How to Start Baby Clothing Business
If you intend to start a Baby Clothing Business, this article can be useful to you. Today there are a lot of opportunities that are available and exist when you decide to start a baby-related business. Let’s say you have been thinking of a business to start, and you aren’t so sure of the kind of business to do, then we suggest you start the baby clothing business.
The reason for this is because the baby clothing market is a high liquidity market. Hence the chances of succeeding here are relatively high.
Suppose you have been out of Job and have been seeking for a way to start a new business. You should start a baby clothing business because the business requires low startup capital and given that we live in a baby boom generation. You could start seeing progress in as little as three months.
Starting a baby clothing Business: What it involves
The baby clothing business involves you buying baby products such as clothes, toys, and other baby accessories form wholesalers and manufacturers and sell to the end-user. You could also decide to become a regional distributor or a supplier. It all depends on how serious you are about starting this business and the amount of effort you put in.
Why starting a baby clothing business is viable.
- The market is large
One factor that could hamper the success of this business and the viability is if, for some reasons, babies not born. But that seems more like a fantasy than reality because babies are born every minute of the day in someplace on earth.
On average, over 10 million babies are born daily. With these staggering statistics, it is obvious to see the limitless market scope of the baby ware industry. You will never look for customers to patronize as you are into an industry that serves a human need.
- The options it presents are enormous.
The options or opportunities provided by the baby ware industry are so vast, as you have the liberty to choose which section to go for. Let’s take, for example; you could decide to focus on baby clothes for girls or boys, or both, also you could decide to major on toys and teddy bears.
Also, you could decide to niche your business down to just tops for baby girls or boys. Or say jean for baby boys or baby girls. You could even decide to niche your business down to doing both. Formal wear is also an option.
Another option to consider when niching down is to decide on the age bracket you want to serve. You could decide to serve newborn, three months, six months or nine months babies. Niching down is a smart move if you want to succeed in the business.
Read Also: How to start a restaurant business
Requirements needed to start baby clothing business
Understand the business thoroughly
While starting a baby clothing business might seem like a straightforward business to do, you must understand that there are a lot of things that are involved in running the business smoothly and eventually becoming profitable.
Yes, you might have the required capital; however, if you rush into this business without doing your due diligence, you may come out the same way you entered or even worse.
As a newbie, you must find out those who are already into the business, go to them, watch and learn how they carry out the day – to day operations. How do they place an order for new supplies, where are the best places to buy from? Which supplier supplies quality and the best rate?
You would also need to learn where to get the latest trends and where to get quality.
Let’s assume you don’t find someone who does this business. You could take a course online, watch YouTube videos, subscribe to newsletters, and be active on social media. Most importantly read books. Just make sure you are abreast of knowledge and latest happenings in your industry. Do your homework correctly.
Select a Good Location
Positioning is one of the critical elements of running a successful baby clothing business. What’s the point of operating a business that nobody knows about? If you are going to rent a shop where you’d be operating from, then you must select a vantage point in your neighbourhood or at the market wherever your shop/office will be located.
If you are going to be operating this business from home, then you have to let people know what you are doing, your friends and family.
Another tip to employ is that you should arrange and package your clothes so well that it will be desirable to your prospective customers.
If you have enough money, we recommend that you rent an outlet in a major mall, especially popular ones.
Set up all paperwork
You should ensure get all your paperwork done correctly to prevent any legal issue with your local government. Register your business name, registering your business name ensures that you can deal with more prominent brands. You need to determine the legal structure of your baby clothing business. It can be a sole proprietorship, partnership or a limited liability company. Each of these has its pros and cons.
It is important that you register your business with relevant tax authorities both at state and federal levels. As an entity, there are certain taxes your business should pay. Also, if you hire staff working for you, you need to deduct tax from their salary which you are expected to remit to the state tax authority. Doing otherwise will be seen as tax evasion. Of course, this has its own legal implications. Also, ensure that you purchase a business operating license from your local government.
Get a business insurance policy for your baby clothing business. Insurance will cover and protect your business. As your business expands, and you get more employees, you will have to get employees compensation insurance. Your insurance agent may also have some additional insurance coverage that you can consider, such as work stoppage insurance.
It is important that you have a bank account for your business. Even though you have a personal bank account, you still need to open a separate account for your business where you can lodge all baby boutique revenues. Also, you should make all the expenses relating to the business from the account. This makes you more accountable. At the same time, it will be easier for you to source loans from the bank when needed. Furthermore, having a bank account makes it easy for your accountant to prepare the financial statements of the baby boutique.
Read Also: Checklist for Starting a Company
Build and develop your brand
Just before you start building and developing your baby clothing business, please also incorporate building your brand. You could start by creating a brand story that appeals to your intended audience. You could begin by injecting your brand ethos into everything that you right from selecting the right manufacturer and each of elements of preliminary material.
