The Ultimate Guide On How To Start A Successful Children's Clothing Store
Congratulations! You've decided to take the next step and start a children's clothing store. Now what? The key to creating a successful kidswear store is planning and preparations.
Before you get scared off, remember - you've already done the first few steps, working out your sales channel (online E-Commerce store, clothing boutique, or something else) and picking your niche - which, since you’re reading this blog post, we assume is kidswear.
Starting a new clothing business can be scary, and there's no one recipe for success - look at each step as a building block and tailor it to suit your different business ideas. But to make things a little easier we’ve decided to break down the main stages of how to get started.
Here's Our Ultimate Guide On How To Start A Successful Children's Clothing Store.
Create A Business Plan
Think of a business plan as a roadmap for your business and how you plan to achieve your goals. A business plan will become the blueprint for your business and include everything from your mission and vision statement to your brand values and customer research to a detailed outline about your target audience.
It's essential to do this properly as it outlines the core values of your business and, as well as a strategy and financial plan for how you expect to launch and grow your business over the next few years. Elements such as the brand values are more rigid and do not change much over time, but other factors such as marketing strategy and money goals will change as your kidswear business evolves.
Select Your E-Commerce Platform
There's plenty of great hosting platforms, but we recommend Shopify. It's tried and tested by thousands of business owners, and most clothing brands are on Shopify. It's intuitive, easy to build, and you can choose from a range of free templates where all you need to do is simply drag and drop your products and input information into an existing field. There's also plenty of YouTube tutorials if you ever get stuck and need some extra help.
Come Up With A Brand Name And Logo
This is the fun part! Do a big brainstorm and come up with a name for your clothing business - it should reflect your brand values as this will be something your customers will identify you with. If you're struggling, ask your kids for some ideas, you might be surprised with how great their ideas are, but before jumping for joy at your new name and decking out on branded merchandise, check, and check again that your name is available.
So, what's next? Create a logo with your brand name - you can do this yourself or enlist the help of a freelance Graphic Designer from an app like Upwork or Fiverr (this will be much cheaper than hiring an agency).
Register Your Business & Find And Purchase Your Domain Name
Here’s another reminder to check your brand name is free before designing a logo. Most countries have their business registry where you can look up if your name is free and take the appropriate steps to register your company property. The legal side of the business may not be the most fun, but don't cut corners here. Making mistakes here can be expensive in the long run, so outsource help if you need it. Facebook community groups are another good way to connect with business owners and get a referral to a good lawyer (if you need).
Order Your Products From A Premium Wholesale Kidswear Supplier
To build a successful clothing company, you need great clothing lines and product offering. Luckily you don't need to be a fashion designer to do that - you can order new, and on-trend clothing items direct from an online clothing supplier and fill your store will as many apparel products, accessories and nick nacks as you want.
Finding a trustworthy and reliable clothing manufacturer can be challenging. Still, once you've found one (hopefully us) that you're happy with, you know that your fashion business will be a great success.
Create Your Website Using An E-Commerce Hosting Platform Like Shopify
This part can be a little tedious but break it up into achievable daily steps. Day 1 - Home page. Day 2 - About us page, Day 3 - Contact page, and so on. Spend some time focusing on the checkout process - most customers leave the site during this stage. Don't forget the 'legal' information like your return policy, shipping policy, etc.
We also suggest capturing your customers’ email addresses so you can send friendly reminders that there are still items sitting in their cart - in case they forgot to finalize their order and had to chase after their kids and to build-up your customer base. Remember, from little things, big things grow!
Upload Your Products To Your E-Commerce Platform
Pour yourself a soothing cup of tea for this one. We know that uploading products isn't the most fun activity but since you run an online clothing business, it's essential to give your potential customers an excellent understanding of what you're selling through good product photos that show how the garment sits and close-up shots of details such as collars, prints, etc. Moreso, the product descriptions should be insightful and give your potential customers an outline about the clothing item and mention the material composition, how to care for it, and the sizing breakup. Do this well, and your customers will thank you, and as a bonus you can use the content for your social media marketing as well!
Not sure which pieces of clothing to order first? Take a look at our bestselling kidswear products here.
Invest Time Into Your Marketing Strategy
Your marketing will be the first point of contact for many potential customers and a way for them to find out a little bit more about you. If your marketing strategy focuses on running paid social media ads, make the most of your marketing budget and spend time defining your target demographic to focus the ads on those people. By directing the ads to a specific target market, you can only show your new online clothing store to potential customers and ensure you're getting the most out of your marketing investment.
You're Officially Ready To Sell Your Kidswear Products
Congratulations, you've made it this far, so that means all that's left to kick things off is to launch! Once your store is live, and your ads are running, sit back, relax, and watch the orders come in.
The Best Time To Start Your Children's Clothing Store Is Right Now
Of course, nothing can prepare you for the realities of running your fashion startup, but the best thing to do is to start. If you've done your research, have a thorough business plan, and have a burning passion, there's no reason why you won't succeed. Trust yourself and start your clothing company today!
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