How to start an online clothing business: Your full guide to fashion success

The global fashion industry has gone from strength-to-strength over the past decade. There’s always going to be a place for catwalks, fashion innovation and boutique shops, but nowadays the real opportunities lie in the digital sphere. Learning how to start an online clothing business has never been so important. Luckily for you, it’s also never been so straightforward! In what follows, Javier Bello, marketing expert at Ueni, explains everything you need to know.

If you’re looking into starting a clothing brand, chances are you’re a creative person with an eye for design. Maybe you already have your own custom-designed line sketched out, maybe you have a product in mind, or maybe you’re just looking to make money in a profitable industry.

In such a vast and varied market, there’s no one right or wrong way of starting a clothing brand. But if you’re thinking about how to start your own clothing line, there are five basic models you should be aware of:

1)     Print-on-Demand Dropshipping

Dropshipping is a way of running a business by outsourcing production, storage and shipping to a third-party supplier.

There are print-on-demand companies out there who will laser print images onto a standard range of blank items (anything from caps to t-shirts). Just upload your designs or logos to the website and they take care of the rest, as well as a cut of the profit. This automated method requires less oversight and is great for small-scale operations since you can print as little as one item and get it to the customer in a matter of days.

2)    Private Label Clothing Line

Private label has several advantages over print on-demand. Firstly, it’s cost-effective to produce bulk batches. Secondly, you should be able to produce each unit for less money than you’d pay a drop shipper, increasing your potential margins. Finally, with more control over the base apparel and how you customise it, you’ll find it easier to make your brand stand out.

3)    DIY Cut and Sew

People value high-quality clothing and accessories which are 100% custom-made. The success of online sales platform Etsy is proof of this. Making your own garments can be a starting point: a useful way of refining your line and experimenting without investing too much other than your own time and basic costs for materials.

4)    Cut and Sew Manufacturing

If you’re looking to build a bigger cut and sew brand, you’ll want to locate a manufacturer that’s up to spec. Setting up a full-scale manufacturing operation is a big step, requiring considerable sums of money.

5)    Curating a Boutique Line

A final model is curating your own boutique line by acquiring finished garments at wholesale prices (or at least discounted prices) and selling them on at a profit. Curation is key here; by using your fashionista’s eye to pick out garments, you piece together a line with its own distinctive aesthetic. Your seal of approval is what adds value.

In today’s eco-conscious world, there’s a trend for second-hand clothing. One interesting model is buying up perennial designer labels (the likes of Burberry, Vivienne Westwood, Chanel) on the cheap from charity shops, garage sales and outlet sales.

Getting to Know your Niche

Learning how to start a clothing business begins with carving out a niche and catering to it. Who are they for? Which gap are they filling? Is it a competitive space? What separates them out from competitor clothing?

Understanding your USP inside-out

Your USP is what makes your brand stand apart from the competition. It’s the spirit you channel through your business and needs to be part of everything you practice. A killer fashion brand USP can be built around a range of factors: cheap prices, exclusivity, high-quality materials, designer connections etc.

Know who you’re Selling to

Think about quantitative data: age, income, gender. You could even investigate keyword research to look at product volume searches on Google trends. However, the most important information to get at your fingertips is more qualitative: discovering what makes your intended audience tick.

Keep an Eye on the Competition

Keeping up with the fast-moving world of fashion is a must for anyone opening a clothing store and this means knowing what your competitors are up to. When it comes to sizing up your rivals, remember it’s not always about how you can do something better, it’s often about how you can do something different.

Adjust your Market Positioning with a Minimum Viable Product

Common market research methods for people starting clothing lines involve showcasing some sort of minimum viable product to see if people will bite. The idea is to get actionable feedback that can help you to adjust your market positioning and better appeal to your target customers.

Where are you Going to Sell?

What you sell will probably dictate where you sell it to some extent. You’re not going to plump for financial district premises if you’re selling streetwear. Follow your market.

There are dozens of online sales platforms to choose from out there, whether it’s becoming a seller with ecommerce giants like Amazon or eBay or signing up with the likes of Shopify. Having a foothold on all of these can be worthwhile. But if you’re trying to build a scalable, enduring and profitable business, this strategy comes in a distant second to having your own tailor-made website.

Social Media

If you’re in the fashion industry, social media is likely to be one of the first places people discover your brand. A good social media game is all about telling your brand’s story, through visuals as well as words. Successful lifestyle brands have active social media accounts across all the major platforms: Pay per click advertising (PPC) is another tactic to get traffic to your site early on. It may also be worth looking at affiliate marketing: paying an influencer to market your brand (usually as a percentage of each sale from their website).

There’s a lot of information to take on board and plenty to think about at each stage of the process but if you follow the steps set out here, you’re laying the foundations for a brand with serious staying power.

All that’s left now is to take the leap. Find your niche, follow it and make sure you’re always thinking about the bigger picture.