Starting An Online Boutique Business Plan – So you’ve decided to start your own online clothing store. It’s no surprise why: with online clothing stores being a multi-billion-a-year industry, it’s by far one of the most popular e-commerce niches. Reaching $759 billion in 2021 and predicted to reach over $1 trillion by 2025, there is a lot of potential online business in the fashion industry to capitalize on.
However, starting a successful online clothing store is more than just buying a domain and posting a winning e-commerce ad.
Starting An Online Boutique Business Plan
Pro Tip: Don’t forget to check out our Top Apparel Online Stores post for insider tips on how to build a successful brand once you’ve set up your apparel brand.
How To Start An Online Boutique With No Money (2023)
A successful store depends on the niche you choose, the brand you create, the quality of not only your clothing products, but your website, the customer service you provide and fulfillment strategies.
Just because a niche is popular doesn’t mean you have instant access to potential customers. In fact, the opposite is true. With increasing popularity comes increasing pressure to differentiate your store from the millions of others already online.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to start a clothing business online the right way, emphasizing the steps you need to follow to start a successful online clothing business. Inclusive:
New to eCommerce Marketing? Get expert Google Ads hacks for free (used by our +400,000 customers) straight to your inbox!
How To Start A Clothing Business: 9 Easy Steps
Before you can choose your products, you need to decide in which clothing or clothing niche you want to sell. Choosing your niche ensures that you choose products and create your entire clothing line business plan around the type of potential buyers you want to appeal to and ultimately ensures that you can position your store in a unique way.
The trick is to be very specific and really drill your niche, as this will allow you to more easily identify and market to your potential buyer. It will also help you develop your product list to appeal to your specific target market, so you can limit your competition and increase your chances of long-term customer loyalty.
A great example of this is the online clothing store HUMAN. Their niche? Pop culture. How do they comply? Using bold humor: a unique expression that appeals to what they call ‘pop culture nerds’. And what appeals to potential buyers in this niche? Not fancy chiffon skirts or name brand shoes, but tees, hoodies and socks.
Their website has so much great stuff going on, but it’s their slogan that sums up their niche perfectly: “Dress Yourself To Express Yourself.”
Free Business Plan Examples To Help Write Your Plan
So how do you choose your niche? Here are the four most important considerations when choosing your niche:
You can get more details on the above from our How to Find a Profitable Niche for Your Online Store.
Once you have a clothing niche, it’s time to choose your products. Will you be selling short sleeve shirts or dresses? The clothing and apparel market is almost endless, and you can be sure there are tons of options within the niche you sell.
However, if you’re tempted to jump in and sell everything, it can undo you before you’ve even started. When starting an online store, it is always advised to start small and slow and then expand your lines as you grow.
Clothing Line Business Plan
A good example of this is one of our top traders, Mrs Bow Tie. Mrs Bow Tie has made a name for itself selling bow ties that are uniquely ‘Made in Britain’. Their success with just one product line was so great that within three years they added ties, pocket squares, bibs, suspenders and cufflinks to their product lists and sold to over 300,000 customers.
Say you’ve decided to open an online clothing store aimed at the yoga-fitness niche. Instead of putting a variety of products on your suggested list, isolate the must-have products to start with. Every kind of product – whether it’s a hoodie or a pair of socks – has a wide potential to build your new clothing brand.
As Mrs. Bow Tie did, start small and simple as you get your product list off the ground. Adding too many products up front will not only add extra admin costs at every step of the way – from product photo shoots to web setup – but it can add complications when you’re first starting out. Complications can affect the service you provide, and as a new store in a very competitive market, excellent customer service and the appropriate help desk software to deliver it, or the lack thereof, can make or break your clothing line business.
As we know, fashion and clothing trends are constantly changing. First, choose stable products that can be easily changed to match the changing styles, such as bow ties or t-shirts as shown above. If you decide to go more mainstream fashion, plan for the changing styles by creating a store that adapts, such as dropshipping orders, which will ensure that you are not stuck with unsellable inventory. Ultimately, in the clothing game, there will always be shifts, so success will depend on your ability to think ahead and be innovative and creative in dealing with the changes.
How To Start An Online Store In 2023 (step By Step)
Yes, be as specific and narrow as you can in the beginning, but keep an eye on the end goal. Think about where you see your online clothing brand expanding in the future, and make sure you focus on the end goal. This will ensure that as you add products to your range or line and grow your store in your niche, you will be able to more seamlessly implement new or popular products into your store.
Now that you know your niche and have an idea of the type of products you want to sell, it’s time to choose an online clothing business model for your online clothing store business. This is where you decide whether to use a clothing manufacturer, white label, or choose dropshipping to build your clothing company.
Each online business model has its own pros and cons and choosing between them should be based on your overall fashion store goal and budget and your skills or potential to hire a team.
Print-on-demand is the easiest type of online clothing business model as well as the cheapest. In fact, custom t-shirt printing alone is expected to reach $10 billion in sales by 2025.
How To Write A Business Plan: Beginner’s Guide (& Templates)
These are the type of stores where you print your logo and design on blank clothes, and everything is automated.
There is enough variety in types and colors within this business type and it is your most cost effective option when dealing with small numbers of orders.
A good example of a company that has this office is Printful, which has grown into a mega print-on-demand brand, launching a variety of new products and services this year, including activewear and warehousing and fulfillment .
The biggest downside to this model is that these types of stores generally have lower profit margins and offer few options in the way of branded labels, tags and other finishes.
Helpful Methods To Make Your Boutique Business A Success
Best for those of you who want to launch your own clothing brand and design to create an online boutique. AKA for those who want to design and make their own clothes and accessories.
This type of online clothing boutique business model is best for those of you who want to build an entire clothing line from scratch. Here you do everything in-house from designing your clothes to manufacturing and fulfillment – yourself.
The biggest advantage here is that you are selling something very unique and can customize as you see fit. However, custom cut-and-sew businesses have a lot of management involved, as you’ll be responsible for finding and coordinating your own pattern makers and manufacturers, sourcing your own materials, etc. This means a lot of upfront budgeting and time required to launch your first line.
Private label business models are essentially the middle ground between print-on-demand and cut-and-sew. They offer more clothing range customization than the former, but less ‘work’ and required budget than the latter. Essentially, you would buy wholesale clothing and accessories that you would then sell and market under your fashion brand.
How To Open An Independent Bookstore
You buy blank or tagless clothing items wholesale, then add your custom design, tag or label before selling them in your store. This can be much more cost-effective than print-on-demand, as you can negotiate better rates for bulk purchases.
Unfortunately, there are some downsides, such as having to handle fulfillment and inventory management yourself. However, there are platforms that will help you streamline the process, such as Threadbird, where you can buy your clothes and apparel and have them custom finished. They also offer fulfillment services for those of you who prefer to keep your own inventory.
Similar to print-on-demand, dropshipping clothing stores allow you to sell clothing that is fulfilled from wholesalers. It’s a cost-effective route because you don’t have to deal with purchasing inventory in advance, storing, packaging or shipping. The downside is that your products won’t be as unique and there may be a variety of stores selling them
