop anyone
from starting with their own business. Customers are always on the lookout to get good quality
clothes at a much cheaper price. Hence, you must offer your potential customers something
better than your competitors.
How to start with your clothing retail store?
When anybody starts with their retail business, they would want their business to become the
most successful one. To run a successful clothing retail store, one must consider the following
factors:
Identify Your Target Market
Before you start with your store, you must know to whom are you selling clothes? Kids, men,
women, sports apparel, or all? This helps you to build your brand identity accordingly. You must
also figure out what type of brand would you like to be perceived as a high-end fashion brand,
or a brand that offers affordable clothing.
Survey the Market
Conduct a competitive analysis to identify all the brands in the market that offer similar products
as yours. You must study their brand well, including their marketing campaigns, prices, brand
image, etc. to see what difference can you offer to your customers. The clothing retailing
business will keep on growing and the market will get more saturated. For this reason, you
should make it a point, to analyze the market routinely so that you are well aware of the
competition in the market.
Financing
The clothing retail business is no joke; it requires a hefty amount of funding for you to start with
your business. You might have to take loans to survive in the industry. Even if you have an
online store, you still need to invest in setting up your website and in the marketing bit of your
online store.
Your Location
For a brick-and-mortar clothing store, you need to find the ideal location, according to your
budget. Your location must match your target audience. This means that if you launch a clothing
line that is targeted towards the youth, and if your store is located in an area where the majority
of the people are above 50, then your business will fail.
Domestic Sourcing or International Sourcing?
This depends on your clothing line and your budget. However, to avoid customs duties, it is
better to source clothes locally. There are numerous clothing wholesalers available locally, but
you must purchase from well-established names and those that have positive reviews.
One such reliable brand is Cotton Connection that has been in business for over 30 years. They
cater to men, ladies, boys, toddlers, and juniors, and also have their home brand called Cotton
Plus. Their clothing line includes T-shirts, sweatshirts, sport shirts, hooded pullovers, boxer
shorts, socks, briefs, and a lot of other products. They provide the best rates for the best quality
apparel, that are mostly purchased by screen printers, embroiderers, wholesalers, promotional
product companies, non-profit organizations, flea market vendors, dollar stores, and
independent and mass-market retail stores.
Inventory Management and Pricing
As you would be ordering clothes in bulk, you need to update your inventory frequently to
prevent any mishaps and disappointments from happening. There would be various styles for
each article that must be stocked and updated in the inventory. You must also hire adequate
staff to look after your inventory and order articles that are low in stock right away. While
managing your inventory, your staff must also look after the pricing of all the articles, keeping a
sufficient profit margin on each product. The pricing depends on the cost price of the articles
that were purchased in bulk.
Online Store
These days, it is essential for all brands to have an online store. Ecommerce has gained a lot of
popularity in the past few years as it is an effective way of cutting down the cost of running a
brick-and-mortar store. Also, due to the global pandemic, COVID-19, almost all businesses have
shifted entirely to ecommerce. Setting up an ecommerce store requires you to develop a user-
friendly website. Website development is not everybody's cup of tea; you would require
professional help for it. One of the best website developers is DigAptics, which has a team of
expert web designers, that can create a unique shopping experience for your customers. They
are experts in website development.
Marketing
Marketing is an integral part of any business. With the help of marketing, you create your
brand's image, target your market, engage with your potential customers, and eventually,
increase your sales. Getting a higher ROI (Return On Investment) is the main aim of every
business. By conducting marketing campaigns, your brand and products become visible to
potential customers.
Similarly, marketing for clothing retail stores is essential too. If the right approach is taken, your
clothing brand can attract more customers than usual, just with the right marketing approach.
Like everything these days is digital, so have the marketing strategies become digital.
Professional marketers, such as DigAptics, are professionals in digital marketing. They make
use of social media platforms and digital ads, to showcase your clothing brand to your target
audience. They even help in posting engaging content on your social media accounts that helps
to divert more traffic to your pages. This eventually helps in increasing the number of followers,
likes, comments, and reshares on your pages. All these tactics will help you in getting a higher
ROI.
Policies and the Legal Structure
Every store, whether online or brick and mortar, has a set of policies that they follow. These
include customer rights, employee rights, and a lot of other policies that are required in the
smooth running of a store. Legalities include a business license, tax ID number, business
insurance, and others.
Customer Service
For every brand, customer service plays an important role. These would be the people who
would be representing you in front of your customers.- they will define who you are. Therefore,
they must be extremely polite and helpful in guiding your customers, and in providing solutions
to their issues. An ideal customer service team is one that is available 24 hours a day to serve
your customers.
Final Thoughts
Starting with a clothing retail store is not as simple as it sounds. There is a lot of thought that
goes into setting up the store. Moreover, you must purchase from wholesalers that have a good
reputation in the market, such as Cotton Connection. Also, relying on professional help for the
digital marketing of your store is a smart thing to do. The professionals know what they are
doing and will take such an approach towards your brand that it will help in yielding results. The
marketing campaigns they carry out are closely monitored by the marketers. If the marketing
campaign is not yielding the desired results, they tweak the campaign around to get the desired
results.