Best Practices For Starting a Clothing Line

Step 1: Create a Solid Business Plan For Your Clothing Brand

When you launch a clothing line, you have to consider several things first, including your business model. To define your business model effectively, you need to find a gap in your competitors’ services. You need to then find innovative ways to use those gaps in your clothing brand.

You can choose among different business models for your clothing line. You can either design and produce your apparel from scratch or if you have clothing fashion knowledge but no design skills, you can buy and resell products at a profit margin rate. Here are some more clothing business models to consider.

• Hand produce and sell your designs directly to clients through your own website or social media platforms or at markets and pop-ups.
• Create collections and produce clothing pieces through a manufacturer, then sell your clothing line wholesale to other retailers.
•  Design repeating patterns or graphics to print on blank t-shirts and other clothing items using a print-on-demand model, selling online through your own store.

Step 2: Stay On Top Of The Fashion Trends And Find Your Niche

Defining your target market before starting a clothing brand is essential. An excellent way to identify your marketing niche is by staying on top of fashion trends and knowing what’s trending in the fashion industry. By observing fashion industry trendsetters and finding gaps in their products, you can provide more value and stand out from your competitors.

Some great examples include

• Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart launched vegan winter coat brand Vaute Couture after finding a disappointing lack of cruelty-free options on the market.
• Catalina Girald’s lingerie brand, Naja, was built on empowerment and inclusiveness.
• Camille Newman threw her hat in the plus game with Body by Love (formerly Pop Up Plus).
• Mel Wells launched a gender-neutral vintage-inspired swimwear line.
• Taryn Rodighiero also joined the swimwear game but focused on custom suits, made to order to each customer’s exact specifications.

Whatever niche you’ve set up for your clothing brand, never rule out one main theme. You need to know your niche and carry it forward as your main product line even when you expand or add other designs. The original concept gives your clothing brand a legacy, core value, and purpose that will always be remembered in the fashion industry.

Step 3: The Branding Of Your Clothing Brand Should Be Top-Tier

Clothing brands need a solid branding plan. Your clothing brand's logo is now integral to your branding. It is the first thing your audience sees when visiting your clothing store. People remember your brand by its logo. Therefore, you need a solid logo design that is both engaging and relevant to your niche.

It takes a lot to create a solid clothing brand. When planning an effective branding exercise, it includes showcasing your clothing brand’s mission, vision, what you stand for, your brand story, and more. Simply put, each aspect of your content; both in written and visual format should represent your clothing brand identity.

Branding is done by creating brand guidelines. This will help you inform all of your business and branding decisions as you grow. They will dictate visual direction, website design, and marketing campaigns. They should dictate what you look for in a retail partner or new hire.

Step 4: Focus On the Designing Of Your Clothing Line To Make It Standout

Since you’re selling clothes, you want quality and design. Therefore, you need to spend hours designing with complete focus. Here are some best practices to consider when designing your clothing line.

Start With Doodling:

A doodle is the first step toward a refined design. For starters, every design idea should start on paper before being translated to Illustrator or another designer tool.

Make your own samples by hand:

Focus on being creative:

A clothing line must be versatile. Therefore, you have to be on top of your creativity when designing clothes. Some effective ways to boost creativity include collaborating with your team and brainstorming ideas. You might as well need to outsource the designing work if the burden is too high due to other aspects of the work environment.

Step 5: Have A Solid Pricing Strategy For Your Clothing Brand

It doesn't matter how good the quality and designs of your clothing lineups are, if you aren't using the right pricing strategy for your clothing brand, you will get nowhere. In the worst-case scenario, the results are poor to no sales, and the reputation of the company is negative. There are multiple pricing strategies to choose from for your clothing brand. 

Cost-based Pricing Model:

This is the most straightforward and commonly used pricing strategy used by Ecommerce businesses. With the cost-based model, you can add a fixed percentage margin on product costs to generate profits.

Competition-based Pricing:

You will quickly recognize this one by its name. You can set the average price for your product based on your competitors' pricing for a similar product. Try to keep your prices below the competition to gain an edge.

Skimming Model:

This is a very common pricing model, especially in the apparel industry. You can set up an initial price for a product and gradually lower it as it gets older or outdated. This is done with the launch of upcoming lineups.

The Loss Leader Model:

If you’re just starting a clothing brand, we recommend a loss-leader model. With this pricing strategy, you can sell your products at a loss. It is a highly effective strategy for gaining market share for clothing products. You can increase the prices and cover up those losses when your clothing brand is well received on the market.

Make Sure That Your Store Goes Ecommerce

Ecommerce flourishes exponentially. Transition to Ecommerce as soon as you launch your clothing brand so that it becomes a revenue-generating website in the long run.

Moreover, if your clothing brand is well-received online, your reviews and ratings would be showcased online for the world to see and your clients would act as free referrals for your business.

Start with being present on Social Media.

Social media has become a key marketing tool for clothing brands. If you simply create some social media accounts and post them on Instagram or Facebook without a strategy, you might overlook this method of advertising. To run your clothing brand you must have a bulletproof social media marketing strategy. You should tailor your social media to specific clothing brand business objectives.

For your clothing brand, Affix Apparel has the expertise, experience, and capabilities to effectively manage social media marketing. We have an in-house team of skilled digital marketers who have helped us market more than 100 clothing brands that have manufactured their products with us. Besides manufacturing, Affix apparel can also serve as your marketing partners which can help you get ahead in the competitive fashion industry.

Continuous product development

The chances of success increases to more than 60% when you successfully launch your clothing brand digitally and sell your first clothing inventory. Then reinvest your profits in your business and increase your customer base.

Looking at the success of your startup clothing brand you might get a lot of investors' attention. Many venture capitalist firms are enthusiastically looking for successful clothing entrepreneurs to scale up as a clothing brand.