A budget
Though you have decided to start your baby clothing business, and it’s equally a great idea. However, one factor which could determine whether you succeed or not has a reasonable budget.
Even though at some point you might have to change your plans and the rest, you will need to prepare a budget that can accommodate this kind of changes. It is helpful and essential to start with some kind of budget plan in place to prepare you for what you need to spend and in which area.
Even if you’re planning to do most of the work yourself, you need to take into account how this will affect your finances and whether you’ll need to create a revenue stream in another way until the business starts to make profits.
Locate a good Manufacturer
When you’ve got your designs and some more detailed plans in place, you’ll need to find a clothing manufacturing plant to produce your baby clothes for you. Using a platform like Sewport to find clothing manufacturers, you can easily relate with small-batch manufacturers and clothing factories in your city, to help you get ahead with your production schedules.
By having contacts in the industry, Sewport makes it easy to talk to clothing suppliers, ranging from cut and sew suppliers to full kit providers, from pattern production to finished clothing and branding.
So if picking the appropriate clothing company manufacturers to work with, you will need to understand the type of relationship you want with your supplier and be open and up-to-date with your demands and timeline requirements. Also, whenever it comes to fashion, things don’t always go as planned precisely.
Get Samples Ready
Once you’ve selected the right clothing manufacturers to work with, you’ll need to start ordering for your initial samples. To see your products made up in real life will allow you to make a transformative change to the tech packs for each item, ensuring that everything from fit to trim is perfect.
“Don’t be afraid to re-sample as many times as you feel it is necessary.” A top tip from Sewport business owner Boris Hodakel, sampling is a necessary part of the journey to create a line of clothing, and it’s always better to delay the launch of the perfect product than to start with a low-standard finish due to the rush in the sampling stage.
Read Also: 22 Reasons for Small Business failure and How to Avoid Them
Get a website
Begin designing your website as early as you can in the process. Not only do you need to be doing easy things like obtaining your brand’s domain name. However, you do need to take sufficient time to build your online shop window to give your e-commerce that professional look and feel.
Tips for running a successful baby clothing business
As we have discussed before, the baby clothing business will never go out of demand. Truth is babies outgrow their clothes fast, and this is a guarantee that parents will always return to get new clothes for their young ones.
So to keep your customers satisfied and to keep coming back for more. You have to ensure that you are always stocked up always to have what they want. As long as you do this, you will always make profits.
We have helped you to outline steps you need to follow to make your business as profitable as it should.
Below are the steps that you must take:
Ensure that you offer regular discounts
Did you know that discounts are a significant deal if you deal on baby clothing? Why is this? This is because baby clothes tend to cost a lot of money, and sometimes, however, they are not going to be wearable for an extended period.
More so, in addition to offering outstanding discounts, during the holiday seasons, especially Christmas, you should offer promotions and discounts up to once or twice every month. If you consistently perform this type of action, you are likely to grow your loyal client base and keeping your people please while offering them a reason to buy in bulk from you, any time they need new clothing for their babies.
Ensure that your clothes are priced properly
As discussed previously, babies outgrow their clothes fast. This is an indication that their parents would always change their wardrobe from time to time.
As a baby clothing business owner, you ought to know that raising a child is very expensive, also with that in mind you should appropriately set your prices, hence ensure your clothes aren’t too expensive. That might chase your potential customers away.
Now some factors would affect your pricing, and they include whether the clothes are second – hand clothing, organic clothing, or designer brand clothing. We recommend that you keep variety in mind when it comes to the clothes that you would be selling.
This way, you would be able to have price segments for your products, as such were, very cheap items to the expensive designer brand of clothes. When you do this, it is a sure way to keep your customers happy.
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When stocking up your store, be fashion minded.
Now, just because babies do not know how fashionable their clothes are doesn’t mean that their parents don’t. And that also shouldn’t give you reasons not to be creative when stocking up your store.
However, when the season changes, what you should do are to ensure that the clothes you have for sale are up to date with the latest fashion trends.
If you do this, your baby clothing business will automatically gain a reputation for selling fashionable clothing items, and more parents will come bargaining in to purchase gorgeous clothes for their babies.
By using the Jiffy steamer J – 2000 clothing steamer, you could keep your clothes smelling fresh.
Most importantly, hygiene is of utmost priority when it comes to baby clothing. Did you know that babies are more sensitive than adults? Hence babies are more vulnerable to infirmities like skin irritation and rashes as well as other infectious diseases.
