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START ACLOTHING

LINEA Crash Course

How to design, promote, manufacture and sell

your own clothing

Tim Clarke

Get the full version of this book from

www.start-a-clothing-line.com

Visit the companion site for additional material, tips and tutorials, sample forms, and lots more useful resources for starting and

running your own clothing company.

IntroductionSome words by the author 1

Some words about this book 3

Section One: Researching And PlanningYour Target Market

Who is going to wear your clothing? 6

Identifying your market area 6

Knowing your Customers inside out 7

Gathering information on your customers 11

Market research reports 13

Undertaking a customer analysis 14

An example survey 14

Making sense of the results 19

Your Competitors

Who are your competitors? 20

Identifying your direct competitors 21

Important questions you should answer 22

Analyzing your direct competitors 24

Planning the year ahead

Working in Season 27

The design Calendar 28

Creating your plan 36

Table Of Contents

Section Two: Product DevelopmentCreating Your Brand

What is branding? 38

The elements of a brand 38

Analyzing Brands 40

Developing Your Own Brand 41

Key areas to consider in a brand 41

How you want your brand to be viewed 43

Choosing a brand name 43

Creating a logo 44

Creating an overall theme 44

Creating your identity 45

Working with a designer 45

Protecting your brand 46

Identifying your brands unique selling proposition

What is a USP? 45

Positioning Yourself within the market 45

The Design Process

Future trend predictions 47

Design planning 49

How are ranges planned by designers 51

Table Of Contents

Outsourcing For Design

Design in house or outsource? 54

Finding a designer 55

Creating a design brief 55

Sampling Your Products

What is a sample? 56

Why you need samples 56

Where to get samples made 56

Design Protection and copyright

Understanding Intellectual Property 57

Design rights 58

Registered design 58

How to register designs 58

Unregistered intellectual property 59

Protecting yourself with unregistered design 59

Self copyright 60

Trademarks 61

Confidentiality agreements 61

Section Three: Promoting YourselfMarketing

What is marketing? 64

The marketing mix 65

Table Of Contents

Types of promotion 66

Above the line and below the line 68

Creating A Company Profile

What is a company profile? 70

The Key contents in your profile 71

Writing your company profile 72

Advertising

What is advertising? 72

Types of advertising 73

Brand awareness versus direct response advertising 75

Do you need to advertise? 77

Creating your advertisement 78

Eliminating noise 80

Understanding where to place your advertising 80

Testing and measuring responses 80

Public relations

Press release 81

What your press release should say? 82

Writing a press release? 83

Press release example 85

Sending out your press release 86

Table Of Contents

Building a web site

Why you need a web site 87

The purpose of your web site 87

What content should be on your site 88

How your site should be designed 90

Giving your web site credibility 91

Online sales 92

Getting traffic on to your site 93

Email marketing

What is email marketing 94

Creating a mailing list 95

Digital Brochures

What is a digital version of your promotional material? 96

Trade Shows

What is a trade show? 97

Choosing a show? 98

Setting your goals 98

What to consider before booking a show 99

Budgeting for your trade show 100

Planning your stand 101

What to do at the trade show 102

What to do after the trade show 102

Table Of Contents

Section Four: Selling Your ProductRetail Hit List

Where to sell your product 105

How to find stores 105

Creating a retail hit list 106

Store Analysis

Which stores are suitable for your product 107

Undertaking a store analysis 108

Creating A Look Book

What is a look book and what is it used for? 109

How you should present your look book 109

Preparing To Approach A Buyer

Pre-sales promotion 110

Pre-approaching the buyer 112

What you need to know about your company 113

What you need to know about the buyer 115

What to do before approaching a buyer 117

Understanding How A Buyer works

Understanding the buyer 119

Why a buyer might choose your product 119

Making The Call

Approaching the buyer 122

Table Of Contents

How to deliver your pitch 123

What to do after the call 126

The Meeting

Meeting the buyer 126

What to do before the meeting 127

What to do in the meeting 127

Closing The Deal

Why must you close the deal? 129

Ways to close a deal 130

Why people might say yes 130

When you should close 131

Handling objection 132

Why people might say no 132

The ʻI want to think about itʼ excuse 133

What to do after the order 134

Using An Agent

How sales agents work 134

Advantages of using an agent 135

Disadvantages of using an agent 135

How to find an agent 136

Working with agents 136

Table Of Contents

Section Five: Production ManagementSourcing Materials

Planning your production 138

