If you want to start your own fashion business, you might be a little stuck on who to turn to. Fear not: this article chronicles the wise words of those who already built successful fashion businesses. Check out what they have to say.
Alex Grace, Banana Moon
Alex Grace is the marketing director at Banana Moon. She’s spent a lot of time thinking about how much effort fashion businesses should put into going online. Her instinct is that a bespoke, rather than an off-the-shelf website, will always bear more fruit long term. But she recognizes that the short run costs are rather high. There is, of course, the price of starting up the website, but then on top of that is all the blood money you have to pay Google to try to make your site visible. At the start, it can be a real drain on your funds. Template options are cheap and easy to use she says – you can use them while you’re starting up and then invest in better solutions later.
Lisa Chatterton, Fashion Innovation Agency
Chatterton is the business manager at the non-for-profit Fashion Innovation Agency. Her advice is to make sure that your fashion brand doesn’t have too wide an appeal. There needs to be something unusual about what you’re offering, otherwise, customers will just gravitate towards the more established generic players, and leave your business out in the cold. One idea is to consult with screen print software experts about how your company can make its clothing appear original and unique. These days, there are all sorts of options and smart techniques to produce prints on designer items, transforming them from ho-hum to amazing.
Frances Card, Frances Card Consultancy
Card is a serial entrepreneur who has managed many businesses in the fashion industry. His advice to new fashion startups is to align themselves with the values of the places where the hope to stock their clothing. There’s no point building a brand that has a budget appeal, for instance, if your ultimate goal is to get your product lines stocked in Selfridges. At the same time, if you want to get your clothes into Asda, make sure that your brand is entirely focused on value and durability.
Lisa Finch, Finchittida Finch
Finch, of the hilariously named Finchittida Finch, offers some advice for fashion entrepreneurs wondering whether to start online or to look for market space. She says that online is definitely the place to start and points to opportunities to sell your clothing through sites like ASOS and Etsy. She says that these sites are great because they give designers access to a large audience from the get-go. She also points out, though, that any clothing you do sell through these channels will need to represent real value for money – these aren’t premium sites.
She points out that retail space is expensive, and so it’s usually better value to put clothing on online markets. It’s also a much better way to get feedback, as customers will leave reviews and share their thoughts with each other.