If you have a small clothing line, you know that the cost of materials, manufacturing, and warehousing can be overwhelming. The odds of a new clothing business succeeding are slim if you go about it traditionally. Fortunately, internet technology enables new fashion designers to introduce and sell their products to the public for little or no money. If you have always had the perfect idea for a fashion line, launch your company with the help of an on-demand printer.
On-Demand Printers Function as Warehouses and Shipping Services
An on-demand printer is an online company that will let you upload your original designs to its website and print them out for clothing, cups, and accessories. You can also create a design on the website using the tools that the company provides.
The on-demand company will have a huge warehouse filled with t-shirts, sweatshirts, jackets, and even sneakers in many different colors and sizes. They should also have tote bags and blankets. They will ship your products on-demand to your customers. People will order your products as they need them. You will never have to worry about being stuck with a garage full of t-shirts that nobody wants.
The Rent Is Low on an eCommerce Store
Once you have created a design and selected an article of clothing or two on which it will appear, you will want to find a place to sell it. Before the internet came along, designers had to find a shop that would buy some of their clothing wholesale. This was hard to do because the shop was taking a chance that their clothes would sell. In some cases, designers would open their own shops only to have them fail months later.
Nowadays, you can open an e-commerce store for very little investment. There are several different e-commerce platforms to choose from. Most of them will give you a two-week trial to get everything set up. After that, you will pay a monthly fee. Most small business stores pay around $24 to $50 a month.
The eCommerce platform will have several different themes for you to choose from. A theme is a layout for your web store. You should start by offering just five or six products. It is a good idea to have two or three designs on four or five articles of clothing. You do not want to overwhelm people when they visit your store. You should only offer your product in one or two colors.
T-shirts are a great product to start out with. They look good on most people and they are inexpensive. The customer will not feel like they are taking too much of a risk when they order one of your shirts.
You should be able to add a button to your store that will connect directly to the on-demand printer. When someone wants to order a shirt, they will simply click on the button, select the product they want, and enter their credit card information.
The on-demand company will take the cost of printing and shipping out of the money that the customer paid for their shirt.
Low Advertise Costs
You can post pictures of your products on your social media pages to get people to your website. If you are on Facebook, be sure to join groups that are likely to have people who will buy your shirt as members. For example, if your shirt proclaims a love of hiking, join Facebook hiking groups. You can also post pictures of your shirts on Pinterest.
On-demand printers make it easy to get into the fashion world without running the risk of losing your shirt.
Featured Image Source: Unsplash