How are materials sourced? 138

The supply chain 139

Lead times 140

Minimum orders 140

Ethical supply chains 141

Production routes

What is a production route? 141

In-house production 142

Outworkers 142

Specialist CMT units 142

Screen printers 143

Contract Manufacturing 144

Mass Producing Your Clothing

Choosing a factory 144

Key questions to ask a CMT unit 146

Key questions to ask a screen printers 148

Key questions to ask a factory 150

Basic factory evaluation checklist 152

Table Of Contents

Production And Management Techniques

The critical path analysis 153

Managing a critical path 154

Quality control 157

Quality control checklist 158

Creating specifications 158

The spec sheet 159

Details to give a factory 159

Details to give a screen printers 162

Preparing goods for retail

Pricing garments 163

Care labels 164

Swing tags 166

Table Of Contents

IntroductionSome words by the author

he first time I tried to start a clothing line was about four years before I succeeded in started my own clothing line. Being a

young punk, I had been interested in customized clothing for many years making up my own T-shirts by drawing straight on to them with fabric paint and marker pens. I had absolutely no experience with screen printing, fashion or business, but I had decided that I wanted to start my own clothing line regardless.

I came up with some good ideas, well, the kind of good ideas you look back on four years later and laugh over, and set out to start my own clothing line. I contacted a charity that assists small businesses and pitched my idea to them. They were interested and invited me to discuss things further. This particular charity is a well known and a well established organization that I will not mention by name. The charity handed me a large amount of money. Yes, gave me money just like that. Well, okay lent me the money on the conditions that;

A. They teamed me up with a mentor of their choosing for the first few years of my business.

B. That I had a business bank account, and,

C. That I have a commercial office or studio space.

So I set out to obtain these things so I could receive my cash. The business account was easy. I also managed to quickly find studio space which offered mentoring as part of its service and they were very eager to get me in to fill one of their empty studios. So, the charity handed me the large amount of cash and sent me on my

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way, all in the time scale of a few weeks. Why cannot everything in life just be this easy!

Before I had even started, I lost around one-third of the money for a months rent on the studio and the deposit. I started to buy Items that I needed; a computer, for the designs; a scanner; a printer; a desk; business cards and so on.

The truth is, I had no idea what I was doing, money was going down fast with rent and utilities whilst I was trying to get designs together and some kind of plan. I had two mentors that I had to see regularly, one from the charity and one from the studio. Combining their two personalities was like dealing with someone with bipolar disorder.

Everything that one mentor had said to me had directly contradicted the other mentorʼs advice. On one hand I was being given extremely conservative advice and negative criticism on everything I proposed that I was going to do. On the other side of the polar I was being given positive reactions with careless enthusiasm. I was not convinced by either of them.

Confused and reluctant to take steps, money disappeared fast and before I knew It I was broke with nothing to show for my efforts. I left the studio, gave my business some thought for a while before giving up completely and spending the next year paying the charity back with interest for my wasted time.

Over the next few years I would grow wiser. I learnt that the organization that had given me money worked more like a business than a charity, they were about profit. They have to ʻstart upʼ a certain number of businesses each month, reach their quota or risk losing their jobs. When I applied for assistance, it is obvious now that they must have been considerably behind with their quota, which is why I was promptly pushed through their system. The

2

mentors that volunteered were failures in the industry, not even capable of guiding their own careers let alone my business. It had been a disaster, a waste of time and money and I was left with a feeling of discontent towards starting a clothing line that stayed with me for a long time.

I spent the next few years learning. I went to college to study graphics and later worked as a graphic designer for a printing company and learnt commercial design and about the print industry. I then moved to becoming a web designer for a marketing and video production company where I learnt a more hands on approach to marketing. I also working on product development and brand promotion. I continued to learn, reading book after book, learning how to screen print and about the textile and fashion industry.

