How To Start Private Label Clothing Brand From Scratch?
Updated on January 21, 2023 in Ecommerce by Nishant Shrimali
Want to learn everything about starting a private label clothing brand? You got it. Here, I am sharing everything, every step that you’ll have to take to start and scale your private label clothing brand.
So without any small talks here, let us focus on what it takes to start a private-label clothing brand from scratch in 2023.
What does Private label clothing mean?
Private label clothing means a clothing brand that sources products from a different manufacturer and sells it under its brand name.
These manufacturers may provide some level of customization depending on the contract and the brand’s request.
However, a brand won’t need to design clothing from scratch, instead just customize the blank product if they want.
It is among the top-rated business models where the most important parts of the business are branding, customer experience, and consistency of quality you deliver.
Some of the most popular private label brands in fashion are Amazon Collection, Goodthreads, Daily Rituals, and Mae.
Advantages & Disadvantages of Private Label
If you are planning to start a private-label clothing brand, it is very important to know about the pros and cons.
Advantages
Here are some advantages of starting a private label clothing brand:
- Manufacturing is outsourced. Once you ensure the quality and the type of product you are getting, you don’t have to regularly check the production unit. This removes a lot of pressure, time, and investment from your side to initially start a brand and wait for the profit.
- You control the pricing. You are the seller and the brand that is selling the product under your name. Hence you control the pricing of the products that you sell.
- Quick market response. When manufacturing is outsourced, it is easy to keep the brand on track with the market’s demand. If there is a spike in demand for a particular product, it is easier for private labels to focus and capture that demand when compared to bigger brands.
- Control over brand value. When it comes to private label clothing brands, most of the success is attributed to branding. While quality will play a role, the brand value is directly dependent on the branding-first model.
- Smaller Team. Since the most crucial part of a clothing brand is outsourced, the team required to start and manage the brand is smaller. Hence, less time in managing people and more on actually focusing on the brand’s growth.
Disadvantages
Now that we have gone through the advantages, let us focus on the disadvantages of the private label clothing brand:
- Less control on manufacturing. Since manufacturing is outsourced, it is obvious that control over the manufacturing part is less compared to owning that side of the business. While this never floats as an issue, it is still noting it down.
- Hard to gain trust. When customers are aware that you are not the one actually manufacturing the product, it’s hard to convince them of the good quality. However, the perception is changing and more people are now open to buying from private labels.
- Branding is the key. Since the brand name is the most crucial factor here, it might take some time to gain traction and gain recognition from the customer. Also, you’ll have to ensure that your brand stays relevant to your audience.
Steps For Starting A Private Label Clothing Brand From Scratch
After learning about the advantages and disadvantages of starting a private label clothing brand, we are all set to focus on steps. So without taking any more time, let us get started with:
Understanding the market
What is a customer looking for? – It is one of the most important questions that you’ll have to go through at every stage of starting a private label clothing brand. Here, it refers to the product.
The best way to find the best niche for you is
- Pick a niche that you are interested in. Be it fashion, home decor, accessories, fitness, etc. Create a list of interests and pen down the products that you use in them.
- Choose your brand product. While you can start selling multiple products when you start, it is easier and more efficient to focus on one product, build a brand around it and then upsell other products of the same category for the same audience.
- Understand its demand and supply. After choosing your main product, look at the market and understand its demand. Are other people interested in that product? If yes, is there a good supply, and are they getting what they need?
- Figure Out Your USP. If there is a demand and supply for the product, you have to figure out how well you present your products to stand out. Since there is not much that you can do with the production it will be the right time to figure out a marketing plan.
If you see that there is a demand but it is not being full-filled, it is one of the best products that you can start with. Now, if you observe less demand for the product, you shall move to the next product or the category from the list you created in the first step.
Pick your target audience
Once you know what product you are ready to sell for your private label clothing brand, it’s time to point out to the audience to whom you’ll be selling it.
For example, if you are selling fitness products like yoga mate, your target audience would look like: Gender – Male, Female or others, Age Group – 20 – 35, Interest – Yoga, Location – LA, USA.
Now people even beyond these demographics can buy from you through the internet. But the particular group that we are targeting is the people who are most likely to buy the product.
You’ll be building your whole brand around your target audience and their interest. Hence, it becomes very important that you know exactly who you are targeting.
Likes, dislikes, pain points, interests, and everything that you’ll know about your target audience will help you create a better marketing strategy.
Create a business plan
This is where you’ll be creating and laying out your whole business and how you’ll be starting, running, and scaling your private label clothing brand.
While it is recommended to have a detailed approach to this step, it is also recommended to keep it flexible. In case there is a change in people’s perspectives and the demand, you must be able to shift with what a customer is looking for.
I’ll recommend setting up goals for each stage of your business, setting a realistic timeline, and then figuring out the methods to achieve those goals.
The plan should also highlight your business expenses, sourcing, current financial position, the funding required, and plans to get those funding.
Find your manufacturer
Now comes the most important part of starting a private label clothing brand from scratch. There are two ways to go about it.
First, look out for a manufacturer in your city, state, or country. There are various local manufacturers that you can get in touch with your requirements and budget.
Get pricing, minimum order value, turnaround time, designs, quality, and more.
In case you can’t find local manufacturers, you can look out for online brands providing private labels. Some of the most popular private label clothing manufacturers are Apliiq, Alanic Clothing, Four Fashion, and Contrado.
Contact the manufacturers, negotiate the pricing, and discuss all the necessary details like the cost of shipping, minimum order value, scalability, turnaround time, quality, consistency, and information specific to your product and its care.
Here you can also ask for sample products and give custom requirements and once everything is finalized go ahead with the next step.
Setting up your store
At first, it is all about getting started and validating the business plan for a private-label clothing brand. Set up your store using Shopify, choose a free theme, customize your theme using free tools, upload high-quality product images and start marketing your store.
If you have a budget, you can also start running paid ads in order to bring traffic and attract customers. All this is done to know if your business plan will work.
Since, no major investment has been made, in case you are not seeing the result you can figure out the reason why people are not buying the product and work on it or start again from the scratch.
You have to be fair at this stage as going ahead will require a lot of time and probably investment. Be very calculated with decisions and choose the next step.
Marketing and Branding
It is the final but continuous step for your private label clothing brand. Once you see that people are interested in buying what you are selling, it is time you start focusing on building a brand.
Look at your target audience and figure out where can you reach out to them, attract them to the product and persuade them to buy your products.
Branding plays a key role in moving ahead. At PixelPhant I have previously shared How to Build Your Branding Strategy For Fashion eCommerce that you must read if building a fashion brand.
Bonus read
Starting a private label clothing brand can really help you get started in the fashion industry at minimum investment. But as said, you’ll have to work on your product presentation and branding to convince people of the quality of the product they are seeing.
Product photo editing will play a vital role here. Your product photo is a reflection of the quality of the product you are selling. The better and more professional they look, the better it is to build trust among your customers.
And in doing so, PixelPhant can be your photo editing partner. PixelPhant is a leading product photo editing service that is working with some of the fastest fashion growing eCommerce selling their products across the globe.
We can help your get started with your private label clothing brand with high-quality, professional-looking images with our product photo editing service. Take a free trial now👇.
Beautiful product images across your website.
Background Removal, Clipping Path, Color Correction, Cropping & Resize, Retouching, adding Shadows, and more.
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