Starting a Fashion Brand From Scratch
Starting your own fashion line or clothing brand is not as easy a process as it may appear. It’s a whole entity that needs to focus on and start strategizing a specific business model and to set a suitable action plan that matches your objectives and helps you to clarify your targets smart.
How to launch your clothing brand?
1-The target niche comes first
it's the beginning to define your niche and your brand identity as well. The fashion or clothing business is a fast-moving industry that needs quick decisions and adaptability. Maybe you have a specific product or style that fills an existed gap in the target market. Also, maybe you have a unique vision and a real message to deliver through your designs for specific customers.
It’s important to start deciding on your niche at the very beginning of your business. Are you planning to market a specific item? Or you are going towards heritage and unique designs inspired by the old ages? Do you need to focus on a particular fashion style to settled in your target customers’ mindsets?
Whatever your objective is, just define your target niche and put it into consideration. Even if you intend to work in producing many designs, your original concept will give you a special position in your customers’ minds when they see your brand name.
2- Create your brand identity.
Brand identity includes the whole image of your business. It consists of many factors not only the brand name and logo but also many other items to work on. It’s an essential matter for the success of any brand and irrelevant to business size or specific industry.
Corporate identity is all used elements by elements to present itself to the publicity and all the world nationally or even internationally. it’s more relevant to the visual assets and brand design. This term reaches beyond the logo and name to the used fonts, illustrations, color templates, photography, and animation.
Name your business.
a brand name is a specific name that you set for your business or company to create a real connection with the target market. These elements depend more on the combination of creativity and uniqueness message to deliver once people say or hear your name. there are some tips to help you design your name;
Tips for creating your brand name:
- Harmonious.
- Original which is not registered or taken by other companies.
- Memorable.
- Relevant to the logo design.
- Not vague and easy to be uttered.
Create a Logo for your business.
It is a graphically unique, original mark that identifies your business. It can be text only, image, or both. It’s essential for grabbing the attention of your customers wherever they see it. It’s a kind of visual identity for the brand, as it creates a positive impression of your brand.
3- Build your business plan.
Before setting your business plan, you should bear in mind that the fashion industry has its particular circumstances as it’s a difficult-to-predict industry in fact so your need to make a flexible business model that can offer adaptability needed for the market variables. Also, you need to start testing your designs on a small scale. If the target customers liked your concept and designs, you will need to scale your pretty quickly to the settled plan will help you move on with a strategic vision.
Create a strong business plan…
When you start your business plan, you need to start by giving a clear overview of your brand which is including an executive summary of the whole business, and clear guidelines of how your clothing brand will start, grow and expand.
After that, you will show up the analysis you’ve made for your business to figure out your target market and your main competitors. This part needs to be established on real data. You can use external reliable data resources. It’s not your vision or opinion only, it needs to be relevant to real numbers in the target market too.
Your plan should clarify who’s involved in the process and their role. Also, the product is the hero of our plan and you should talk about it and the settled plans for branding, marketing, and sales besides the operations.
Now we came to the most important part of any business plan; the finance and funding of your business. You should outline your business’ current financial situation, the priorities for business growth and how could any investor's fund help things to fly.
It’s time for budget creation…
When it comes to money, you should pay attention to your business's financial issues. And setting your budget will help in having a fixed financial frame in mind about your business costs and spending. Maybe you don’t know the real prices of some material that you count on while manufacturing your products, but acknowledging the original budget will assist you in decision-making to drive your first sales.
4- Business organization
It’s essential for your brand-new business to be settled and organized from the very beginning. An organization will make difference in your brand growth and help you stay on a clear page without confusion. Set your clear goals and write down your steps and how your business will take place.
Your document should include some points like;
Your business location and from where you will launch your business.
How does it work? Will you start by selling on platforms like Facebook throughout its different selling channels? Or you will start an offline business, then turning it into an online platform, or run them both at the same time. At the end, it depends on your decision and your business possibilities, and the market needs.
Business operations management, and who will run and manage the different business operations. For example, which roles they will play and every mission for each one of them.