Four years later and I got my confidence back to give starting a clothing line another shot. What had I learnt from my experiences? Definitely how NOT to start a clothing line. However, I had also learnt that if you want to do something in your life and make it on your own two feet, then you have to do it yourself, put in the hard work and not expect other people to do it for you. This time around, I did things my way. I had very little money to invest but I had everything I needed with my experiences and all that I had learnt along the way.

My name is Tim Clarke and I am a graphic artist. For me, it is not about trying to make my first million, its not about the big chain stores or the big name celebrities. Its all about doing what I love and doing what I love the best I can.

Some words about this book

Welcome to Start A Clothing Line and thank you for buying this book. This is a crash course on how to plan, design, promote, sell

3

and manufacture your own clothing and to get it sold in stores. The book is aimed at the enthusiastic beginner that wants to create their own career within the clothing industry and it will take you through all the basics of what you should know so that you do not make the same mistakes and have the same misconceptions that so many people have when attempting to start their own line.

This book is the result of what I have learnt from many years of research and education. I have also drawn upon my own experiences of starting a clothing line to give you a complete crash course and guide that will give you a solid foundation to build your own project upon.

The web site, start-a-clothing-line.com, is built around the use of this book offering you a course to work through as you read this book and additional resource material that extends on the subjects covered in this book. The web site is regularly updated with new information and articles, so remember to add it to your bookmarks on your favorite browser and continue to use the resources available online.

I made this book in black and white specifically so you can print it out at home. Use a hole puncher to make holes on the left side of the paper and put them into a binder. Keep a pen with you as you work through the book. Make notes, fill in the tasks and highlight any important areas as you work through the book.

I hope you enjoy reading this book just as much as I enjoyed writing it and I hope you get as much out of it as I did too. I like to hear your opinions so If you have any comments, ideas on how this book or the web site can be improved or just want to say hello, you can write to me by email from tim@start-a-clothing-line.com. Okay, now lets get on with it.

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Section One

Researching And Planning

Recognize who is going to buy your clothing

Gather information about your customers

Discover who your competitors are

Start planning key dates for the season ahead

Section One: Researching The Market

5

Your Target MarketWho is going to wear your clothing?

he first time I started making clothing, I overlooked the question ʻwho am I selling to?ʼ This seems like an obvious

question, but I just guessed that there are many people like me. One of the reasons that I wanted to make my own clothing was because I wanted to create the type of designs that I wanted to wear, and I admittedly did not excessively think about the kind of designs that other people wanted to wear. So I made clothing for myself.

Now I am not saying that there is anything wrong with this. Even now I make a compromise between what sells and what I want and it has become a part of my unique selling proposition. It ʻkeeps it realʼ as some might say.

However, before you go out and make production runs in their thousands, it is a good idea to know that there are people who are going to buy your clothing and how and why those particular people buy the clothing that they do. Are people going to buy into your ideas or do you need to adjust your designs to make a compromise?

Identifying the market area

When most people start their own clothing line, they will usually create designs for the segment in the market that they fit into. This is because this segment has the type of fashion that they are personally interested in. This can be a good thing. Why can it be a good thing? Because you already know your market, you already know you and the people that will wear your clothing.

Section One: Researching The Market

6

T

Segmentation in clothing styles is like looking at genres in music. Clothing and fashion is an ever changing and evolving industry, yet the fundamentals of segmenting will always stay the same.

It goes something like this;

Market Market Segments Specific Target Market

To put this into the context of genres of music to explain this better. The market would be the obvious differences in styles which may be Electronic, County & western or rock music. If we choose rock as our market, we are then left with segments or genres within rock music. These could be Punk Rock, Heavy Metal or Classic Rock. If we then choose Punk Rock we can then continue and split that up into different styles, Pop Punk, Post Punk and Hardcore Punk, in which choosing one of these will then become our specific target market.

Rock Punk Rock Pop punk

Identify your market by first looking at the main styles in fashion. Break this down into the groups within that market. Then identify the different segments within that group.

