How to Start a Clothing Business from Home
Reading Time: 7 minutesWhether you’ve caught an entrepreneurial bug or have a passion for fashion, you might be interested in starting your own clothing business. Luckily, it’s possible to start a successful clothing business right from your home.
This guide will cover the ins and outs of starting a clothing business from home. We’ll start by looking at why you might want to start a business from home before reviewing the step-by-step processes for embarking on this journey. To wrap things up, we’ll discuss what to think about now if you want to scale your business later.
Table of Contents
- Why Start a Clothing Business?
- How to Start a Clothing Business from Home
- Scaling Your “Home-Grown” Clothing Business
- Final Thoughts
Why Start a Clothing Business?
You might choose to start a clothing business for a few different reasons. Many clothing stores are inspired by their passion for fashion. This is common among fashion designers and stylists interested in using their creative eye to curate clothing lines.
Some people are motivated by creating clothing items for a specific audience where they see a gap. This could include stylish items that fit commonly overlooked body types or items that are accessible to those with physical disabilities.
However, plenty of entrepreneurs in the clothing industry are just in it for the potential earnings. If you’re simply looking for an opportunity to start and grow a successful business, that’s completely valid.
How to Start a Clothing Business from Home
Now that you know more about common motivations for starting a clothing business, let’s discuss the step-by-step process for starting one from home.
1. Choose a Niche
Finding a niche is key to standing out when launching a home-based clothing business. Finding a unique focus sets your brand apart and simplifies marketing through targeted social media campaigns and influencer collaborations.
Your niche could be focused on a specific type of clothing or a particular clothing style. Another option is to choose a target audience and create clothing lines that accommodate them in some way, whether it be people with a specific profession, body type, etc.
For example, you could open a suit-focused store and offer a variety of suits, jackets, blazers, and tweeds. You could also specialize in funky business wear and offer a purple suit collection tailored for professionals, fashion-forward individuals, or themed events.
2. Build Your Brand
Once you have a niche and an idea of your target market, it’s time to build your brand. Your business will need a name to start. Simple is typically better when it comes to brand names.
From there, you’ll need to choose a color pallet, design a logo, and choose a font. By creating a cohesive look with your branding, prospective customers will start to recognize your brand online.
Aside from the visual aspects of your brand, you’ll also need to think about your brand’s “personality.” Curating a consistent voice for your brand goes hand-in-hand with creating a cohesive visual experience. Consider the general tone of voice you’d like to use when addressing your audience.
3. Handle the Legalities
Another essential part of starting a fashion business is handling the legalities to ensure you’re up to par with the local regulations. For starters, you’ll need to register your company. Typically, you can get away with an LLC to start, but a different corporation structure may be more appropriate.
Talk to an accountant to see what makes the most sense from a tax perspective. They can help you choose the proper setup based on your goals for your business.
When you talk to your accountant, ask about tax requirements as well. You’ll likely collect sales tax on your orders, but you must also pay income tax. A fully featured accounting platform can help you record all the relevant information you need from the start.
4. Source Your Items
The next step is to source the items for your clothing shop. There are several ways to do this.
Most small fashion businesses work with wholesale clothing manufacturers to source their items. This is the easiest way to go, especially if you want to make your clothing line affordable yet profitable. These clothes tend to be premade, but some manufacturers will tailor items to meet your custom design requests.
Another popular method of sourcing clothing to sell online is designing and manufacturing it yourself. This is great for creating small-batch or limited-quantity clothing designs. Of course, the scalability of this approach is limited, but it is much more environmentally friendly. Plus, many fashionistas like the uniqueness of small-batch designs.
In the spirit of reducing, reusing, and recycling, thrift flipping is another popular fashion trend. With this sourcing model, retailers go to secondhand stores like consignment shops and thrift stores to search the racks for items worth reselling. This could be a designer piece, a vintage item, or something that can be transformed into something fashion-forward.
5. Build Your Tech Stack
As this process progresses, you will need a reliable tech stack to support your online clothing business. Some helpful tools include:
- – A platform with a point of sales system (either a marketplace or website host)
- – Bookkeeping software
- – A PDF editor (for designing lookbooks, drafting contracts, preparing invoices, etc.)
- – Marketing tools (email tools, SEO tools
- – Design tools (Canva, Photoshop, etc.)
These different tools are available at a wide range of price points with various functionalities. You can pick and choose which tools make the most sense for your specific needs.
6. Setup Your Storefront
Now, it’s time to set up your storefront. If you’re operating your clothing store out of your house, selling your products through an online storefront makes the most sense. At this stage, you’ll have to decide if you want to set up a storefront on an online marketplace, on your own domain, or both. Each option has pros and cons.
The value of selling products on an established marketplace like Etsy or Amazon is that it comes with built-in traffic since the platforms are very popular. However, these marketplaces charge fees, which cut into your bottom line. Plus, you don’t truly own the storefront on a marketplace, so it could be shut down anytime.
Selling on a domain you own gives you more flexibility since you have full ownership. Plus, your fees are considerably lower. However, a storefront on your own site doesn’t come with built-in traffic, so you’ll have to put more effort into marketing strategies.
Remember that you can also do pop-ups with your clothing company at farmers’ markets and similar events. This is a great way to showcase some of your top-selling pieces and connect with customers in your community.
7. Figure Out Shipping
Shipping and delivery are essential to any online business today. You’ll need to find an affordable and efficient shipping partner.
Plus, to build a strong relationship with your customers, you must do everything you can to ensure that products arrive quickly. You can do this by partnering with a same-day courier service.
Another option is dropshipping. With this business model, you market the products, and the supplier handles fulfillment for you. Of course, the profit margins are less with this business model, but you assume less risk since you don’t have to hold any inventory.
8. Launch Your Clothing Business
Once you’ve done all of the prep work, it’s time to launch your clothing business. You’ll need a marketing plan to create some noise about your business so you can kick things off with a bang.
Some popular marketing techniques in the fashion industry include:
- – Influencer marketing
- – Brand collaborations
- – Email marketing
- – Social media marketing
- – Search engine optimization (SEO)
- – Paid advertisements (in search and social)
- – Pop-ups and events
Your marketing campaigns should be geared toward building awareness of your brand among potential customers. As you grow your business, you can use similar strategies with future product launches.
Scaling Your “Home-Grown” Clothing Business
If you haven’t even officially started it, it might be silly to think about scaling your clothing business. However, thinking about your long-term goals for your business from the start will help you create a more effective business plan.
For example, as your business grows, you must consider storage solutions for your growing inventory. Especially if you start to offer larger items or bulk orders, you may need to explore options such as building a metal shed or expanding your garage. When researching these options, review different metal building prices to see which options best suit your needs and your budget.
On that note, you should also consider whether you aim to maintain an e-commerce store or if you’d be interested in opening brick-and-mortar locations one day. This will help you decide how to structure your team and allot upfront investments.
Final Thoughts
There are so many different ways to start a clothing business from home. You can design and produce your own clothes or source them elsewhere. You can keep it simple with an Etsy shop or build a storefront on your own domain.
However, no matter which approach you take, leading with a solid plan is essential. You can build a profitable clothing business by keeping your vision of the future at the forefront of your planning.
Are you ready to start your clothing business from home?
About the Author
Kelly Moser is the co-founder and editor at Home & Jet, a digital magazine for the modern era. She’s also the content manager at Login Lockdown, covering the latest trends in tech, business and security. Kelly is an expert in freelance writing and content marketing for SaaS, Fintech, and ecommerce startups.
