13 Tips to Start a Clothing Line

I thought this would be a interesting post. Most of my friends are designers with hopes of developing their own clothing line someday. Well here are 13 tips from a few people who have done it and letting you know what NOT & what TO do in starting a line. I will post more at a later time. Read up:

1. Not performing a background check on stores before offering them consignment and they stiff you on the billed goods. This happen to my business in the first month!

2. Not having sufficient cash flow to fill re-orders of popular clothing styles and giving the retailer a bad impression of your clothing business, therefore jeopardizing the chance of a reorder next season. At one time I missed out on a $10,000 order…needless to say I was depressed.

3. Letting family members work for me! Big mistake they will run all over you if you let them

4. Using to much money on promotions and marketing just because you have it, then to later on find out about all kinds of free ways of reaching the masses without spending a penny with a little hard work. Sometimes its better to have less money starting out it will teach you to budget and once your properly financed you will appreciate it and balance the financial side of your clothing business much better

5. Not researching a manufacturer before using them for production

6. Spending so much time on designs, and promotions while forgetting about the importance of monitoring what you spend so that you can improve your profit margins$$$

7. I sold to the first store that came calling not the worst scenario, but in my case it wasn’t the best move. I was excited at the fact that a store wanted to sell my line without thinking if it was a fit for the market I was targeting

8. Creating a business plan from the beginning. This isn’t a must, but your day to day flow goes much better, because you have a better understanding of what must be performed in order to reach your ultimate goal. Plus investor wouldn’t take you serious without it…so why would anybody else?

9. Not acknowledging your competition

10. Walking into stores and not setting appointments before hand. Buyers hate that! It’s very unprofessional. Buyers want you on their schedule and because you’re a new company, plus you want their business they have the upper hand

11. Not setting goals for your company. This is a terrible mistake, because in order to grow/build a company you must know what your working toward. Its like your blueprint to success

12. Creating a online presence for your clothing line. Without a website your missing out on reaching an audience that you probably couldn’t sell too as a start up clothing company, because most of your accounts will probably be local. I know you don’t want to miss out on a potential sell?

13. Limiting your knowledge and potential by not asking experienced professionals for information, or not performing an act, because you have too much pride. When starting a business there will be plenty of days when you do stuff that you normally wouldn’t want to. You are just limiting your chance of building up to a great opportunity by being hard headed thinking inside the box instead of out.