Knowing your customers inside out

You should now know what group of people or target market that you are planing to sell your products to. Take this group and think about the people within it. You need to get to know them inside out, discover their lifestyle and their habits. You need to find out as much as you can about them and fully understand them as people. This will allow you to fully understand their needs and wants as people. The needs and wants are the fundamentals to the decisions that people will make when purchasing or not purchasing your clothing as the case may be. The ʻneedsʼ people have are

Section One: Researching The Market

7

decided for more practical reasons. This could be workwear for example or could be that the clothing offers a feature that fits into the buyers practical needs such as added warmth or water resistance. A ̒wantʼ is a a type of clothing that appeals to them as a desire to own it which is the most common factor for us in any buying decision.

Knowing your customers will also allow you to have the knowledge that you need to be able to position yourself and your brand so that you can get the attention of the types of people that you are targeting and appeal to their tastes. How old are they?

Find out what the common ages are of the people that buy and wear the type of clothing that you want to make and work out an age range. You will then be able to use this information to place your brand and your products in front of them. For example, if the common age of buying your clothes is 40-50 year olds, you will be wasting your time and money putting advertisements in a magazine that is targeted towards 13-21 year olds. You should also understand that peopleʼs buying habits and social characteristics greatly differ between ages.

Where do they hang out?

Knowing what clubs or bars they hang out at or what places they eat out at will give you some idea as to where you could promote yourself either with flyers, advertising or even sponsorship.

Where do they shop?

Knowing what stores or what type of stores they buy from is very useful information for you to have. These will be the stores that you will analyze and try to sell your own products to.

Section One: Researching The Market

8

What are their preferred labels?

Knowing what labels they buy will let you know which brands are your competitors and which labels your clothing could sit next to in stores.

What price points do they buy into?

Price points are the cost of your garment that creates the most demand for your products. If your prices are too high then your customers may buy an item more in their price range. If the price is too low then you may give your brand a reputation of inferiority compared to your competitors and reduce the value of your products in your customers minds.

What products are they currently buying?

Understanding which products they are buying will help you create your range. This could be styles or types of printed design. This could also be variations of typical items such as hats, shoes, bags and belts. More specifically you should also be looking at trends within styles. For example this could be a tight fit of traditional items, or clothing that is modified to hang loosely.

How often do they shop?

How often do they buy new clothes? Every week? Once a month? Every six months? Once a year? This may help you plan your range and your quantities. It may also give you an insight into if you should be planing for midseason top up sales.

When are they most likely to buy clothes?

Are they more likely to buy clothes in season? Off season? In sales? Summer? Winter? This answer will help you plan your

Section One: Researching The Market

9

season and will also help you to plan which season to launch your range.

Multiple purchases or key items?

Do they pick out key items or do they buy multiple items? What quantities of clothing do they generally buy in one visit? Should you be creating a range of outfits or just concentrating on one key part of an outfit? Different groups have different buying habits. Certain groups will buy multiple items from your range. However, some groups are more likely to be selective when choosing key items to construct their own overall outfit. This is something to find out and keep in mind when you are putting together your range.

What media do they take an interest in?

Which magazines do they buy? What music do they listen to? Do they watch the news? The entertainment news? Do they read newspapers? Which ones? What TV shows do they watch? Which channels? Are they internet users? Do they use Youtube? This information will be crucial when devising a marketing strategy, especially if you plan to advertise, as it will allow you to place your brand targeted at your specific audience.

What else do they buy into?

What are other aspects associated with their lifestyle? Tattoos? Piercing? A certain sport? Cars? Having this information can help you position your products and can also give your products a path into their lifestyle.

What culture is associated with the group?

Is there any type of culture or history associated with the group? Japanese pop? Alchemy? 1950s culture? 70ʼs style? Again, this will help you position your products.

Section One: Researching The Market

10

What is their disposable income?

It is always good to know how much money they have available to spend every month. Generally, a younger market will have more of a disposable income. A 21 year old without commitments, living with their parents and working full time will have a much higher disposable income than someone who is 32 with three children and a mortgage. Understanding these aspects of a persons lifestyle will give you more of an insight into your customerʼs decision making process.

As a brief example, the 21 year old will make the decision much more quickly and spontaneously. This person is much more likely to buy into a product with added value through branding and is also more likely to just go ahead and buy multiple items without a complex decision making process on which product to purchase. Generally, the 32 year old will have more of a thought process in their decision making and pick out certain key items. They will buy less often and are possibly likely to purchase more affordable items. They are unlikely to buy spontaneously and will usually come back after shopping around first. Of course there are many other factors to take into account when understanding the complexity of decision making.

