Indian is famous for its textile and garment industry. Industry issued and is experiencing Rapid growth of around 4% annually. Globally, the industry is worth over 3 billion dollars. Endorse multiple segments or categories in it, including menswear and womenswear.
Suppose you are passionate about different fabrics patterns designs and plan to start a garment business or already running one. In that case, this article is a compilation of various inside ideas, and tips on how you can grow your business exponentially.
1. Start an eCommerce Store.
Do you have an online store? In this millennial era, almost all of us are constantly online surfing, shopping, and exploring various things. This is a huge opportunity that cannot be missed. Build an attractive website. Surprise customers with new collections, prints, patterns, and designs. Have customer-friendly return and shipping policies. Take a customer-first approach. Studies show that people constantly look for new designs and interesting brands. Get your SEO right. You will miss out if you are not on top. Become the obvious choice.
SEO is one of the cheapest marketing tools. Hire resources (SEO experts) to help you with content that can put you on top.
2. Innovation, Collection, and Distribution.
If your business is stumbling, and you are constantly in loops on how to grow your business, you might probably be missing on innovation, collection, and distribution of your products. Constant innovation keeps you at the forefront. Innovation across all functions of the business is necessary for growth. Test new fabrics, patterns, prints, and designs with respect to the product. Try new technologies and explore sales, marketing, and branding strategies. Have a very exhaustive collection for your customers. Be a one-stop-shop for all their clothing needs. Customers usually like to find everything in one place without compromising on quality. Focus on your customer’s needs, and the business will uplift by itself.
3. Social Media Engagement
Social media is like bread and butter these days. Without a social media presence, you will lose out on tons of opportunities. Studies say that an average person spends almost three to four hours on social media platforms daily. Attractive branding and relevant content can help you build brand visibility, and will attract customers to your website. Influencer marketing is also becoming very popular these days. Start with micro-influencers marketing the relevant products, focusing on their target market. Slowly, based on the budget and the growth of the business, you can move higher on the ladder.
4. Offer Doorstep Custom Tailoring Services
Go one step further and offer tailoring services. This market is still at a very nascent stage and has huge potential to grow. You, as a garment business company, can partner with many local tailoring services, and become an aggregator. Bring these partners and customers together through a single application. The majority of customers hesitate to shop online because they are not so sure about the fit.
Offer custom tailoring services. Make the user flow as simple and comfortable as possible. Offer bundled deals and competitive prices to begin with and gain traction. Many business owners who think about how to increase business growth, adopt this great opportunity that can bring them, customers, across segments. You can start to redirect them to your website for their other needs (cross-selling strategy).
5. Have Good Relationships With Your Vendors, Suppliers and Designers.
Find trustworthy vendors, material suppliers, wholesalers, and textile manufacturers. Have a partnership kind of a relationship, rather than a buyer-seller relationship. Together you can strategise and plan on reaching your business goals that will benefit both parties. Exploring synergies and long-time collaborations will be a great thing to do to grow your business. Have a strategic partnership with various designers who can provide new collections to attract more customers.
Optimise your supply chain, have smoother logistics, use data to direct you with optimising on placing orders with demand for various collections. Many clothing businesses which can’t figure out how to grow business are probably lacking this strategy.
6. Differentiate Your Clothing Brand and Services
Differentiate yourself in the market with exceptional customer service and product offerings. Have your core business values defined and let them reflect in the products you sell. A business built on solid values, a great business plan, and differentiated products can create unimaginable value to the customers, and your business will be a very successful one.
7. Up-Sell and Cross-Sell
If you have various versions of products, upselling is a strategy where you sell the superior version of it. Cross-selling is when you sell complementary products to your existing product. You can try these two strategies in your business. Bundle your products, and provide attractive deals at lower prices. Have your website and app or the physical store showcase relevant products on the top. Make your customers feel valued; convince them that they are taking home great deals and amazing products. Thinking about how to make your business grow? These strategies will never fail you.
8. Diversification of Your Sales Business Channels
No matter what kind of player you are in the market (boutique, retailer, wholesaler, D2C consumer brand), it is necessary to expand your sales and distribution channels. This helps you grow your customer base, in addition to providing them with cool experiences and surprises. The best part here is to grow closer to your customers as you keep exploring various channels. If your business is doing good and you still wonder how to expand the business, diversification of sales channels is a great strategy to explore.
Wrapping up
No defined handbook, rulebook, or blueprint can guide you on how to go exactly about this industry or any particular business. The market is continuously growing, and many new businesses are evolving with innovative solutions and creating excitement in the market. Customers are looking out for newness and are willing to try new things. The answer to the constant question in your head “How to grow my business” is simple. It is to innovate. Implement new things, constantly push your boundaries, and surprise the customer. Customers who love their brands like them being transparent. They like to know what is happening behind the scenes and the brand’s product journey on a deeper level, where they feel belonged and get connected to the brand. Provide great customer value; that’s the only mantra for the success of any clothing brand.
Also Read:
1) How to start a garment trading business?
2) Is Readymade Garment Export From India Profitable?
3) How To Start A Garment Shop In India? Readymade Garment Business Plan.
4) Top 10 Small Business Ideas in the Garment Industry
5) OkCredit: Simple, Paperless & Secure solution for businesses
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FAQs
Q. How should I arrive at the pricing strategy for my garment business?
Ans. A competitive pricing strategy is very important to grow your clothing business. Get your margins right. There should be a healthy balance between the quality of your product, end customer price, and your margins. Craft out your unit economics, and include every operational cost into consideration when calculating your margin. If possible, have a definite margin percentage for each category that can help you while designing your deals or offers.
Q. When will you consider this business successful & profitable? How to manage finances?
Ans. Stock management, adhering to fashion trends, and being able to deliver the best value can help you achieve success in this business. Profitability depends upon how you manage your daily bookkeeping and finances. There are so many handy and user-friendly bookkeeping platforms, like okcredit, which can help you manage your ledgers and plan your budgets. The old way of Bahi Khata is not productive and effective to manage. Platforms like okstaff can help you manage your staff payments attendance digitally.
Q. Does it take a lot of investment to set up a clothing business?
Ans. It depends on the type of business you want to set up (a wholesale store, retail store, boutique, etc.). It usually takes around INR 5 lakhs to 10 lakhs to start a small business, and between INR 10 to 20 lakhs for a medium-size business, and above INR 25 lakhs to start a high-end designer boutique. Depending on your cash flow requirements, you can take a small loan when you plan to start a business.