How to Start a Fashion Clothing Business

Ever wanted to make use of your fashionizta-sort of talents to make some profits? Well then, you came to the right place. Here you’ll find some of the basics of starting a fashion clothing store. Now why would a fashion clothing store be perfect for someone like you? Well, the only best way for you to use your talents in sensing the hottest trends in fashion is through setting up your own fashion clothing shop. Here you’ll make good use of that talent of yours. And the good thing about it is that you’ll have a lot of fun.

But hold on a sec! Before you go and start that business of yours, you should first know the basics of setting up a fashion clothing store.

First of all, setting up a fashion clothing business doesn’t only mean providing the best and the trendiest collection of clothing lines (yet it does play a major role in a fashion clothing store’s success). A fashion clothing store, like any other businesses, requires good management, timely maintenance, and a strong willed heart. Without these important business minded characteristics, then your business won’t run for too long. So let’s begin…

The Start of the Journey

Most successful fashion clothing stores have a few things in common: competitive prices, a great selection of clothes such as a sean john clothing, a house of dereon collection, or rocawear clothes, and accessories, attractive packaging (marketing) and yes, a catchy name/brand/tag. Thinking of a name for your business is a tricky endeavor. You obviously want your patrons to remember your store, but you also want them to associate the name of the store with your merchandise. These things are important so make sure you take a note on this.

Now before you open your own fashion clothing store or fashion boutique, you may want to think about what “theme” or specialization of clothes you may want to sell. There are a lot, a few examples include: bridal or wedding boutique, business clothing boutique, casual wear/rough gear/street clothes, children’s wear boutique, couture, formal wear boutique, lingerie, maternity store, men’s wear boutique, special size boutiques (petites, plus size, tall, etc.,) sports wear/active wear, teen gear, women’s wear boutique, etc.

Now there are two kinds of fashion clothing store or shop that you can choose from, a retail fashion store and fashion boutique. So what’s the difference about it?

Well retail fashion specializes in selling new clothing products created by fashion designers which may (or may not) be dictated by celebrity trends, whereas fashion boutiques are more chic or upscale. Personalized service, cozy ambiance and unique merchandise are offered here – and patrons of such places usually expect nothing less. Now it’s up to you whether you wanted to be a fashion clothing retailer or an owner of a fashion clothing boutique. Remember, choose the one you’re most comfortable with. It’s all in your decision.

Planning Ahead

Now before you can see your business material, its important that you should plan all the things needed for you fashion clothing store to run smoothly, without the worry of encountering too much problems at the middle of it.

Business and Financial Planning

Planning, as I said, is very important, especially if you plan about your business processes and financial capacities. Financial management is made easy because of tools such as Excel that can really help in managing your business and accounting. Software tools are also for easier management of your fashion clothing store.

Also, do not forget to include your start-up cost such as the rent for your shop, the money needed for your opening day, salaries and wages for your employees (if any), taxes, insurances, and other business miscellaneous. This is important, for much of the assets would be coming from your personal funds or savings and how much were loaned or borrowed. These things should be cleared out before opening your fashion clothing shop to minimize the chance for you to encounter such problems.

Location Planning

Another huge factor about launching your own fashion clothing store is your business location. Malls are popular places for such stores, but they do come with steep rents, and a lot of competition. Stores that sell outside such establishments may have less overhead expenses but may also have less foot traffic. Your prospective market may also be an important element in choosing your business location.

So you should ensure that the location is located in a high-traffic area and close to places such as schools, hip clubs and restaurants. Put your store inside a mall (if you have the budget for it), but avoid placing it next to another retail fashion clothing store or fashion clothing boutique. Otherwise, you would be competing with veteran fashion clothing store owners.

In order to assess competitiveness and presence, you would need to perform a market research in order to look at the demographics in the location you plan to put up your fashion clothing store. See what other fashion clothing store can provide and what they cannot provide.

Take for example, if your competitor has a large collection of house of dereon jeans and skirts but lesser with sean john clothing T-shirts and hoodies, then you should sell those sean john clothing T-shirts and hoodies rather than selling those house of dereon jeans and skirts. Well with your talent in this part, it’ll be a lot easier to out-perform them.

Stock Planning

It is also important that you can provide some of the most popular branded clothing lines, such as sean john clothing, house of dereon, rocawear, or apple bottoms. You can buy this directly from the manufacturers, but you could also buy it from a distributor such as Ebay. But apart from Ebay, other online clothing shops or wholesale clothing shops can provide such things such as Streetzwear and Seven Wholesale.

You are free to choose whatever brand you like, the important thing is for you to provide what the customers wants and needs.

Price Planning

Pricing is important, as with the quality of the merchandise. Some clothing stores manage to pull off slightly higher pricing from its peers, but only because they have already established their brand names in the market. Since you are only starting or launching this business, you may want to refer to popular prices among your competitors. The quality of your merchandise should also be a great concern to you. Nothing will lose you more customers faster than poorly made clothes passed off as “fashionable” wear with very dear price tags.

Marketing Plan

Before opening your doors, it’s important that people around you know that you’re opening your fashion clothing store at this day and at this time. This can be done by advertising your store. Weeks or months prior to your opening day, ensure that you have mailed or distributed fliers, set up ads in the advertising section of your local newspaper, post bill-boards and flashy signs at a corner near your store. If you could, you could hire people to distribute fliers to passing people, or just seek some help from your families and friends.

Visit this link to Register Your Business. (Tagalog version)

Here are some free Business Plans that you can try with:
– Lingerie Shop Business Plan
– Maternity Clothing Online Business Plan
– Women’s Clothing Boutique Shop Business Plan
– Clothing Retail Business Plan
– Sports Clothing Retail Shop Business plan
– Maternity Clothing Business Plan

Sources: jefferson john babasa, http://www.articlealley.com/article_641308_34.html, bplans.com
Photo: thecentrestore.com

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