The clothing and fashion industry is a business field especially friendly towards startups and rising entrepreneurs. The fashion industry offers a broad scope of business opportunities in any region of the world. But jumping headfirst into a whole new business is daunting for most people.
People want to know more details about a new business sector and existing businesses for inspiration, and that’s precisely what this article aims to offer. Here, we will discuss some of the most popular clothing-inspired small business ideas and some of the challenges new entrepreneurs might face.
10 Great Fashion-inspired Startup Business Ideas
Clothing-inspired businesses tend to focus on popular fashion trends or existing demands. And demand for fashionable clothing is never a declining factor. Even if you don’t have much fashion knowledge, you can still find a niche in the clothing industry. Below are some such business ideas:
1. Retail Clothing Store
Clothing stores are excellent business options for small and medium-sized towns. Local businesses can appeal to the local communities, especially if you can source products that fit the local aesthetics and people’s budget.
Retail clothing products are always in high demand, especially among city people. But there is a lot of competition in such businesses. You will need to find either niche items that appeal to the local populace or source some high-quality but budget-friendly custom items from a reputable distributor.
Ideally, before renting a store, you should visit the existing clothing stores in the city and try to find some items that aren’t sold but can appeal to the locals. You can then find a distributor of that product and start your business. Family shops are particularly popular in this archetype.
The biggest challenge for small clothing stores depends on the region’s demographic situation. You need to learn about the available garments’ quality, product demand, and price range of your chosen product range. Such businesses also operate based on the trust of the local folks. You will need to supply quality products to build that trust.
2. Online Clothing Store
The online shopping boom after the pandemic introduced a vast pool of new clients into the market. People who previously didn’t bother with online platforms have slowly learned to embrace its services. Building an online clothing store now is easier than ever.
Building an online store is similar to a physical store, but you save on the overhead expenses of renting a location. You don’t need to rent a storefront or designated storage area to display your clothes. You can just take a picture and list that on your website.
The most considerable expense in this sort of business is the website. You need a responsive, user-friendly website with a clean interface. But you can forego having a website and just operate through social media. But doing so will reduce your credibility to some extent.
The final hurdle of operating an online store is the inventory. You will need a reliable supplier with unique and high-quality merchandise. If possible, you should also employ drop shipping services. MGOO offers excellent manufacturing services for such businesses.
3. Sourcing Agency
You don’t need to open a retail store to run a startup. The supplying and sourcing sector offers plenty of opportunities. A sourcing agency is essentially a middleman who takes orders from retail businesses and fulfills orders by sourcing the products from manufacturers.
This line of business relies heavily on connections. The main goal of the sourcing agency is to find the most well-suited supply chain. A retail store can contact one or two manufacturers, but a sourcing agent needs to keep in contact with many more.
You need a reliable distributor for this kind of business to make your custom designs. Then showcase those designs to your potential clients in the retail sector through merchandising. The main challenge for this sort of business is the starting capital. You need a team to handle various parts of the operation, which requires good management skills.
4. Fashion Buying/ Merchandising
Fashion buying is a lucrative career path if you have the necessary skills. Many people don’t know what being a fashion buyer even is, and there are a lot of misconceptions about this service. So let’s clarify that first.
A fashion buyer is someone who buys the products you see in a designer store or supermarket. It sounds simple enough, but it is actually quite complicated. A fashion buyer’s clients are the retail stores, so they must keep in touch with as many stores as possible. The job of a fashion buyer is to research market trends and consumer mentality to ascertain what items would sell.
To a certain extent, a fashion buyer must keep in touch with inventory management, suppliers, and even customers. Only then can they choose the right products for a store. The challenges of this career path are its high demand for communication, market research skills, and a keen eye for fashion trends. After all, you must communicate with the vendors to restock their inventory for the next season.
5. Shopping Service
A shopping service business lets you use your fashion sense to earn money. Essentially, you will charge people to let you choose their clothes for them. Of course, this business is aimed toward high-end clientele, and you will need a lot of word-of-mouth advertising. So starting with friends and family is a good idea for this business model.
The biggest advertisement for this sort of business is the person running it. You need to become your business’s billboard by constantly staying updated with the latest fashion trends. Channel your fashion sense and use it to create the most tasteful ensemble to awe the people around you.
You can then help other people look as gorgeous by selecting their clothes for them. For a price, of course. The main challenge in this business is the need to constantly stay on top of the latest trends and know where to buy which clothes. You will need extensive market knowledge that general people shouldn’t have.
You wouldn’t be selling products because your business will revolve around selling experience. Having some social media influence can also help you build your clientele.
