You’ve decided to set up your online apparel store. Well, that’s not surprising. Why? The online clothing industry is a multi-billion-a-year sector and is one of the most popular eCommerce niches. Sales are projected to be over $700 billion by 2022. This, combined with the emerging middle class with disposable income all over the world, there’s a huge potential of business to cash in on.
Many people think that starting an eCommerce business is always the same irrespective of the sector, but they are wrong. It’s actually quite different. This isn’t only due to the fierce competition in the clothing industry, but managing a wide range of products, shapes, sizes, and brands, isn’t easy.
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Before you jump headfirst into selecting products and choosing website fonts, you want to have everything crystal clear before starting an online clothing store. The following tips will help you start on the right foot.
What Are The Tips to Starting a Successful Online Clothing Store?
1. Get inspired and bring your ideas together.
Brainstorm. Whether by yourself or with business-savvy friends. It helps you to lay a cohesive foundation from which to launch your online clothing store. Some things that require brainstorming include:
Fashion audience
When starting an online fashion store, you want to have a clear idea of who will be buying your products. Who’s your ideal customer? What’s your style? What does it represent? Normally, fashion trends are age-specific, and it’s advisable to target a certain age group when starting. Once you have an age group in mind, identify the top-trends products. Pinterest searches and the right magazines can help you with this.
Business strategy and reasoning
Why do you want to build an online clothing store? Does it matter to you? These are crucial questions to ask yourself before moving forward, so you don’t waste your money, time, and energy. You probably have a talent for sketching clothes and would want to make money out of it, or you love fashion, and you’d want to start a part-time hustle.
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2. Select a niche
What clothing and apparel niche do you want to sell in? Selecting a niche makes it easy to choose products and allows you to create your entire business plan around the type of potential customers you want to attract. It also enables you to position your online clothing store uniquely.
The secret is to be as specific as possible and drill down your niche. It makes it easier to identify and market to your potential customers. Besides, being specific allows you to develop your products in a way that appeals to your target audience. In turn, this helps you to shake off competition and increases your chances of having loyal customers.
Here are some tips for selecting products to start an online fashion store.
It’s never a popularity contest.
The clothing industry is already crowded, and you need to offer unique products or services if you want to stand out. Yes, looking at popular styles is helpful, but creating a focused niche is the secret to success. Remember, your online boutique can succeed without being a fast-fashion empire.
Focus on a niche that you’re passionate about.
What are your clothing interests? Go with what inspires you in clothing and apply it when starting an online fashion store. However, you can take inspiration from other influencers as well. Humor, music, art, and lifestyle are some of the things that can inspire the vision of your online clothing store and help you define your brand.
It’s okay to start simple.
Don’t be afraid to start simple. You don’t need to have the degree of flair you’d want when you’re just starting. The crucial thing here is to get started.
Remember, style is always changing.
You don’t want your business to fail down the road. Well, it’s a difficult thing to worry about this early, but it’s important, anyway. What could happen to your business in case of a major shift in fashion? And how prepared are you? When starting an online clothing store, find ways that can help you stay ahead of the curve. Think of it as a mantra, or even rule of the thumb. Any clothing business that doesn’t evolve will eventually struggle.
3. Source or create your products.
Now that you already know what you want to sell, it’s time to create or source those products. If you decide to create your products, it’s time to freshen up your skills. Do you love crocheting, knitting, or sewing? This is a great opportunity to be creative and display your sense of style. Don’t be discouraged when your first products aren’t perfect. Instead, work to strengthen your skill set. In any case, some of these activities are a great way to pass the idle time when starting. You don’t have to make everything from scratch, either.
If you’re not looking to make your products, that shouldn’t prevent you from starting an online fashion store. You can be buying your products from a dropshipper or partner with a screenprinting company to help you add your custom designs to your apparel. Check out https://thrivescreenprinting.com/ for apparel order fulfillment services and wholesale custom printing.
4. Create a great site.
If your online clothing store is poorly developed and arranged, you’ll have a hard time attracting customers and getting them to buy from you. Put all your effort into creating a great online store. You may have the best and the most beautiful products, but they will fail to convert if your store is poorly designed. Your products are only as great as your online presence.
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Create a website that’s appealing to the eye and easy to navigate. A great online store projects a sense of trustworthiness to shoppers. From properly organized product pages to secure checkout, there are several things to keep in mind when developing your online clothing store. Some of the things you need to have a great site include:
Secure checkout.
Let’s face it. Your website traffic won’t shop from you if they don’t trust you. Invest in the security of your site. Assuring online shoppers that their personal and financial details are safe and secure will undoubtedly result in increased sales. Nobody wants to shop in an online store with poor security standards.
Build a professional and stylish store.
Work with an online builder who offers pre-designed themes and gives you total control of customization. It helps to have consistent brand imagery – from photos to text colors. Being in full control of customization allows you to take your design template and craft it to your specific needs.
Create great product pages.
Your products are key to the success of your online clothing store. You see, most online shoppers only depend on your photos and pages to judge the details and quality of the products. Make sure your pages and product photos are of remarkable quality.
5. Come up with a launch strategy.
Now that you have your site, products are in place, and fulfillment is planned, it’s time to launch your store. Here are some useful tips.
Define a launch strategy.
How will you launch your online clothing store? Are you going to use Facebook live video? Or run promotional ads? There are several effective ways to launch your online clothing store. Whichever method you use, set it to roll out step-by-step as you launch. This should comprise tasks such as testing your entire online store’s functionality and proofreading.
Make sure your store’s social media pages are ready before launching your store. Make sure they are active (with content) before the big launch. It makes it easy to run social media ads with the launch when your social media accounts are active. It also makes it easy to market your products when you have an already growing following.
Set up an email marketing strategy.
Make sure automation emails are tested and ready.
6. Bring traffic to your store.
Great products and an appealing website will be of no use if there are no visitors to your website. Some of the biggest traffic drivers are:
SEO
Search Engine Optimization’s (SEO) best practices helps to rank your online store high on search engines.
PPC
Pay Per Click (PPC) is a method of using search engine advertising to drive traffic to a website. These are the sponsored ads that appear on top of Google’s search result page, usually marked with a yellow label.
Content marketing
This is a great way to drive traffic to your online store using guest posts on popular blogs.
Email marketing
It’s one of the easiest ways to reach potential customers. It’s perfect for sending special offers and coupons and announcing new products.
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