Turn Your Heart For Fashion To A Small Business
If the world of fashion excites you, then there is unique opportunity within, waiting for you to make it yours. Here are ten business opportunities for fashion fanatics that can help you make a name for yourself in the field. We will also show you where to start and how to promote your business.
10 Fashion Business Ideas
Fashion Event Producer
Running a fashion show isn’t easy. Fashion event producers work with designers and models, sometimes even coaching them.
While startup costs are minimal – you won’t need employees or even an office – you will need to do some heavy self-promotion. Business cards, a user-friendly website showing an online portfolio and a printed portfolio are a must. Networking through industry websites is also essential.
Before you embark on this career, you should understand fashion shows, work with creative people and be flexible enough to deal with diverse personalities. Income potential is based on the number of clients you have and how big they are.
Fashion Business Coach
This business is ideal for someone with a corporate background who wants to make a move into fashion. A fashion business coach guides design firms in running their business, from growth plans to everyday tasks such as invoice collection and bookkeeping. It can also involve coaching designers on how to perform and interact in different business settings.
Startup costs for a fashion coaching business are minimal, but earning potential is significant. Research consultancy services with established businesses can make six-figure salaries with constant clients.
Fashion Blogger
Some of today’s most influential fashion websites, like The Sartorialist, debuted as small fashion blogs. They’ve since come into their own as industry thought leaders, and they sell lots of advertising.
Fashion blogs don’t require large investments, as website development and hosting can be quite inexpensive – but they do require lots of work. WP Engine charges you $17 per month to host your website. How cheap is that?!
Whether you’re stalking the city streets in search of fashionable photo-ops or following the moves of leading designers, you’ll need to track the trends at every moment.
Photo Stylist
Photo stylists work with photographers to scout shoot locations, get clothing to shoots, buy furniture and accessories, and make sure the photo shoot goes as planned. It requires a good sense of fashion, an understanding of fashion history and the smarts to know where to source your products.
Successful photo stylists can come from any background. They usually make their mark by doing a good job and gaining business through word-of-mouth. If you are a photo stylist, you can set an hourly or by project pay.
Public Relations Rep
Do you love talking to your favourite designer brands? Are you always searching for the latest fashion news and sample sales? If so, you might consider starting your own fashion public relations business. Fashion PR is a difficult field to break into, but with the right skill set and connections, you can help designers and other fashion businesses get noticed by the media and fashionistas.
If you want to be a successful PR, you must create a strong brand for your clients to differentiate them from other designers, know how to work with fashion editors to get magazine placements and with models and celebrities to get your clients’ work in the public eye, have a keen understanding of media trends, and prove the value of your work.
Personal Stylist
Besides a passion for style and clothing, you don’t need any formal training or licensing to become a personal stylist.
Once you have a few clients under your belt, many personal stylists charge anywhere from $60 an hour to $200 an hour. Others charge by project as well: from $500 to $2,000 per day or project.
Start a Clothing Line
Starting a clothing line business (garment factory) is of course one of the many businesses that can be started in any part of the world. This is one venture where you can penetrate the market to a large extent, once the design being churned out is good and meets the fashion market requirement. Why is this so? Well, this is so because everybody whether old or young have need for clothes. As a result, once the type of style being demanded is met, then there is ample chance to make loads of profit.
Mend, Press & Alter Clothing
Do you carry any of these skills?
- Mend clothing
- Press clothing
- Alter clothing
If so, consider offering your skills as a tailor. Tailor work and small-scale pressing (ironing) are always in demand.
As you know, busy people don’t have time for these basic tasks. And, you can easily work from your home in your free time.
In today’s world, skills such as mending and alterations aren’t taught. Hopefully, you have a knack for sewing. If so, you have a valuable, money-making talent on your hands.
Design your own t-shirts
If you’re creative and like to design things, then this may be a great fit for you. If so, check out a site called CafePress. On CafePress, you can publish t-shirt designs that you create. When a customer purchases a design, you earn a portion of the profits. CafePress prints and ships the order to the buyer! So, you only have to upload designs. In short, this can be one of the easiest ways to make money selling t-shirts.
Now, you can spend more time designing and less time selling. To sell more designs, some second sites to try are Redbubble, Teespring, Bonfire, and Printify. Or, you can try selling on all to reach more buyers.
You’ll still need to promote your storefront to make money online with this idea, so it’s helpful to have an online following, whether it’s on Instagram, YouTube, or another social media platform.
Open your own store
When it comes to clothing line business, any location is ideal for the business -especially when other key factors have been taken care of. The truth is that, if you have enough space in your compound, you can start a small scale clothing line business from your home.
The fact that you chose a location that is in the outskirt of town does not in any way stop you from selling your clothes nationally or even in the international market. The idea is to have a place that is cost effective, and can be most ideal for the kind of business that you have chosen to do.
When you start to be known and have good number of regular customers, move your store to a mall. Anyone who steps into a mall in the middle of a large city may feel that the apparel industry is crowded. The truth is, there is always room for another apparel store, particularly if you offer consumers something unique and new to your area.
