Beginners Guide to Get Started on Your Clothing Business

Starting a clothing business can be daunting. Having a great plan takes a lot of research, business planning and determination to transform it into a successful start up clothing brand with a strong market presence and quality products for your customers.

But don’t be put off by this. The work to launch a successful clothing line into the market is already within reach; you just need to know where to look and what to research when you start. Here we will you through everything you need to know when starting a clothing line. 

Let’s start your research into the fashion market right here:

How to Start a Clothing Business: Positioning

The first questions you need to ask are, ‘what is my brand about?’ and ‘what makes my brand unique?’ Every successful clothing line that is starting up will succeed for the same reason – because their start up clothing brand stood out from the crowd and appealed to their customers.

Being able to understand what will make your start up clothing brand unique will make it easier for you to carve out your own niche in the market. Once you get this right, it is so much easier to identify your target market and work out ways to appeal to this market with your clothing brand.

What is a Niche Clothing Line or Market?

Choosing a niche market in clothing means deciding to offer your start up brand (products and services) to a small, specialised audience (or group of customers) rather than a large one. You’ll find it much easier to cater to a select group of people than to a mass audience, as you can give them exactly what they want. It’s hard to design something for a big audience, as everyone wants something different from a brand or its products, so by selecting a specific target audience, you have a better chance of providing what they are looking for. 

However, you need to do careful research to find a niche that will work for your clothing brand, one that responds to your brand product and services.

Research tells us exactly what a niche target audience wants:

• You need to target a specific demand that your customers have. That clothes brand, product or service must be exactly what your niche audience is looking for, and it must also stand out from the crowd.
• Fill a gap in the clothing market. Let’s take a popular garments market, like swimwear, and see if we can make it work. There are already numerous swimwear brands catering to kids, adults, men and women. But how about designing hypoallergenic swimwear? Or swimwear for sun-sensitive skin? A swim shirt range? You need to find a specific group who aren’t being catered to and design a product to suit them.
• Some points to consider when selecting a niche market include the price of the clothes brand, the specific audience’s age, values and interests, who your target market is and where these prospective customers live.

Differentiate Your Clothing Brand: Sustainability 

Many things can make your clothing brand differ from the rest, and not all of them relate to design or colourways.

For example, research has shown that sustainable fashion clothing is a consistently rapidly growing market, and using eco-friendly materials and ethical manufacturing processes in your brand can really appeal to many people.

It makes sense. Everything we do impacts the environment, so it makes sense that the garments that we wear will also have an impact on the planet. Sadly, the way we manufacture fashion clothing products impacts negatively. According to statistics, the fashion clothing industry accounts for about 10% production of annual global carbon emissions. This is more than the combined amount created by the aviation and shipping industries. It’s also expected that emissions created by the fashion industry will increase by over 50% by 2030!

The design, manufacture and production of fashion clothing causes these emissions. The industry has long supply chains and involves intensive energy. This is why we need to be sustainable in fashion clothing production. In a blog we created entitled Why Sustainability in Fashion Clothing is so Important, we mention a McKinsey study that discusses the amount of greenhouse gas is created by the fashion clothing industry. Apparently, the fashion clothing industry emits about as much greenhouse gas every year as the entire economies of France, the UK and Germany combined!

How a Clothing Business Can Be More Sustainable

So what do we do to combat this? Many fashion clothing manufacturers are practising ‘carbon offsetting’, which involves reducing the amount of greenhouse gas and carbon emissions or removing them entirely to reduce their carbon footprints. They also inform their customers, so that they can be more aware of the environment.

Now, it’s not only about manufacturing sustainable fashion clothing products and reducing waste and pollution in the manufacturing process. It’s also about buying sustainable fashion clothing products, and ensuring garment workers in the clothing industry work in safe conditions and are paid a fair wage. Sadly, animals are also affected by pollution and waste – consider our oceans, which are filled with plastic harming marine life! We must consider every life form on the planet and how we can start to protect them and preserve them for future generations.

Follow maake's Lead

maake insists on pioneering sustainability. This involves several important aspects of our design business:

1.    We print sustainably: Fabric printing generally uses a lot of water, energy and waste, which has a very negative effect on the environment. At maake, we minimise the impact of our brand on the planet. Our printing machines and methods use 95% less energy than traditional fabric printing, which is less energy than an electric fan heater! We also use 100% renewable energy resources when we print, and very little water.

2.    Our fabrics are safe: The textiles we use are sourced ethically from trusted UK mills wherever possible. This way, we assist the local economy and reduce our carbon footprint. Every mill that we work with is REACH accredited, and many of them also hold accreditation from SEDEX.

Also, the inks we print with are all approved and have creditation from Oeko-tex and GOTS, and are safe for kids. Our fabrics are formaldehyde free and have passed stringent EN71-3 certification. For more information on all fabric certification, read our comprehensive Certification Guide.

3.    We print on demand: To ensure that we don’t make excess or waste, we only print as much as our customers require – no more.

4.    Another way we reduce carbon emissions: We offer a free pick-up service from our NW10 factory instead of delivering your order to you.