5- Identify the target market needs
For any business idea is going to be launched and especially while creating a fashion brand it’s essential for you to fill a real existed gap in the market and meet a real need in an innovative way.
As known, marketing is the direct way to attract, keep, and sell to your customers. And there are few steps to help you identify the market needs obviously.
- Stay updated with the current market state, strategies.
While start creating you’re your fashion brand, you will need to be familiar with what already happened in the market and what your competitors tried before. Then, you will be able to define where the gap needs coverage.
- Research your competitors’ marketing efforts.
One of the most important factors that you need to focus on when making your competitor analysis, is the way they market. Then, you will be able to establish your unique selling point or USP. This will be your main factor to highlight and emphasize throughout all your marketing efforts.
- Do market research.
Through many different tools and data whether online or offline resources. You have to collect data about your customers’ demographics. You can use surveys also in the data collection process. You should evaluate the fashion industry standards and so on. There are many different data resources that you can use and set your plan according to.
6- Identify your target audience
Knowing your customer and his needs is the first step to grab his attention and attract him to your brand. It’s the basis of your marketing strategy. You need to work on specific segmentation to your audience through defining your customer buyer persona and the real demographics for them like; Age, Location, gender, marital status, income average, and education level.
And the second factor to work on is psychographics for this target audience. For example, some information about personality, attitudes, values, interests, hobbies, lifestyle, and behavior.
You have to focus on how your product will fit your audience's needs and attract their satisfaction. Creating a fashion brand is too long last is not a simple operation. It has many different phases like any business, but it has a unique spirit that makes you feel happy when you see your unique designs go viral and achieve popularity too.
Setting your target audience will help you manage your marketing and digital marketing efforts to drive sales and achieve the required ROI at the same time.
In fact, you will need to check where your target audience spends their time. Which social platform they would prefer. Also, the way they use to communicate and their demographic and psychographic information. On the other hand, you need to know the pain points that your product solves.
There are many different tactics that you can use to define your target audience and here are some;
- Think about your product benefits, not its features this will help you get closer to your target audience.
- If you have current customers you need to put them into consideration.
- Collect demographic data and start to design your target customer persona through these data.
- Research your competitors.
- Send out customer surveys.
7- It’s time to the imagination and uses your mental inspiration
If you are a fashion designer, you will never break up with your pencil and sketches. Working on your first collection is an exciting phase of your business fashion line. It includes your imagination and vision. You may deliver a message to your customers about a specific topic or point of view.
You have to set your collection according to some key tips which will help in making your first kick-off.
- Work on your color chart.
- Balance design with function and the whole message
- Utilize patterns and technical tools and specifications.
a. Work on your color chart
You have to create harmony between all pieces of your collection in some way. They must be tied together and be complimentary. Many fashion designers work on complementary colors to provide depth and interest. Search out many different color schemes and make your decision on your chosen color set.
b. Balance design with function and the whole message
You have to make kinda balance between the design elements and the usage of every piece from your collection and how every individual will wear it and be satisfied with the flexibility. It’s important to work on each apparel that is going to be worn as you design it.
c. Utilize patterns and technical tools and specifications
While you are working on designing your masterpieces, put into consideration to produce professional patterns that will help the manufactory to execute them in a perfect way. Every factory has different technical requirements. So, it’s important to create a flexible pattern that works well. Now, digital patterns are much easier to create and convenient to send manufacturers.
d. Quality is essential
Once you provide a high-quality collection, your will find interested customers. As they search for quality, consistency, and modernity. It’s what we all want in our clothing. It goes beyond the apparel itself to include how, where, and the whole conditions in which your pieces were made too. So, quality means that you have a collection that makes your customers feel so good and confident while wearing it.
8- Create a sales and distribution plan
It’s important to know where you are going before start working on your goals. So, executing a sales plan is one of the most essential steps that you need for your successful fashion brand.
A Sales plan usually includes some elements like; your target customers, team structure, revenue and ROI goals, needed resources, and the strategies that you will depend on to achieve these objectives.
Sales plan always have 4 main pillars;
- Meets your financial targets.
