Suppose that you don’t have inventory or financial backing to invest in product to sell to retailer up front. How would you succeed in the fashion industry as a designer? How do you reach customers?Online marketplaces have been a rapidly growing in the fashion industry. Many people appreciate the option to purchase new, quality apparel items from the comfort of their own home. If you want to reach the online shopping demographic, consider online retail.
- Establish Your Own Online Store: To get the most out of your profit margin, consider establishing your own e-commerce store. By selling the designs online yourself, you will receive double (sometimes triple) the profit than if you sold to another retailer. Web platforms such as WordPress and SquareSpace are two of the best options for selling your designs online.
- Keep it Fair: If you decide to sell to another retailer and on your own online store as well, keep the pricing fair by selling your items at a matching price range so that you’re not competing within the retailer’s store. Selling items at different price points, on different platforms will lose the trust of customers and your fashion industry associates. Keep in mind: If you only receive the wholesale price from the retailer, you will earn less. If you sell the retail price on your online store, you will earn both the wholesale and retail profit.
- Promotion = Sales: Use different methods of promotion to expand your business and earn sales. Relying on social media alone is not ideal for some emerging designers. Their social media market is almost exclusively made up of friends and family, which is not the best platform to ask for sales. Look into a small monthly investment in GoogleAds and other online advertising platforms to sell your designs.
- Inventory and Stock is Not Required: If you have thousands of dollars worth of designs ready to sell, go for it. If you do not have any money allotted for your line’s stock and inventory, ask the customer pay up front for the design. This way you have the money to invest in the product and to ship it to the customer.
- Keep It Simple: Many designers go into this business thinking more is more and having options means success. This is why many emerging designers find it difficult to succeed. The key is to keep it simple. If you design one or two cut-to-fit, in-demand pieces that are your brand signature, consider selling several color, fabric and length variations of them and offer different prices. As you progress and grow the business, offer more colors, sleeved and sleeveless options, short and long lengths, and so on. By designing on a simple theme, your customers will learn and demand your niche designs, and the fashion industry will grow to recognize you for your well-executed signature look.
Interested in learning more about online fashion businesses and how to run them? Then follow Fashion Mingle on Facebook for tried and true tips. You can also visit
Jessicafaithmarshall.com to view and purchase my latest designs.
- Austin Mingles at Fashion Mingle’s Holiday Happy Hour - January 6, 2018
- Want to Create an Ethical Fashion Brand? BF+DA Provides a Sustainability Roadmap - November 28, 2017
- Fashion for a Cause: Supporting Caribbean Hurricane Relief - November 7, 2017
- Jarel Zhang Offers Color Blocked Jackets and Bright New Silhouettes During NYFW - October 21, 2017
- Dan Liu Inspires the Modern Feminine Wardrobe with Spring Cocktail Dresses - October 20, 2017
