Today, you are wondering how to start a clothing brand that can help you grow in the apparel market and generate good money. Lucky for you, this comprehensive guide is going to take your curiosity away and lead you down the right path to start your venture.
You might be thinking about how hard it would be to become a businessman and manage the operations of a certified clothing brand.
The process of launching a brand isn’t hard, but it does require some attention. Let’s jump into the necessary details of the essential elements needed to start an apparel business.
Is Launching a Brand a Good Idea?
There are so many business ideas that you can choose from, but you decided to go for a brand launch. Of course, it is a brilliant idea to launch a clothing business, as it generates good profits, gives you popularity, provides opportunities to be successful in the clothing market, and encourages you to expand your business to a greater level.
However, it depends on your dedication to become a market giant. With proper guidance, you can achieve your milestones one by one. Apparel market size is increasing day by day, and brands have been generating good revenue by putting a great deal of effort into promoting their businesses through amazing products.
An apparel market analysis of 2024 revealed that the size of the market is now worth $1.79 trillion, accounting for 1.6% of the world’s GDP.
Budget Required to Start a Clothing Line
The budget to launch a clothing business depends on the size of the brand. If you want to begin with a small setup, it may require a small investment, which can be $500.
Starting a clothing brand big enough to embody a wider range of products, employees, websites, and several other things can cost between $25,000 and $50,000. Other than that, the budget plan depends on your ability to spend on your clothing line.
13 Simple Steps to Start a Clothing Line
Here are some of the simplest steps that can help you launch a clothing business efficiently enough to become popular and successful.
1. A Thorough Business Plan
A business plan is what makes your brand worth the shot since it works as a guiding agent while starting a fashion brand. Therefore, you need to have a detailed business plan that includes everything your brand is supposed to have.
It should comprise a financial plan, budget, your business model, target market, product range, revenue tactics, innovative strategies, and some other elements that you find important to be part of your business plan. You can mention the nature of your brand, i.e., is it B2B or B2C?
All the information in your plan will work as a tool to attract and convince investors, as well as yourself, to create a clothing business through the proper channels.
2. Find Investors
It is absolutely fine if you can afford it and want to be the sole person to run your garment business. However, spending a great deal of money is not a piece of cake considering the risk of fallback, financial losses, and unknown business hassles. To prevent that, you can look for trusted and reliable investors to share your financial burden.
3. Market Survey
Without knowing what is important to customers, you will be running blind towards your goal, risking everything, including the capital investment, investors’ trust, and the scope to make your clothing brand a success.
Thus, you need to find out about market trends, customers preferred products, and innovative strategies that you need to apply in order to stay in the loop about the popularity of new fashion products.
4. Competitors Analysis
Knowing your competitors is a great way to survive and thrive in the apparel market. You are supposed to study their way of dealing with customers, product collection, marketing tactics, budget planning, additional precautions, etc. to secure your new business. In short, the competitor analysis will give you an edge over others and help you avoid unwanted setbacks.
5. Area of Business
Locality is very important because you would not want to start a business in an area where customers are not interested in buying your products.
Choose a location where fashion products are in demand. You can choose New York and California, as fashion apparel products are in high demand in both regions of America.
6. Define the Target Audience
Your business model will only work when you define the appropriate and most suitable target market. This means that you need to understand what customers are into in this modern age, what their preferences are in terms of attirers and outfits, age-specific clothes, colors, patterns, fabric choices, and everything else that people like about apparel. This way, you will be able to move on to the next step.
7. Decide Your Niche
Identifying your target market would also help you decide the niche you want to base your business model on. For example, if youth want custom-printed t-shirts with gradient looks, your product category should include personalized tees in gradient. You can always go for multiple products if you are planning to launch a big clothing brand.
8. Fabric Sourcing
Sourcing fabric is an optional task for you if you want to start small-scale manufacturing yourself. You need to source high-quality fabric for your clothing line if you want to keep your customers satisfied with your products. You can consult reliable suppliers to help you identify your material needs.
9. Find Experienced Clothing Manufacturers
One of the most important things to do is find the right custom clothing manufacturers in order to launch a clothing business successfully. A good producer of apparel will manufacture the apparel as per your needs. You can place bulk orders with your logo attached to the products to increase your brand’s popularity and sales.
