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How to start an online clothing store

How to start an online clothing store

By BloggerKhan

My profession is Management and Marketing and it revolves around outsourcing, ecommerce and marketing on the internet. Wise men say identify what you are passionate about and then see if ...

By BloggerKhan

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Online clothing stores are becoming an increasingly popular trend on the internet. Between people leading busy lifestyles with little time to shop in conventional brick and mortar stores, and online stores being conveniently available on their smartphones it should not come as a surprise at all. Not only is it convenient, it saves you time and on top of that there is a lot more variety. You can order apparel to be shipped right to your home or office and within a few days you have what you ordered.

If you see potential in this trend, you are not alone. There is no time like the present to open your own online clothing store. After all, apparel is something everyone needs, so with the right promotion and your own unique angle, you can be generating solid revenues in a short time.

Setting up an ecommerce site is challenging if you have never done anything similar but it does not mean it is not doable. Here is where you should begin.

If you want to do things the right way, first you should learn the ropes of online clothing stores and how they function, then branch out further to the industry itself. Suppliers, distributors, materials and styles should be among your area of expertise, not only your vocabulary. Our personal favorite tip is to do research in the form of online shopping. Check out your favorite stores and buy various items, then analyze and compare. There is loads to learn. The packaging, shipping, even how they handle returns, it could all be useful information.

The next step should be to decide on the kind of brands you want to carry and where you will purchase their stuff. Then choose the type of online store i.e. whether you are going to sell your own products, resell someone else’s, do you plan to stock or drop ship etc.

Make sure you have a good and reliable supplier for your clothing items. If you specialize in a certain type of clothing, for example Pashmina shawls all the better cause you can join that particular niche market and gain customers with an already established taste. Carrying a broad range of items can also be very tempting if you have a large enough budget.

Put products on your site carefully. Choose keywords, tags and categories with the utmost care and make your entire site SEO friendly. Even the images you use to represent your products need to be high quality and optimized. This is where consulting professionals may turn out to be crucial.

There are companies that can offer you the technical support and expertise necessary to get you started. For example, Interloper Inc., specializes in ecommerce sites and they may have developed sites you are already familiar with. They are a good place to start. They will customize a template or create one from scratch, integrate a secure payment getaway, shipping, emails, SEO optimization and social media. Just be sure they stay within budget. Do not spare expenses on the website as its design is important and will draw customers in and bring in more sales. Let us assume that a premium site costs $2,000 more than your average website. What looks like a big expense in the beginning, will pay off tenfold over a short span of time. What if the more expensive but better designed site brings in one extra sale a week. That little difference will pay off the extra investment many times over.

A very important part of an ecommerce clothing store is to offer multiple shipping options from a free one that may take up to a couple of weeks, to a paid one for a few days, to an extra charge one for next day delivery. Interloperinc can help you integrate shipping plugins, secure payment gateways, a shopping cart and make sure that your site is mobile friendly and easy to navigate.

So, now that we have covered the basics, we would like to stress the importance of promoting your website and generating traffic. Once your site is up and running and your store officially launched, it does not mean your job is finished. Actually starting the store is the easier part, promoting it is what takes time and certain expertise. Professional consultants can show you the ropes at an acceptable rate.

If you have a seasoned web development company as an ally, they will not only help you get your website up and running, they will help you get your products listed on multiple marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, Rakuten, Walmart, Sears, Etsy and similar marketplaces. If you really grow gangbusters, they can even get you started on services like http://uploadmyproducts.com to synchronize inventory across multiple marketplaces.

An online clothing store can be a lucrative business. Make sure you do your research, establish a relationship with a solid web development company and then get started, one step at a time. Keep at it and there is no reason why you can’t be just as successful as some of your favorite ecommerce stores.

We hope this article was helpful and inspired you to venture into the world of ecommerce.

Good luck!


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