5.    We believe in zero waste: Manufacturers have to deal with waste, so when we have any excess fabric, we donate the fabric to charity and educational institutions. Our maakeLess Fabric Waste Initiative also offers our customers the opportunity to give fabric a second life and become more sustainable. We offer free upcycling bags containing plain fabric. There are 3 different size bags to choose from – a small bag (approximately 1kg) a medium one (about 2kg) and a large item (up to 15kg), filled with fabric offcuts.

This fabric is white, ivory or natural, and is yours to use for sewing projects. Most of the material is at full width (140 to 150cm wide) and varies in length from 20cm to 2 metres. If you cannot collect your upcycling bags from our NW10 mill, we deliver them – you only pay for delivery.

Print Clothing on Demand

It’s liberating when you don’t hold stock in a shop. You don’t need big budgets for an online fashion clothing store, especially if you only print on demand. And the investment you put into your brand can be minimal. When you use digital printing, you can use as little as 1m of fabric. You can test different prints and stay trendy.

Print as you sell. Don't keep stock. Grow your brand as the market allows. maake has a minimum order policy, which means we don’t hold stock, and you don’t have to make big investments.

The best way is to test the market, and what better way than to look at other options and see which will work best without costing a lot. And yes, you can do this without any risk.

Printing on demand is the future, and it's the way to keep your brand sustainable with minimal waste. Support slow fashion and become one of the design businesses that offer a unique product that stands out from the crowd.

How maake Prints Clothing

We’ve put together a series of informative blogs on how we print. We recommend taking a look at Printing on Fabric: The Right Techniques as well as our Definitive Guide to Sublimation Printing. We also go into detail about The Most Popular Methods for Printing on Fabric. Take a look to get a good idea of the different printing methods available for your brand.

Check Clothing Line Competitors

Whatever you identify as your brand niche, it is also worth considering your closest competition. There are several reasons for this.

• Firstly, it’s always great to know which brand or brand product you’re competing with.
• Secondly, if you understand your clothing line competition and the customer sales tactics they use, you can promote your brand to customers differently, so you are noticed and can get your slice of the market.
• Research what your clothing line competitors are offering to provide something better – a better price, perhaps, higher quality, or something that meets your customers’ needs. After all, what you’re trying to do is create a brand that will make customers loyal to you, increase your business revenue and help you gain market share.

Start a Clothing Business: Writing a Business Plan 

No matter how big or small your idea, a clothing line business plan is essential when you start a fashion clothing products business. Your plan should cover the first year and should include marketing goals, sales goals and margins for acceptable losses and sales.

If you’re serious about starting a clothing line, ensure your design business plan works. To start, here are a few topics:

What Type of Business to set up?

Is it going to be an LTD business or a sole trader?

Will you run your business and clothing line alone, or will you register as a recognised business? Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and what works best depends on your business model, budget and ambitions. So, do your homework before launching your business model.

How Will Your Clothing Line Work?

How will the logistics of your clothing line run? This includes everything from the logistical side, including where you source your products from, to how you will sell them to customers via ecommerce online.

Will you rely on online market places, your own ecommerce site, or a physical retail presence for your customer base? This will affect your overall preparation, so it’s establish them early and don’t waste time and effort.

What is Your Budget to Start a Clothing Line?

Just like every business venture, starting a fashion clothing brand is a risk. So, have a clear idea of your budget for this project, as it's not worth bankrupting yourself.

How much does starting an online fashion clothing business cost? There is no clear answer, so include the cost of registering your business, website development, marketing your brand, images, warehousing and materials in your overall budget to avoid any nasty surprises.

Don’t be put off by this; many brilliant household brands once started on a shoestring. Just be clever, sensible and alert when you start.

Make a long-term finance (accounts) plan for your design business. Work out a budget that includes your commitments (rental, employees, machinery, materials required to make each product, etc). Your plan must also include predicted customer sales and expenses (for example, a mortgage,), because you’re trying to make money, not spend it.

Marketing Your Clothing Brand 

You could design the best-looking, most ethically sourced and unbelievably comfortable brand of clothing, but it won’t mean anything if your customers can’t see your designs.

You can’t sell a product effectively to any customer if you don’t market and promote it, which is why a sales and marketing strategy is so important, especially for a small design business.

Marketing requires strategy and this can be tricky. You can hire a digital marketing agency who specialises in online marketing to do it for you, but this can be expensive.

Build a Clothing Business Strategy Before Launching

Our sister business, maakeAcademy, believes that the best person to build the marketing strategy is the owner. You know your design business better than anyone, and you care more. They provide step-by-step courses on how to grow and double your revenue within 6-12 months. Book a free discovery call and discover what they can do for your business to boost your customer sales.

They have also written an informative piece that gives you The Marketing E-commerce Essentials to Make Your Business a Success.

Another great read on that website is How the UK Recession Can Benefit Your Business, which teaches you about the opportunities available during an economic downturn and use these to grow your clothing business.

Using our positive approach to running a clothing business, you learn how to turn things around. It’s all about attitude and using what is available. For instance, office rentals will be cheaper at this time, suppliers may offer extraordinary deals to keep your business on their books and sourcing qualified staff is easier.