6. Fashion Clothing Rental
Clothing rental businesses are highly versatile and offer a very friendly startup option. You could start such a business with as little as 500 dollars. Most people are familiar with formal wear rentals or wedding dress rentals, but the scope of a clothing rental business goes far beyond that.
The demand for high-end fashion is ever-increasing, but not most people have the money or the need to buy every available fashion wear for every occasion. That’s where the fashion clothing rental niche shines. You can build a business around a select few fashionable clothing and run a business by renting them out to clients.
But there are several challenges for such a business model. The first challenge is building a client base, and it’s a business that relies heavily on word-of-mouth marketing and client retention. The second challenge is maintenance, which will require a good chunk of your operational cost. You will also need to find a reliable supplier to get seasonal clothing to restock your inventory.
7. Custom Clothing
One of the most popular garment-based startups is the custom T-shirt business. The recent trend in fashion has put a lot of emphasis on individual uniqueness, so many people prefer wearing custom-made T-shirts with their own unique designs rather than mass-produced manufactured products. That opens up an excellent spot for the custom clothing business.
T-Shirts are relatively cheap to make, and the main clients of this business are actually not individual buyers but rather large organizations or teams. You will get orders for unique T-shirts for sports teams, NGOs and other organizations emphasizing collective uniformity.
T-shirts are also a fashion icon for everyone, and virtually everyone has at least some demand for a good T-shirt. It’s the go-to casual clothing for almost any occasion. So the need for T-shirts never declines, and with a bit of marketing, you can easily set up a business with a moderate amount of capital.
In fact, you don’t necessarily need to be the one manufacturing the T-shirts yourself. You can act as the intermediary or the go-between for the manufacturers and the clients. In this case, you must get a reliable distributor for custom orders. Something like MGOO custom T-shirt printing can meet your needs.
8. Garment Wholesale Business
The garments wholesale business is one of the more high-return business models, but the entry capital for such a business can be a bit much for a new startup. Essentially this business model requires you to buy fashionable clothes in bulk and then distribute them to retailers or through drop shipping.
You will need a lot of storage space to keep your stocks and connect to multiple manufacturers for custom and trendy fashion wear. Your target clients will be the small retail stores in small cities. You must purchase your supply directly from manufacturing hubs and in considerable volume to make a good profit.
The challenge of this type of business is finding reliable suppliers and also communicating with the retail outlets. Once your business grows, you will eventually need to get your supplies from overseas hubs, so this sort of business typically develops into a large-scale operation.
9. Clothing Alterations/Tailoring
Clothing alteration or tailoring businesses basically rely on your sewing skills. You will first need to offer your sewing services to the people around you and slowly build up a respectable clientele. You can save on operational costs if you turn your home into your workshop, but consider moving to a more populated area for more reach.
You can also use social media for lead generation and use your social media presence to facilitate client retention. It’s a business that requires dedication and patience. And it is also somewhat slow in the beginning. But you can eventually build it into a large-scale operation once you have enough clients. You can even hire more workers and move to a managerial position once things start kicking off.
Tailoring and alteration businesses often go hand in hand with custom clothing. You could start making your own unique products alongside offering sewing services. Small accessories like silk scrunchies and headbands have a very popular yet niche market.
10. Inclusive/Sustainable Business Model
The recent body positivity trend has created a new niche for famous branding. Such businesses should focus on supplying various body clothing sizes with inclusive designs. You can also add custom clothing alongside this to increase your market range.
The recent awareness of the sustainable movement is also something you can capitalize on. People are more aware of the environmental effects, so everyone is trying to reduce behaviors that adversely affect the planet. Resale and reusing clothes have become very popular due to such trends. You can open a resale shop to capitalize on this intrigue.
You can also offer clothing made of sustainable materials. The use of sustainable fabrics, natural color-based clothing has become incredibly popular these days. Even though it is a niche market, there’s massive untapped potential here that you can tap into.
The main challenge in this business model is lead generation. It’s hard to find clients for this particular niche at the start, but once you gain a bit of popularity, people from far and wide will seek you out for ethical fashion.
Conclusion
In short, there are plenty of clothing-inspired small business ideas for entrepreneurs to delve into. These ventures can be both challenging, yet also rewarding. But not all niches will work for people in every region, so you need to do enough market research to figure out your surrounding customer base.
At the same time, you need to consider your supplier options. The last thing you need is to run out of reliable manufacturers when your business picks up speed. In that regard, consider MGOO, as we offer manufacturing servicing, especially catering to startups.