Business Ideas | Small Business Ideas: Start a Clothing Business at Home

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Start a Clothing Business at Home | Start Your Own Clothing Business

Clothing is fiber and textile material worn on the body. The wearing of clothing is mostly restricted to human beings and is a feature of nearly all human societies. The amount and type of clothing worn is dependent on physical stature, gender, as well as social and geographic considerations.

Physically, clothing serves many purposes: it can serve as protection from the elements, and can enhance safety during hazardous activities such as hiking and cooking. It protects the wearer from rough surfaces, rash-causing plants, insect bites, splinters, thorns and prickles by providing a barrier between the skin and the environment. Clothes can insulate against cold or hot conditions. Further, they can provide a hygienic barrier, keeping infectious and toxic materials away from the body. Clothing also provides protection from harmful UV radiation.

Clothes can be made out of fiber plants such as cotton, plastics such as polyester, or animal skin and hair such as wool. Humans began wearing clothes roughly 83,000 to 170,000 years ago.

The first step in starting a home clothing business is deciding what types of clothing to sell. It is more beneficial to sell a particular niche of clothing, such as children's clothes vs. clothes in general. Customers tend to respect the expertise of specialists when shopping for specific clothing. Sell clothing items in which you are interested or have product knowledge. For example, sell women's casual clothes if you previously sold them on a job.

Instruction:

Step 1

Set aside a portion of your home for an office. Choose a spare bedroom, for example, so you can take advantage of the home office deduction for tax purposes.

Step 2

Decide whether you want to sell your products retail or wholesale. Consider that your profits will be greater in retail, and that larger companies usually sell wholesale.

Step 3

Obtain a vendor's license through your county or city administration office, as you will need to collect sales taxes from in-state customers. Apply for a doing business as license if you use a fictitious name for your business, according to Business.gov. Obtain your DBA from the same place you get your vendor's license.

Step 4

Find a wholesale or manufacturer supplier for you clothing products. Go to the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors website at NAW.org. Call the main office and ask them to send you a list of clothing wholesalers. Order free retail trade publications from Tradepub.com. Peruse the classified ads in these trade publications for potential wholesalers. Examine the Thomasnet.com site for clothing manufacturers.

Step 5

Call several of the wholesalers and manufactures. Find out which ones sell the products you plan to market. Ask the wholesalers and manufacturers if they will drop-ship products, which means they will ship products to your customers. Go with the drop shipping option as it will eliminate large investments in clothing inventory. Select the wholesaler or manufacturer that provides you with the lowest unit cost on clothing.

Step 6

Obtain a merchant account from you bank so you can accept credit card orders.

Step 7

Set up a website for your home clothing business, or have one designed for you. Contact your supplier for pictures of the products you sell. Include these pictures on your website along with product descriptions and prices.

Step 8

Promote your clothing business by mail. Order a mailing list of clothing buyers through the Direct Marketing Association. Ask for the Cheshire or sticky labels of potential customers. Place the labels on envelopes. Insert your sales letters and brochures in the envelopes and mail them out.

Step 9

Hire a search engine optimizer to achieve a first-page ranking in search engines, including Google.com and Yahoo.com. Help your search engine optimizer create three- to- five-word phrases that best describe your products. Make sure these keywords are listed within the contents of your website for optimal results.

Step 10

Order products from your wholesale supplier when customers place orders. Pay the wholesaler just the wholesale price of the clothing, then keep the rest for yourself. Send customers' names and addresses to your wholesaler if you are using a drop shipper.

Things Needed

Vendor's license
DBA
Wholesale supplier
Clothing products
Computer
Printer
Merchant account
Website
Sales letters
Brochures
Catalogs
Price lists
Order forms

Tip

Maintain a database of your customers in your computer. Send customers catalogs and coupons every month or two for additional orders. You will likely make most of your profits from existing customers. The only cost involved in reaching existing customers are your printing and mailing costs.

References (6)

Resources (4)

About the Author

Rick Suttle has been writing professionally since 2009, covering health and business for various online and print publications. He has worked in corporate marketing research and as a copywriter. Suttle holds a Bachelor of Science in marketing from Miami University and a Master of Business Administration from California Coast University. He is author of the novels "Hell Year" and "Suicide Peak."