Why Digital Marketing is so Important When you Start Your Clothing Line

What is the first thing to do when you want to find out about a business brand or a product? You search for information online, then compare the product or service with another to see which works best for you and your customers.

This is why it’s crucial to ensure your brand designs have a good online and ecommerce presence. You need a website, and your clothing business needs to be active on social media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest), so that people can see what you’re offering and compare it to what other brands offer. They also want to see what other customers have said about it.

Communication is Important in Digital Marketing

Communication is key, and digital marketing helps you communicate your design and fashion products to customers. That’s what digital marketing is about; effective online communication that reaches a huge audience hungry for new information. This incredible online market place has that audience. And if your fashion products are on a successful online clothing store platform, a great online store, there are no boundaries or borders. You can reach customers globally and offer them a fashion wardrobe.

When you communicate with your customers, they will respond and provide information about themselves. You can discover the fashion products they really want, what they think about the products you’re offering, and how you can give them what they need, even if they don’t know it yet.

Using Digital Marketing for Your Clothing Business

A recent Australian study predicted that online digital marketing would take over. As marketing becomes technology-driven, you must get your brand design into an online store.

There’s also another side to digital marketing. By marketing your fashion products and services via an online store, you can track who’s looking at your website while offering your fashion products online.

How to Reach Your Audience Effectively

There are various tools and strategies you can use to reach your audience, including SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), which helps you get your content, brand and business presence to the most people. You can purchase software to assist you with this, and there is also plenty of software to help you set up your online presence. 

Who is Your Target for Your Clothing Line?

When you start, you need to distinguish your target market and where they will discover your advertising. Discover which platform your key demographics are using most, build your customer avatar and focus on your target audience.

For example, under-18s use TikTok the most, so a Facebook ad aimed about your business isn’t great. Secondly, invest in high-quality visuals. Great images and videos are a powerful selling tool and will do a lot of your work for you.

Also, consider which third parties could make a useful partnership for your brand? Are there any influencers or events happening that would help you showcase your product?

Insure Your Business Brand

Ensuring your clothing business is another cost to consider. It’s essential for any business. Insurance protects you from life’s nasty little surprises, and doesn’t always have to break the bank.

You can have policies tailored to fit different fashion clothing businesses. They will keep you covered in case of unforeseen emergencies.

Loans & Funding for Selling Clothes Online

Know your budget when selling clothing in an online store. If you can’t afford it on your own, why not apply for a government loan from the myriad affordable loans available to start up companies?

Numerous other third parties are also willing to loan funds and expertise to an exciting new clothing business. This can be a real boost and is something worth considering and investigating.

Test Your Brand Before you Launch a Successful Online Clothing Business

You don’t have to jump straight into the fashion industry when you create a clothing line. Consider a soft launch of your start up clothing line first. This could be by simply using Instagram, Depop, an Etsy store, or selling a market place or store like eBay.

These are cost effective ways of testing your clothing line, and can highlight areas that need improvement. Word also travel fast on social media, and can be a great marketing tool when you’re first starting to sell your clothing line.

When you are ready, you can open an online store for your brand with a small expense and spread the word.

Partner With a Clothing Manufacturer

We’ve mentioned funding before, but the opportunities for collaboration are endless, too. Best of these is joining forces with a professional clothing manufacturer, an influencer.

There are also industry leaders willing to offer advice to new business startups. They’re not going to tell you how to start the business or give you templates, but they may be able to point you in the right direction in terms of services you can use.

You can also reach out to us at maake and review the options we offer for every business partner, which include manufacturers.

More Inspiration

Already have a startup and want to know how to turn it into a growing business? Take the free maakeAcademy scorecard (see below) and find out how your business stands, and its strengths and weaknesses. You will receive a free report so you can focus on the weakest points of your business.

Contact maake if you need a business partner like us to order your fabric printing, or to learn how to start a design business involving printing on fabric to create products for your business. You can also get wholesale prices from us – so you’ll add to your savings, too.

Let us Help Your Business Succeed

At maake, we care about our customers. We know that many of you have your own small clothing design business and are trying to make ends meet, just like we are. And that’s why we provide all the tools our customers can require, including blog posts like this one, that offer advice on how to improve your business.
 
Visit our informative maakeAcademy website to see how we can help you start a business successfully with our excellent product range and services, which include coaching as well as invaluable Accelerators that you can order to provide the clarity, focus and freedom to succeed.

You can also order the international best-selling book written by our CEO, Artemis Doupa, entitled Design&Grow, which has revolutionised many design-led businesses. Artemis created an innovative six-step method, The Storms Method, that teaches every design business how to reach its creative potential. Read all about it online to understand how it became an international best-seller overnight!

Then order your own copy of Design & Grow right here!

Take Your Clothing Brand to the Next Level

Before you start your online clothing line, Artemis suggests you fill in her carefully curated score cards/questionnaire to reveal your business strengths and weaknesses, and tell you how to fix them efficiently.

Fill in your intuitive Design & Grow Report online now!