How to Start Your Own Kids Clothing Store

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

How to Start Your Own Kids Clothing Store

Children’s clothing sales are influenced by some of the same consumer shopping cycles that affect the overall retail clothing industry. Market research firm High beam Business notes that children’s clothing revenues historically increased when youngsters returned to school in late August. Sales were generally consistent through the holiday gift-buying season. In fact, 30 percent to 40 percent of annual clothing sales were recorded during this four-month period. In 2010, children’s clothing stores have seen more evenly spaced sales as toddlers and preschoolers head to class all year.

Step 1

Document your children’s clothing store business. Create a business structure with a certified public accountant familiar with retail businesses. Common structures include sole proprietorships, limited liability companies and Sub chapter S corporations. Meet with a commercial insurance agent regarding liability insurance. Obtain a business license at your city or county clerk’s office. Contact your state department of revenue for a sales tax license (See Resources).

Step 2

Lease a visible and accessible store location. Find a building easily reached via main roads, with sufficient customer parking, and with a spacious display window. Look for a site near family-oriented businesses, such as day care centers, child-friendly restaurants and pediatricians’ offices. Attract walking traffic by locating your shop near other retail businesses. Obtain written zoning approval before signing a lease. Work with a sign maker to create eye-catching building signage featuring colorful child-themed graphics.

Step 3

List your regional clothing store competition. Visit cities and towns throughout your region, and list retailers that sell children’s clothing. Include big box and discount stores, as well as family clothing stores with a children’s department. Visit upscale children’s clothing retailers as well. Observe each store’s product lines, general cleanliness and staff interactions with customers. Identify nationally popular children’s clothing that’s not sold in local stores, and thus represents a potentially profitable opportunity.

Step 4

Buy display fixtures and mannequins. Purchase clothing racks, hangers and other clothing display equipment. Add several child mannequins on which you can display your children’s fashions. Purchase mannequins with flexible limbs and bendable bodies to convey the figures’ sense of movement (See Resources).

Step 5

Purchase your wholesale children’s clothing. Order name-brand tops and bottoms, dresses and suits. Add shoes and seasonal wear. Consider fun gifts such as stuffed animals and child-sized totes. Purchase your merchandise from online suppliers or warehouses (See Resources). Examine children’s clothing at a regional merchandise mart, a trade-only shopping extravaganza set in an exhibition hall. Some marketplaces feature one theme, such as jewelry. Other merchandise marts display varied apparel, including children’s wear (See Resources).

Step 6

Hire outgoing and child-friendly staff. Network with play groups, stay-at-home parents and children’s activity volunteers. Place fliers at community pools with toddler programs, as well as active senior retirement communities. Publish carefully constructed newspaper help wanted ads as well. Outfit your staff in brightly-colored matching attire, and conduct role-playing exercises to train employees in customer service and sales techniques. Include trivia contests on manufacturers’ clothing product lines, and provide gift card prizes to the winners.

Step 7

Host a child-oriented grand opening. Create a grand opening that children and parents won’t want to miss. Offer introductory discounts, and provide a gift with all grand opening day purchases. Conduct a drawing for a kids' restaurant birthday party, and utilize entry forms for a mailing list. Invite popular animated characters to meet children throughout the day. Advertise the event in newspapers’ children’s pages. Place fliers at pediatricians’ offices, day care centers and child-friendly restaurants.

Things Needed

Help wanted fliers
Help wanted newspaper ad copy
Matching staff attire
Gift card prizes for staff trivia contests
Grand opening gifts
Entry forms for grand opening drawing
Ad copy for grand opening newspaper ads
Grand opening fliers

References (2)

Resources (5)

About the Author

Based in North Carolina, Felicia Greene has written professionally since 1986. Greene edited sailing-related newsletters and designed marketing programs for the New Bern, N.C. "Sun Journal" and New Bern Habitat ReStore. She earned a Bachelor of Science in business administration from the University of Baltimore.

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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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Wednesday, April 2, 2014