How to Start an Online Clothing Business in India?

The outbreak of COVID-19 has turned the business world upside down. Irrespective of what retail business you deal in, the nationwide lockdown must have slowed down your business growth and lessened your revenue.

Now provided the situation has created a gap between the sellers and the consumers, making the sellers search for a solution. And the only solution that can still help the retail businesses like a clothing business, is to get their business online and start an eCommerce store.

In this guide, we’ll share all the steps that you need to take to start online garment business. Whether you are a beginner or you already in the garment manufacturing business and wanted to start selling your garment on the eCommerce sites, you can follow this guide.

How to Start an Online Clothing Business in India?

Steps to starting your online clothing business.

1. Do some background work
2. Create a business plan
3. Define you USP and define your brand name
4. Choose an eCommerce Platform
5. Create a website
6. Conclusion

1. Do Some Ground Work

Just like any other business, to start an online clothing business, you need to do some research work first. Targeting a special group of people defined by their demographics is what you need to do at the initial stage. The more defined your audience persona is, the easier it would be to reach them. Ask yourself questions like-

• Who you wish to begin with: men, women, or children?
• Which age group do you target audience belong to?
• Any particular region you’re targeting?

Try to start with a small group of the target audience and then widen it with time.

If you have already decided and have come up with your product (product groups) that you like to sell on the eCommerce stores, move to the next step and write your business plan.

2. Write a Business Plan

In a nutshell, a business plan is a roadmap for your business that suggests your business goals and how you plan to achieve those goals. A business plan helps in a number of things such as-

• Raising money for your business.
• Clearly defining what you need to do in upcoming months.
• Attracting the right team members.
• Identifying the pitfalls of your business.

There are several variables for a clothing business plan. These variables are manpower, warehouse, marketing, and sales. Now the variables depend upon what kind of business you plan to start, whether it’s simple drop-shipping, retail, wholesale or first wholesale and then retail or manufacturing of the items and selling on the online stores.

Start with mentioning how much, which, when will you be sourcing the materials and the fabrics. If you like to source readymade garments in bulk and then sell those garments on the eCommerce site – you can do that also.

This way you’ll get a clear view of how much capital you will require for your business. You can refer to this post to write your own business plan.

3. Define Your USP and Decide Your Brand Name

USP stands for Unique Selling Point. Your USP will be your biggest plus point that will set you apart from your competitors and help you take over your target market. A USP can be anything like a special fabric that you use or a special technique that you follow while designing. Or a specific customer group – like plus size innerwear or teens wear or yoga wear and activewear.

Once you define your USP the next thing to focus on is your brand name. A name that is going to represent your brand to your potential customers. Make sure that the name is catchy, crisp, easy to remember, and most importantly defines your USP. 

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Related post: 10 Small business ideas in the garment industry

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4. Choose an eCommerce Platform

When you decide to sell online, you need an eCommerce platform for your business. An eCommerce platform will connect your store to your potential customers. This will act as your online storefront. And after having one, you can easily sell on marketplaces like Myntra, Flipkart and Amazon.

While there are several eCommerce platforms out there, you need to choose the one that fits your requirements the most. Some of the basic things that you need to consider while choosing one are it’s easy-to-use, provides simple UX, and is secure.

Also, check out this step-by-step guide on How to build an e-commerce website.

5. Create a Website

Creating a website can provide your online clothing business with immense benefits such as the ability to accept orders 24x7, provide real-time assistance, showcase all your products, and more.

To create a website, you first need to choose what kind of website. Three main kinds of website are-

• One-page website: A webpage that has little details about your business and a contact us form.
• Online brochure: A brochure website reflecting the products that you sell. Along with that, you can create an About Us and Contact Us page.
• eCommerce Website: You can also sell your products directly through your eCommerce website.

Some of the pages that you would have in your eCommerce website are About Us, Products Page, Contact Us and it should have features like shopping cart, wishlist, various payment options, etc.

6. Conclusion

So this was all about how to start an online clothing business in India. Now that you know everything, you shouldn’t waste your time anymore and take the plunge. Also, if you aren’t ready with a proper business idea, you can still search for some profitable clothing business ideas online and start your business in no time.

Don't think that the online clothing market is saturated in India? There is enough space for everyone to start an online business. But you need to come with good ideas through which you can stand out from the crowd on the online clothing selling business.