How to Start an Online Clothing Store

What is an online clothing store

An online clothing store, or online boutique, is a digital marketplace that specializes in selling clothing and apparel over the web. By running their operations over the internet, these stores don’t have to maintain a physical storefront. Instead, they can entertain their customers through a completely virtual setting.

Managing your business through this online store model allows you to cater to a larger audience base than a traditional storefront setup could. At the same time, it gives you the option to curate an expansive inventory, lower your operational expenses, and boost your profit margins.

These benefits of online clothing stores set them apart from their traditional counterparts. But these specialty websites still share their foundational features with brick-and-mortar apparel stores. This includes showcasing chic clothing and keeping up with the latest trends in fashion. Sometimes, the practice of sourcing pieces from different designers is also a part of the process.

This ideal balance between the rewards of digital businesses and the bounties of traditional establishments puts the retailer in a highly advantageous setting. In addition to strengthening your business’ foundation, this also gives your audience a few choice benefits to boot.

When a customer visits one of these online stores, they can expect to reap the following benefits.

Convenience

One of the biggest advantages of starting an online store is the easy route to shopping that you can offer. This also holds true for online retailers, which let customers shop from anywhere, anytime. With 8 out of 10 people using their mobile devices to do their shopping, online clothing stores give a large population of customers the option to fill their wardrobes with a few taps on their screens.

With simple yet effective tools such as high quality image showcases and digital size charts, customers can expect to find their ideal apparel right from the comfort of their home, office, and even their gym. When put together, this makes online boutiques a highly convenient way to shop for fashionable attire.

Flexibility

By starting an online clothing store, you can give your customers the ultimate reward of flexibility. Besides being able to browse through an array of different clothing designs, customers also have the choice to compare these options side-by-side to make an informed decision. If they are browsing through another vendor at the same time, this comparison could go beyond a single store.

This flexibility of choice remains a highly sought after feature of online stores, which can offer different patterns and colors in the same style of clothing, or deliver a distinct aesthetic with each singular design in their inventory. Since this model offers a wider range of options for customers to browse through, it has become a favorite for those who want to complete their shopping after ample research.

Affordability

Once you start operations, affordability is one of the biggest perks that you can offer to your customers. In fact, many customers turn towards online shopping in pursuit of accessible offerings and discounted deals. With lower operational costs and little to no premises expenses, it also becomes easier for you to deliver your items at competitive prices without driving yourself into loss.

Due to this reason, when you learn how to start an online clothing store, keeping your prices competitive and affordable is at the forefront of your value proposition. This ensures that you are fulfilling one of the biggest expectations of your customers without any failure. This helps you be on par with your competition at all times.

Once you start looking into boutiques online, you can also determine that these advantages all relate to the larger business model of e-commerce.

The power of e-commerce

E-commerce refers to the practice of buying or selling any type of goods or services online. Due to this abstract description, e-commerce includes almost everything under the sun that is transacted over the web. When it comes to products, these offerings include but are not limited to apparel, electronics, cosmetics, furniture, and automobiles. When it is about services, it may cover solutions such as internet security, marketing, as well as health and wellness.

Over the past few years, e-commerce has made its presence known across the world in remarkable fashion. This has been more prevalent after COVID-19, where online shopping grew during the pandemic due to the avoidance of crowds and the growing practice for people to stay at home. As a result, global online shopping revenue grew to around $5 trillion in 2021 and has a projection to reach about $7 trillion in 2024.

Some of the most popular examples of e-commerce include but are not limited to:

• Amazon. As the world’s largest online retailer, Amazon needs no introduction. With categories ranging from clothing to consumer electronics, the e-commerce giant rules the market in various segments.

• Apple. With flagship products namely the iPhone and iPad, Apple reigns supreme in selling mobile devices all over the world. Through its retail model to sell its mobile devices over the web, the company also sets a prime example in e-commerce operations.

• Home Depot. When it comes to home improvement, Home Depot stays true to its name. With its website and online catalog, the company remains highly popular in the United States, where it is the largest retailer in its segment.

• Macy’s. Through its collection of apparel and accessories, furniture, and consumer goods, Macy’s offers customers the experience of fulfilling various shopping needs under a single banner. This adds to the popularity of this department store.

• Ulta Beauty. The largest beauty retailer in the United States, Ulta is known for carrying luxury and high end beauty brands under its roof. Through its online store, it also showcases and sells its offerings over the web.

By looking at these examples, it becomes clear that e-commerce is a highly viable way to make money online for a variety of businesses. In turn, this opportunity also stands out to those business owners who want to earn a living by starting an online boutique.

By following best practices to run your boutique over the web, you can make sure that you are benefiting from the e-commerce medium as well as the chances of success that it brings to the table.

How to start online clothing store

While raring to start online clothing store operations, you have your work cut out for you. The process demands your unwavering attention at every step, while also calling for the utmost care as you tackle crucial processes.

But selected steps on how to start an online clothing store can help you master all of these tasks with ease. To assist you through this process, here's a lowdown on launching your boutique online.

Perform market research

No matter how you may want to run your boutiques online, it is crucial that you perform proper market research for them. This step refers to the process of learning more about your target market, your potential audience, and their response to the products and services that you are about to offer.