Where Do I Start?
1. Find Your Business Niche
Finding a niche is an important process of starting any business. You want to provide a product or service that there is a need for. For example, what specific type of clothing will you sell in your store? Evaluate whether your market will take to a new men’s, women’s or children’s clothing store, or whether you should sell a combination of these. Then you can choose a specialty, such as vintage clothing for women, boutique clothing design items, maternity, sportswear or accessories. You can also create your own clothing brand if you are a fashion designer.
2. Identify Your Target Audience
This step goes hand in hand with finding your niche. You need to identify who will be purchasing your clothes. What type of potential customer are you targeting, and what type of clothing would they buy? Do you want to target those looking for a high-end fashion brand, or would you rather appeal to those looking for more affordable clothing? Identifying your target audience will help you make these choices and narrow down your brand identity.
3. Perform A Competitive Analysis
A competitive analysis is an assessment of your current or potential business competitors. To perform one, you must identify the other companies in your market that currently offer a product similar to yours, and then analyze how their products are positioned. The results of a competitor analysis help you learn about current market trends, product pricing, market saturation, industry best practices, market gaps and business opportunities. Although a competitor analysis is a necessity when you start your business, it should also be routinely performed throughout the business’s life cycle to increase your competitive intelligence.
4. Write A Business Plan
Although it may not always be legally required, every business owner should write a business plan for their company. A business plan serves as the blueprint of your business and helps you see the full picture of your company’s mission, vision and feasibility.
5. File Your Legal Structure
You can incorporate your business online, or you can work with a lawyer to make sure you take all the necessary steps. They will help you obtain a tax ID number and advise you on which business licenses you may need. You will also want to look into obtaining the appropriate business insurance if applicable.
6. Secure Financing
If you are thinking of starting a clothing store, you have to be financially prepared. In fashion, you need to spend money to make money. Don’t underestimate the amount of financial capital you’ll need to get started. You’ll need to purchase merchandise, pay store employees, buy marketing materials, and furnish the store with fixtures and lighting, to name just a few expenses.
How and Where can I Promote my Business?
Choose your location
If you are starting a clothing store, the location is one of the most important decisions you’ll have to make. Not only do you need to commit to a location in a specific neighbourhood, but then you need to consider the various neighbourhoods and streets that will bring you foot traffic and a large consumer base interested in and able to afford your merchandise.
Set Up Your Website
Whether you are opening your physical store or not, you will also want to create an online clothing store to sell your items. If you are solely using e-commerce to sell your merchandise, this step is even more imperative to master.
Most startups and small businesses choose to build their websites using website-builder software. You can also hire a web design firm to build it for you.
When you are looking for a website-building platform to create your online clothing store, it is important to find one that is affordable, easy to use and optimized for mobile users. Some companies even offer retail-specific web design templates, which can simplify the e-commerce store building process. Settle on software that can not only support your current product quantity, but also scale with your business as you grow.
When you are setting up your online store, only use high-quality photos of your inventory. You will also want to optimize the photos for mobile devices.
Open Your Online Stores
When you upload your products on different platforms, your logo will stick to your customers minds. Customers in your city and cities around will recognize your address and will try to connect with you and go directly and purchase from your store. It is a very good way to attract more customers to your store and reach out to potential customers that do not live around your neighbourhood.
On the other hand, trusted platforms help you sell your inventory to farther markets and increase your profit.
Set a Social Media Marketing
When you’re ready to open your doors (physically or virtually), don’t be afraid to tell everyone, from friends and family to all your social media connections. Make sure you have a message to share with them and reasons they should shop at your new store. You might consider holding an open house with special discounts, giveaways and other perks. Put your best foot forward, and emphasize amazing customer service to build the best brand image.
As social media has become a major driving factor for business marketing, you also want to take advantage of social media marketing. Build your branding and marketing strategy around platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and YouTube to stay connected to your target market.
Market your store
You might also consider incorporating physical advertising into your marketing plan. Advertise your clothing store in your local newspaper or lifestyle magazine, as well as on your local radio stations.
Keep the momentum going by sponsoring fashion shows, sample sales, trunk shows, holiday promotions, and other special days to celebrate your customers and give them new, exciting reasons to visit your physical location or online clothing store.
Design your chequebook
Prepare your cheque book to speak for your business. Print your business logo on the cheques you write. Make sure to include your store address and website. Yes, your business logo and information are essential because they are the establishment of your store. So set aside some effort to hit the nail on the head.
We hope you found our article helpful and knowledgeable! Whether you implement one business idea or more is totally up to you. You decide based on the amount of time and effort you can put towards these ideas.
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We are so excited with the feedback we received from our clients. Some started their T-Shirt design company are doing very well. Others were able to fill up their store with unique products that helped in increasing the number of customer who visit their store every day and now they are so happy with increase in sale they are experiencing. Now it’s your turn to start your own business!
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