- Offers a strategic direction for your sales team.
- Define the workflow, roles, and responsibilities for every team player.
- Monitor your sales team achievements and work gross towards your defined goals.
In a nutshell, it’s important to have an end target that you need to reach throughout your sales plan. You need a metric to measure your plan performance. But first while setting your goal look at the last year’s results to set a realistic plan. Also, you need to ignore your own assumptions and set your plan on a market basis.
9- Finding the right manufacturer
Whether you want to be the next rising fashion brand entrepreneur or you want to sell your pieces and get your target customer satisfaction, you need to find a professional clothing manufacturer to help you deliver your vision by executing your designs in a perfect way.
First, you need to ask yourself this question, do I really need a clothing manufacturer?
Clothing manufacturer pros
- You can present unique clothing items.
- Will help you establish your own brand identity.
- You have full control over branding and marketing efforts.
Clothing manufacturer cons
- You should have to prepare a huge bulk to invest.
- you will face legal obligations.
- You expose yourself to more risk.
Before you choose your manufacturer, there are some points to put into consideration;
a. The ability to make your designs
It’s really important to know whether the chosen factory will help you to produce your designs or not. You should know if they are capable of executing all required types of clothing. Especially, the clothing you want. So, you ought to choose the right, suitable manufacturer who has experience in producing the specific clothing pieces that you need.
b. National or international manufacturer?
It’s essential to make your decision about whether you will work with domestic or overseas manufacturers. For domestic manufacturers, it’s much easier to contact and meet the manufacturer in this case. So, you will be able to negotiate the required details to start your design production process.
10- Set your affordable pricing
Here we go with the fashion pricing. At your brand rising up, you ought to settle an affordable pricing plan. This will help your brand grow fast and achieve popularity in an easy way. From the famous fashion brands, there are three main ways that you can choose from to set your fashion pricing plan perfectly. Setting your pricing plan is very important for your brand positioning inside the target market and the place you define for you between the competitors.
3 methods to set a professional pricing plan for your fashion brand;
- Backward pricing method.
- Keystone markup method.
- Absorption pricing method.
1. Backward pricing method
You can choose this method whether your product is viable and easy to stay trendy for a while. Then you can start measure if it worth it. For example, you have a fashion line that contains jumpsuits. You start to estimate that inside the target market while putting into consideration your consumers and your brand too. Then you estimate the most price that you can reach with this item, let’s say $300. Now we can say that the $300 is your Recommended Retail Price (RRP).
Now you divide this RRP by 4 to set your finishing cost per unit. If you can sell this jumpsuit at $300 then your cost shouldn’t exceed $75 for the finished item. Then you answer this question; Does your design from these jumpsuits suits this finishing coast? If no, you should review your design and manufacturer to make it possible. If yes, welcome to the next step from launching your brand.
2. Keystone markup method
It’s one of the most favorite methods for many different brands to calculate their RRP in an easy way. It depends on multiply the price by 2 or even 2.5 in order to get the retail price.
For example, you set a specific number that equals your total designing, manufacturing, and finishing cost that you need to generate your fashion line.
then you multiply this cost by 2 to get your wholesale cost. And then you multiply your wholesale cost by 2 to get your RRP or maybe 2.5 to cover taxes too.
This method is one of the most common ways to calculate the recommended retail price and the desirable method for many fashion brands.
3. Absorption pricing method.
It is the most recommended method for each rising up a fashion brand. That’s because it’s a comprehensive way to calculate the production cost for each product, the overhead costs, and expenses. Also, it adds a profit margin for each piece.
For this method there are 5 phases;
- Cost price: for materials, manpower, and so on.
- Extra expenses and design divided by the number of items already produced.
- Profit margin = your profit %.
- Wholesale price = add up stages 1+2+3 and this will be your wholesale price.
- Recommended Retail Price = the wholesale multiplied by 2 or 2.5
Your pricing plan assists in defining your brand positioning in the target market. For example, if your prices are high, it means that your brand sets in the luxury brands category and your customers know that your items are expensive and luxurious. On the other hand, if your prices are reasonable, then your brand has its specific market niche and your customers expect a pricing limit that they accept.