When you perform your market research for your online boutique, you can choose from various target markets or a combination of them. Some of the examples of groups that you can sell to include but are not limited to men; women; teens; adults; parents; artists; and business professionals.

Similarly, the response that you get from your target market can help you determine what type of clothing has better chances of appealing to your audience. This also allows you to discover crucial features for your store such as its price point and fulfillment options.

Create a business plan

After you have collected enough data in terms of market research, you can be halfway through starting your e-commerce business. In order to make sure that you are moving forward with a proper strategy, take your time to develop a business plan for your online clothing store.

Once you learn how to write a business plan, you are able to experience the most important benefits of this crucial document. These include but are not limited to more clarity regarding your business’ goals, a vision to optimally manage your operations, and an appealing pitch to welcome potential investors.

Gather your funds

Once you have a clear idea about the funding that you need, you can take a look at your available finances. This step requires you to assess the liquid assets that you have at hand, any securities that you can liquidate, and any direct funding options that you can avail.

While reaching out to potential investors or lenders, you can use your business plan that you wrote for starting an online clothing store. This allows you to make a more impressive business pitch and improves the chances to gather the funding that you need.

You can then use your collected funds to finance your business and turn your dream to start online clothing store operations into a concrete reality. If you face any issues with managing your funds, you can also hire a full-time or temporary accountant during this step.

Register your business details

While learning how to start an online clothing store, you have to understand the importance of registering your business. Even though your boutique conducts its operations online, you have to manage it as a registered entity. This allows you to fulfill your tax obligations and obtain required business services such as banking solutions.

During this step, you should choose a business structure between different options such as sole proprietorship, partnership, and corporation. You should also register an Employer Identification Number (EIN), which simultaneously acts as your Federal Tax Identification Number.

Once you get your EIN, you can open a business bank account. As you get through these legal and operational requirements, make it a point to register other crucial details such as your business or domain name.

Hire a team

After you are done with the initial few steps, make sure that you hire a team for your online clothing store. While you can hire fresh graduates, ensure that you also have a number of employees who have experience in managing boutiques online in some capacity. This makes sure that you are not navigating in the dark and have seasoned professionals within your team.

Apart from determining if you need an office, you can also look at different hiring practices and recruitment models. For instance, if you are hesitant in onboarding full time web developers for your online clothing store, you can outsource that requirement to freelancers or third-party providers. This gives you a way to optimize your hiring spend, while also getting reliable professionals to become a part of your time.

Create and market your website

While setting up your business’ legal and team structure, pay attention to the creation of your website. Under this step, you can choose an e-commerce platform where you can host your website. For optimal management, choose a platform with a content management system (CMS) that lets you add, edit, and remove products as well as other content with a point-and-click interface.

Apart from ensuring that your website is appealing and mobile-friendly, make it a point for it to be ready for SEO (search engine optimization). This lets your store appear on search engine results whenever someone searches for the types of products or clothing items that are available on your website. This enables you to receive higher online traffic against relevant keyword searches. You can also look into paid marketing through methods such as displaying ads on Google, Facebook, and YouTube.

Consider your suppliers

While starting an online clothing store, it is crucial that you choose your suppliers carefully. If you are a designer, you can very well fill your website with clothes that you create all by yourself. But if you just admire fashion or want to turn your boutique into a commercially successful business model, you can also showcase more than a few designers or suppliers through your website.

If you choose the second option, you can take a leaf out of the book of established online store owners and compare options on storing or selling these third-party items. Many boutiques go the old school route of storing these items at their premises and shipping them off whenever they receive an order. Alternatively, others prefer the practice of having the supplier ship the item directly to the customer.

Dropshipping

The method of having the supplier directly ship their products to customers is called dropshipping. With this practice, you don’t have to store any items that you showcase on your online clothing store. Instead, whenever you receive an order for any clothing or accessory, you can forward the shipment requirement to the supplier itself. This not only saves you from the hassle of handling shipping, but also allows you to make faster deliveries to your customers.

With the growth of e-commerce, dropshipping has become an established sector in itself. This also makes it easy for you to find suppliers for your online clothing store who have no problem following this practice. Since you only have to pay the supplier for the items that they have sold through your website, this also helps you steer clear of massive upfront costs.

Keep updating your inventory

After you have finalized your list of suppliers as well as their preferred method of inventory management, make sure that you keep updating your offerings on your website. Typically, you may need to freshen up your catalog a few times a year. This is especially true during seasonal changes, where it is crucial that your offerings meet the latest trends in associated fashion and styles.

You can also keep rotating different outfits as well as discount offers throughout the year. With high quality pictures, competitive price cuts, and fresh styles, you can increase your chances of nabbing consistent sales. This is where your choice of a CMS makes its presence known. This ensures that you are able to make quick changes to your website. Otherwise, you may need to depend on your inhouse or third-party developer for these requirements.

Become an online retailer

After going through these details, the process of starting an online clothing store may seem more like a thrilling adventure than a burdensome task. By keeping these tips in mind, you can ensure that you are not only enjoying the journey, but also turning it into a highly successful business model along the way.