Manufacturers with the skills and advanced means of manufacturing apparel will be able to design and create outfits that suit your preferences. A little research on how to find a clothing manufacturers can give you the desired results. You can partner with the chosen supplier and initiate your business plan immediately.
10. Team Building
You can start your own team at the right time. Hire employees if you want to have a physical shop. Build a team of skilled individuals with great management expertise.
Your trusted team can be a group of sales experts, marketing professionals, models, accountants, and others with brand-relevant experience.
11. Build a website
A clothing business in 2024 will be incomplete without a website showcasing exclusive products online. The reason is that teenagers spend a great deal of their time on the internet. They shop online, pay online, and become repeat customers of a brand if they like the products.
So, starting a website or an e-commerce platform would be a good opportunity to capture a larger market. Your team-building process can also include individuals with website development and management skills. Or, you can outsource an entire team for this purpose.
Read more about: Clothing brand marketing strategies in 2024
12. Business Registration
Registration for your business is extremely mandatory in order to keep yourself protected from legal problems. You need to get your brand registered right away. The registration will secure your assets.
13. Trademark your clothing brand.
Trademarking refers to securing the identity of your brand, which makes it exclusive and unique. For instance, any specific design, color scheme, or logo Knowing how to trademark your clothing brand will help you realize that the security of your business can never be fully compromised.
If any entity tries to copy your logo, slogan, or a particular element that makes your brand stand out, you can take legal action against that entity.
How Do You Prevent Business from Failing?
Many entrepreneurs fail to launch a clothing business and promote it due to being negligent about financial planning, USP (unique selling points), branding, marketing, target audience, strategies, and proper management.
In order to avoid failing, you need to have thorough planning, which should be mentioned in the business plan, a proper target market analysis, marketing tactics, and a USP to engage the customers.
What Are The Most Common Mistakes to Avoid When Starting a Clothing Line?
The Need of a Plan
Many entrepreneurs neglect making a business plan, considering they can launch and run their clothing brand without any planning. Well, they are wrong because a business plan has everything you need to do.
You can’t memorize everything and go with a plan that resides only in your mind. You need to form a well-researched plan containing information about your budget, investment, marketing, target market, and so on.
Starting with Massive Bulk
It is not always right to start with a massive number of products. There are chances of failing at selling the products and losing a great deal of money.
A good way to start your brand is to get a limited number of products that don’t upset your business budget. Try only those products in demand or trends.
Neglecting Branding and Promotion
Some people think their brand will start functioning magically. You need to identify the market tactics and apply those to brand your clothing line.
In short, promoting your brand is a necessity. Use the power of social media and other networking platforms to empower your brand’s visibility.
Ignoring The Need of Professional Help
Starting a brand requires professional support of manufacturers, marketing experts, designers, and sellers. You are extremely wrong if you think you can do it all by yourself. Take manufacturing companies for example, they can make your products better and more practical.
Marketing team can help you promote your brand, and designers can create out standing and market ready design ideas for your products.
Wrong Team
Don’t hire the wrong team that is unprofessional and inexperienced. Surround yourself with people who know what they are doing. They should have good skills and good knowledge of running a clothing brand.
Setting Higher Rates Than the Market
Some people consider setting higher prices by assuring customers their products are better than others. That is a wrong move because customers like to buy high-quality clothes at reasonable rates.
If you sell clothes of the same quality as others’, you customer base will break sooner.
Mismanaging Cash Flow
Try to keep your budget intact because you don’t want to run out of cash in the middle of your business launch. In order to do that, do go for every product you consider valuable to your business.
Follow your business plan, conduct a market research and then spend money on the products.
Need Help? Mega Apparel Can Help You Start Your Business
Mega Apparel is a fashion apparel manufacturing company that helps startups initiate their business ideas and develop brands to innovate their clothing lines. We have the means to produce bulk products efficiently with the finest quality fabrics. Also, we offer brands promising customization services, including:
Furthermore, Mega Apparel has set a low MOQ of 35 to 50 pieces for brands to give them budget-friendly support. We are also known for our fast turnaround times and doorstep delivery services.
