Decades ago, starting a business would’ve been a big deal. Not anymore! While it still requires time, money, and effort, the online space has made starting a business relatively more straightforward. All you need is a successful business plan, and you’ll be all set!
If you’ve decided to start an online clothing business, you have come to the right place. This guide outlines everything you need to do to establish an online clothing store and earn money from the side hustle. You can also make this business your primary source of income; the choice is yours!
Choose a clothing niche
Every business starts by selecting a niche. A niche refers to the specialized segment in the market and the audience that you want to target for your clothing brand. For instance, you can sell t-shirts, shirts, or hoodies. If you haven’t decided on a niche, selling custom T-shirts is a good business idea. The prime reason is you don’t need your own resources to make custom T-shirts. However, getting your own equipment at least in the form of simple DTF printers might make starting the business easier. If you don’t have the printing equipment yourself, you can get in touch with a print-on-demand store and send your designs for printing. You can further sell the T-shirts online and profit from the sales. Some of the things to keep in mind while selecting a clothing niche are;
- Select something you’re passionate about
- Be unique with your ideas
- Ensure that your niche adds value to the market and the target audience
- Ensure that you can earn from your target niche (i.e, there’s adequate demand for the products you have to offer)
Curate a business plan
The next step is to come up with a business plan for your clothing brand. The business plan includes the specifics of the company. Generally, it includes five elements. You can detail these elements as you go on. Here are the things you should include in your business plan to get clarity on your next steps in developing a plan of action.
- Write an executive summary of your company detailing your business goals. Be as specific in the overview as possible. In case you want to get some investors on board, you’d need to provide them with an overview of the objectives, so they can decide whether your venture is worth investing in.
- Come up with a comprehensive and detailed company description. This would include the demographics of your target audience, product lines, and strategies to remain competitive in the market.
- Do an in-depth market analysis. Research the numbers and data of your niche marketplace, and note down the average sales, number, and names of competitors, and the projected growth rates to better understand the market in which you’d be operating.
- Do an in-depth competitive analysis to learn about your competition and what you’re dealing with. Start from your local competitors and move your way up. Check out what you can offer to the audience that your competitors don’t. This would help you stand out from the crowd. Answer the “why us and not them” question.
- Craft a comprehensive marketing plan that includes online and offline sales and marketing strategies.
- Determine the financial projects from both short-term and long-term perspectives.
Print on demand
Print on demand (POD) are businesses that provide on-demand printing services to both other businesses and final consumers. If you don’t have the printing resources yourself, you can take orders from customers, design the t-shirts, and send those designs to a POD outlet. They would provide you with the finished goods you can deliver to the customers.
If you don’t have much retail experience or none of it; and are on a low budget to spend money on specialized equipment, you would love the concept of POD. To begin, research the POD outlets and see if anyone fits your profile. For instance, if you want to print custom t-shirts, check out the POD outlets online that provide this service. Look into the local options before expanding your search, as they would charge you less for shipping the items.
Choose the e-commerce platform
Once you know what POD outlet you would relay your orders to, you need to establish an online space for getting orders. Starting an e-commerce platform has become really easy, thanks to the many service providers in the market. You can go for open-source solutions or software-as-a-service (SaaS). In the latter, you won’t have to deal with the technicalities of developing the platform from scratch. You can rent a space by paying a monthly subscription fee.
An excellent place to get started with your eCommerce platform is BigCommerce. Once you have created your e-commerce platform, you can start receiving the orders and relaying them to the POD. You can then deliver the printed custom clothing items to your customers and keep the profits from the same. This is one of the easiest ways to start a business online and earn money.