There is no better time than right now to start your own clothing line online. Not only are there more resources than ever to get you started in the right direction, but there are also endless ways to market your clothing line, which means it’s easier than ever to find your customers and put your products in front of them.
Of course, no matter how simple it might be to start your own clothing business online, there’s still plenty of work to be done. While anyone can have a good idea for a clothing line, far fewer actually take action on that good idea. And even fewer still will continue pursuing their clothing line business months down the road.
And that’s good news for you.
Once you learn the right way to start your own online clothing line, it really is just a matter of doing something every day to help your business grow. If you commit to following your plan, then online business success is almost guaranteed.
Another increasingly popular clothing niche online is baby clothes, especially those that offer a unique marketing angle, like funky graphics, popular trends, or quality and organic materials. Natural materials that use limited or no dyes are popular among parents whose baby is sensitive to other materials. Baby clothes that are sold with matching sets for moms and dads are skyrocketing in popularity at the moment, making that specific niche a smart one to invest in for entrepreneurs and savvy digital marketers.
One of the keys to doing competitive research is finding your specific niche. Your niche gives you direction, both for product creation and marketing, so that you set your online clothing line business up for success from the get-go.
Typically speaking there are two types of niches you want to identify for your clothing line: Broad and Micro.
The broad niche for your clothing line gives you a general focus of what you’ll be selling and who you’ll be selling to. Below is a list of the most common broad niches in the online clothing world:
All of these niches have the ability to focus solely on men, women, or kids, too.
After identifying your broad niche, you’ll narrow your business idea down even further by creating a micro niche for your brand. Micro niches are, as you can imagine, even more specific than the broad niche, which means they give you an even better idea of who your customers will be. In order to find your micro niche, you’ll want to consider your desired target audience and the specific products you’re going to be selling online. In doing so, you’ll be able to clearly see the people who will be buying your products, which means that your marketing will be much easier to create and develop.
Examples of potential micro niches include:
Another aspect of doing competitive research for your online clothing business is seeing what your direct competition is not doing. By identifying holes in your prospective niche, you can come to the market with a solution that customers really want and need. If you can’t identify any holes in your desired market, then you might need to redevelop your business plan so that you can be sure that your online clothing store doesn’t just add noise to an already saturated niche.
And always make sure that the manufacturer you’re wanting to work with has plenty of positive reviews.
Choosing the right eCommerce platform for your online clothing line is like choosing the right location for a physical storefront. There are plenty of different platforms you can build your online store on, but you shouldn’t select a platform without some careful decision-making. Not all eCommerce software includes the same features or allows your business as much growth.
The most popular choice of eCommerce platform is Shopify, especially in the clothing niche. However, popularity doesn't necessarily mean it's the best — it just means they've done more marketing than other providers. It's true that Shopify is easy to set up and use, and can create some visually appealing online stores without a lot of effort (which is why it's attractive to people starting a clothing brand). But Shopify also has tons of limitations that can prevent you from running your business the way you want to, and can harm your ability to grow your brand.
For example, Shopify places limits on the number of product variants you can have on any one product. This means if you have a large number of sizes and colors available for a certain apparel item, you may not be able to fit every combination onto a single product page. You'd need to split your product among multiple product pages, perhaps having half the available sizes and colors on one page, and half on another. However, customers won't expect this, and won't know other sizes are available on a different page, so you could miss sales.
That's just one of the issues with Shopify — others include limitations on promotion stacking, lack of an option for single-page checkout, and constantly ballooning app fees that can double or even triple the cost of your plan just to add important features to your store. It may be popular, but it simply isn't the best option.
The best platform to begin and grow your online clothing brand is Shift4Shop. With all the features of Shopify (and then some) and none of its limitations, Shift4Shop is simply a better choice all around. It doesn’t suffer from Shopify's problems and since it includes more features, it's rare that you'd need to pay for an app. Best yet, if you use Shift4 Payments as your payment processor, Shift4Shop will permanently waive your monthly fee by giving you access to the free End-to-End eCommerce plan. This plan includes all the features, has no limits, and would cost around $299/month on another platform.
Shift4Shop makes it simple to get your online clothing line up and running. Loaded with features and capable of integrating with hundreds of other useful eCommerce tools, it's simple to use, easy to customize, and always up to date with the latest trends and tech.
No online clothing line can be successful without customers, which means you need to have the right marketing in place from the very beginning. Knowing who your customers are (or will be) will help you create the right messaging. To make your marketing efforts even easier, there are plenty of ways to discover valuable insights about your customers, including where they hang out online, what they’re interested in, etc. Some of the information you’ll want to uncover for your marketing purposes includes:
As you learn more about your customers, you’ll discover what they’re really wanting from your product. What are they not currently getting? What do they want more of? What do they need to know in order to buy?
By following the steps above and investing plenty of time into developing your unique clothing brand plan, you can create a successful online clothing company that generates revenue while you sleep. The most important aspect of creating any online business is committing to it so that you take action, no matter how small, every single day. And, of course, when you need help, be sure to ask for it.