Photo Credits

3 comments:

Clothing BusinessMarch 30, 2014 at 2:01 PM
Clothing Business, Clothing Business at Home, Start a Clothing Business at Home, Start Your Own Clothing Business
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Zara clothingMay 8, 2014 at 3:36 PM
Being a larger woman, I got a 3X (partially because I have a full chest). I had the natural fear of having gotten a dress over the internet that it would not fit perfectly or like a glove.
ReplyDelete
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Easy Tips and Ideas to Start Business

Although anyone can start a business, many people fail because of a bad product or improper research. If you want to start your own business, you can improve your chances for success before you even begin. In order to make your business successful, start strong and make sure that your idea will hold out for the long haul.

Have a Good Product

Ensure that you plan to sell something useful. Although you may think that your product is important or special, that doesn't mean the general public will agree. Ask friends, family and strangers what they think of your product. If they don't seem that interested, ask them why. With their suggestions, you can either improve the product or scrap the idea completely. According to Brad Sugars of Entrepreneur magazine, most small businesses fail because they sold a product that didn't have an adequate market. This also applies to small businesses that provide a service. A lawn-care business might be useful for part of the year in a northern state, but it is in-demand year-round in the south. Consider whether people will actually want to use your service and get constructive advice from those not afraid to give their opinion.

Research Local Businesses

Research local companies before starting up your own business. This will not only give you an idea of the amount of competition you will have, but it will also help you price your product or service. If you're looking to start a wedding photography business, you may find during your research that the market is over-saturated in your area. If not over-saturated, you should contact each business and ask them for a price list. Alter your prices so you can stay competitive with the competition in town. Researching similar local businesses will also help you decide where to locate your business location. Try not to start up a store or office close to another business of your type. If your small business is located away from similar business types, this will cause locals to choose you over businesses that are farther away from where they live.

Get Professional Advice

You may know someone who has started their own successful business. Ask him for advice and listen to his stories of how he started his company. You may gain useful advice on the good and bad ways to start a business. Local entrepreneurs can also introduce you to local product providers or advertisers that you may not have met without their help. Accept any advice with open arms, especially if the advice is coming from someone successful in the area.

How to Calculate Business Start Up Costs

Starting a business in no easy endeavor. It takes a great deal of research, perseverance and hard work. While sweat equity will make your small business more successful, you will most likely need real capital to get the business started. Before you start raising capital and/or investing your own funds, the first thing you need to do is determine the total start-up costs.

Step 1

Determine your costs of sales. For most small businesses this means inventory, the cost of raw materials, manufacturing equipment, shipping, packaging, and warehousing. However, not all businesses sell products. In this case, the cost of sales is primarily the direct labor involved in making the sale. For example, to open a small shoe business entails purchasing enough inventory ($10,000) to stock the store.

Step 2

Determine professional fees. Planning your business structure, i.e., limited liability corporation or general partnership, means hiring an attorney. There may also be the need to pay an attorney for help with establishing trademarks, copyrights, and patents. In this scenario, that puts total professional fees at an estimated $20,000.

Step 3

Determine technology costs. Technology can greatly reduce the cost of labor for small business if used effectively. Most small businesses require computers, printers, cell phones, website development, Internet access, software applications, information security, data storage, and outsourced information technology (IT) consulting. If the cost of technology is $10,000 to start, add an additional $5,000 a year for maintenance (hint: maintenance is not included in start-up costs).

Step 4

Determine administrative costs. This varies with business types and may include items such as business insurance, office supplies, product packaging, parking, rent, express shipping, desks, chairs, fax machines, phones, or anything else necessary to operate the business daily. A good estimate for start-up administrative costs would be $5,000 for the first six months.

Step 5

Determine initial sales and marketing costs. Now that you have your product, you need to let folks know about it. Sales and marketing costs generally include marketing materials for presentations, printing stationery, business cards, advertising, trade show events, and public relations. These initial sales and marketing costs can add up to $3,000.

Step 6

Determine the wages and benefits needed to secure a staff. This includes employee salaries, benefits, workers compensation, and payroll taxes. Let's put the cost of wages and benefits estimated at $20,000 for the first three months of business.

Step 7

Add all costs associated with starting the business for a total. Be sure to only include business start-up costs that will be incurred in the first three to six months of operations. For this example, the calculation is: $10,000 + $20,000 + $10,000 + $5,000 + $3,000 + $20,000 = $68,000.

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