To establish a strong reputation for your business, as ‘the one-stop’ place for quality, fresh-smelling baby clothing, using the Jiffy steamer j – 2000, you could never be wrong. This is a laundry appliance that costs a little over $200. You could remove wrinkles, bacteria and offensive odours from the clothes you sell. (Note, only use this steamer for second – hand clothes)
Finally, by doing this, you not only secure a considerable reputation for your business, but you also build a reputable brand that catches the attention of more prominent brands.
How to operate a successful baby clothing business
You need to be versatile and have a strong strategy and management skills to succeed in a baby clothing business today. A lot of people start a company thinking they’re going just to rent an office space, turn on their laptops or open their doors and start making money, only to discover that making money in a baby clothing business is a lot more complicated than they expected. ( and this philosophy applies to every known business).
You will prevent this in your business projects by taking your time and preparing all the necessary steps to achieve success. Whatever types of business you choose to start with, using the following nine tips will help you succeed in your baby clothing business;
- Stay organized all the time.
To achieve business success, you need to be organized. It will enable you to accomplish projects and stay on top of things to be done. An excellent way to get coordinated and organized is to create a to-do list every day.
As you finish each item, please check it out of your list. This will ensure that you don’t forget anything and that you complete all the tasks that are necessary for the survival of your business.
- Ensure to keep detailed business records
Did you know that all successful businesses keep detailed records? In so doing, you will know where the business stands financially and what potential challenges you could face. Just by understanding, this allows you time to build strategies to solve these obstacles.
Read Also: Benefits of Outsourcing Bookkeeping and Accounting Functions
- Be diligent to know who your competition is?
Competition produces the best performance. You can’t be scared to take the time to learn from your competition to be successful. After all, they could be eventually doing something right that you can do in your business to make more money.
- Know the risks and rewards involved
The secret to winning is taking sensible precautions to help your business grow. A good question to ask is, “What is the downside?”If you can address these questions, then you understand what the worst-case scenario is. Such awareness will encourage you to take the kind of risk you determine that can produce enormous rewards.
Extra Tip: Recognizing the risks and rewards includes being strategic about the positioning of starting your business. For instance, has the severe economic dislocation caused by the coronavirus pandemic presented you with an opportunity (say, making and marketing face masks) or an obstacle (opening a new restaurant during a time of social distancing and cramped seating)?
- You must be very creative.
You must always seek ways to improve your business and make it stand out from the crowd. Recognize that you don’t know all about it and be open to new ideas and various perspectives to your business.
- Be focused
The old saying, “Rome was not built in a day” applies here. Just because you’re starting a baby clothing business doesn’t mean you’re going to start making money right away. It takes time for people to recognize who you are, so remain focused on achieving your short-term goals.
- Be ready to make sacrifices.
The lead-up to starting your baby clothing business is hard work, but after you open your doors, work has just begun. In so many other cases, you have to spend more time than what you would if you worked for someone else, which may mean wanting to spend less time with family and friends to be likely to succeed.
- Provide Great Service
There are so many successful baby clothing businesses that ignore the fact that providing excellent customer service is essential. When you provide good service to your customers, they will be more likely to come to you the next time they need something rather than just going to your competition.
- Try to remain consistent for as long as possible.
Consistency is a crucial component of making money out of your baby clothing business. You’ve got to keep doing what’s needed to be successful day and day out. This will build positive, long-term behaviours that will help you make money over the long term.
Vital Points to note
- Starting a baby clothingbusiness involves critical thinking, a committed organization and thorough record-keeping.
- It is necessary to be cautious of your competition and to either make your services better or enhance their positive strategies.
- You will almost certainly end up working harder for yourself than you would for someone else, so be prepared to make sacrifices in your personal life when you set up your business.
- Providing excellent service to your customers is extremely important to their loyalty and the maintenance of having a repeat business with them.
Finally, according to the U.S. data of 2019, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that nearly 20 per cent of new enterprises failed to be opened in the first two years, 45 per cent in the first five years, and 65 per cent in the first ten years.
Only 25 per cent of new businesses end up making it to 15 years or more. If you’d rather be among those 25 per cent, the logical way to get there is rigorous attention to these nine tips.
Read Also: How to Start a Mini Supermarket or Grocery Store
Conclusion
Starting and running a successful baby clothing business is super easy and straightforward. One of the most critical aspects of this business is to have a keen interest in this line of business.
It is required of every entrepreneur to have an explicit commitment to their venture. If you demonstrate this type of attitude towards your business, you’d always have a business.
Money is not required for every kind of business, what you need is first the idea, and then other things would follow. However, money is the lifeblood of every business.
Hence, do not limit yourself by thinking you don’t have enough capital to do this business. The baby clothing business, as we have mentioned above, will never go out of demand. If done correctly, you would always succeed.