Now, it’s your decision. You are the only one who knows from where will be the beginning of your brand pricing and how you will calculate your costs and profit margins.
11. Find partners or investors
Finding investors or trials to raise your venture capital especially for the fashion business is not an easy process.
But there are some steps that may help you to reach your goal and find the ideal investor who can help you raise your business fund.
- Speak as the same way they are speaking, try to deliver your point of view to them in a way they can understand and measure the value as they do.
- Target the VCs who are already have Invested before in the same field, fashion, as they will understand you and they are the potential to reinvest more in some relevant projects. So, it’s much easier to persuade them to raise your fund.
- Don’t focus your efforts on reaching the associates, but talk to VCs directly. They are the decision-makers, not the associates who can evaluate the project in a different way.
- Don’t accept fund from people who their vision is not yours. You will know the advantage of that later. As it’s really important to have a partnership with investors who are interested in helping your project to raise and you both are on the same page.
- Your pitch deck is essential to enable you to discuss your vision and deliver your message in a direct way. You can collaborate with someone who is experienced in making pitch decks. And put into your consideration that the shorter is your pitch deck, the easier it to get your fund.
12. Build a strong online presence
We are living in an era where shopping online has reached its peak, so digitizing your business is no longer a choice. It has become an indispensable way to enlarge your business reaching more potential audiences in different destinations. Precisely speaking, the fashion industry has a good opportunity for digital exposure, in other words, it is one of the main niches in which customers are more willing to trust, interact, and pay online.
Conceptually,
any business, whatever the field is, needs to build the image of its branding,
which leads to forming a strong authority, to expedite the phase of pulling
consumers into the loyalty stage. The herein three factors are an overview of
how you can build an online presence.
1- Build a website, right?
A horizontal website to provide your product is a great way to break geographical
boundaries. More deeply, A user-friendly website means that you have more web
pages that lead to double the probability of reaching more audience on the
search engines that explain brands’ high profits after launching a website.
2- Social media strategy should be prepared
The the main goal of creating an accurate social media strategy is knowing, upon
studying the target persona and analyzing the competitors, what channel to
target your customers through, what is the proper way to contact them, your tone
of voice, what kind of content that they interact with the most, and the best
publishing times.
3- SEO is essential for your website recognition
To preserve your position within a cut-throat competition in the fashion industry,
you need to have a high rank on the search engines. Due to studies, 89 percent
of consumers, which is a big number, use search engines to find their needs
today.
Note that, while using your digital channels, try as much as
possible to provide a human experience for the audience because considering
people’s emotions are a good way to grant more interactions and loyalty.
13. Start your own brand with Exemore
The question now; Is there any help to make me launch my brand easily in a short period without finding obstacles?
The answer is; Yes, for sure. Now you can move towards your dream with a little help that could boost your business growth. Using an online platform specialized in apparel may assist you to reach your target market directly in well-strategized phases.
If you are new to the market. Then you have a good chance to join one of the
dominant fashion marketplaces that help vendors and manufacturers to expand
globally with less effort and money. The experience of each marketplace would
not be the same, therefore, you have to pick the one that meets your criteria
and your budget the most. Exemore is one of the leading wholesale clothing
platforms that put great effort in the market to help both parties:
manufacturers and wholesalers approach their goals without subscription fees.
Through Exemore, you can show off your fashion designs and let the whole world know about you easily. Doing some easy steps to have a free account on the platform will help you publish your fashion lines and new designs in front of the world of wholesalers widely. The next phase will happen easily if your designs are fabulous and suitable for the customers, you will get more deals to suit, manufacture a huge quantity of pieces to be shipped directly to any place on the planet!
Finally, subscribing to a software team would help you to survive the great hassle that you might feel in the beginning; breaking your big tasks into smaller ones will highly lessen the probability of any inconvenience delay.
Awesome, isn’t it? Now it’s your decision to know more about Exemore and how to obtain perfect deals for your garments. For more information, visit our vendors guide here.