Gathering information on your customersThe best way to get this information is to ask them. There are a number of ways you can do this. The first is to print out a survey and go to the places that your group can be found. This could be the stores that they buy from, the mall or college. You may need to ask for permission to conduct surveys in certain areas like stores or clubs. Remember to ask your friends, family and acquaintances to take your survey as well to get you started.

Section One: Researching The Market

11

A second way is to put your survey online. You can use a service which allows you to create forms online and post the links to your survey without the need of your own web site or server. There are plenty of services on the internet, so get searching. You can also use social networking sites as well. Post your survey as a bulletin and get people to fill it out and pass it on to their friends. Remember you will need a way of getting these answers back, so allow bulletin comments or pursued people to send the answers back to you by email.

I recommend conducting your survey both online and offline. Take into account characteristics about your market that you already know before concentrating on one area. For example, if your marketʼs age group is 50 and above then generally most of those individuals may not be so internet savvy and will not usually take online surveys which will greatly degrade the quality of your results.

There is no reason why you cannot get creative with how you get your answers. Instead of going around with a clipboard and a pen, try taking a voice recorder around with you and interviewing people, or even a video recorder.

If you already have samples of your products, try setting up a small stall, either to sell products or to get some valuable opinions about your own designs at the same time. If you are struggling to generate willing participants for your survey, try giving away something free. Doing this could also be a good marketing opportunity. The gift should be something of value or usefulness to your market such as a bottle opener or pocket mirror. If it is a pin or sticker it should contain interesting artwork or a good design. However, essentially, it must contain your web site address or your brand name and logo. Ideally both. You want people to remember you.

Section One: Researching The Market

12

Get the full version of this book from

www.start-a-clothing-line.com

Visit the companion site for additional material, tips and tutorials, sample forms, and lots more useful resources for starting and

running your own clothing company.

Section Two

Product Development

Create your brandWork out what makes you differentDesign your clothing range and make samplesProtect your ideas from being stolen

Section Two: Product Development

37

Creating Your BrandWhat is branding

hen people think of branding they will usually think of the colors, logos, symbols and fonts as how we recognize

brands. Although your brand as a whole will go much deeper than just the colors and shapes. If you want to gain a good reputation and appeal to the types of people that you are selling to, then you will need to understand how branding works.

Branding is how an organization is viewed by a consumer and how consumers will position that company within their mind. It is how they will subconsciously associate expected experiences with that company and automatically form an opinion about them. The associations with that brand could either be positive or negative and how your customer comes to these conclusions is based on their experiences, conventions and conditioning.

Your brand is not just simply determined by color and shape, it is every aspect of your organization and it creates and maintains your reputation, reflecting the experiences of everyone that interacts with you. The design element of branding allows you to have some control over how your brand is seen. However, a strong brand is developed over time by keeping consistency and delivering its promises to its customers.

The elements of a brand

The Brand

When people talk about ʻthe brandʼ they are referring to a symbolic representation of all the information about your organization collected together. It can be split into five different areas, the brand

Section Two: Product Development

38

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name, brand experience, brand image, brand identity and brand promise. Each part of your brand is equally as important to create a strong brand as a whole that will be recognized by your audience.

Brand Name

The brand name is the written or spoken part of your brand. It is important to decide on a name that is consistent with the rest of your brand and reflects what you do. The brand name is also important because it is what is most recognized as your trade mark. Although, it should be noted that a trademark can be much more than a name and can consist of lettering style, colors, shapes or even sounds and characters.

Brand experience

The brand experience is the psychological experience that people have when coming in to contact with your brand. You will need to try your best to make this experience as positive as it possibly can be. This could be from delivering on time to greeting people with a smile. All the small experiences are just as important to give your customers a good experience as well as any one else that interacts with your brand.

Brand Image

The brand image is the symbolic view of your organization in the minds of the people that come in to contact with your brand. It is a collection of all the information and expectations associated with your brand. You will need to develop expectations from your brand promise behind the brand experience that will then create an impression of certain characteristics or qualities which will then become your brandʼs image.

Section Two: Product Development

39

Brand Identity

Your brandʼs identity is the basis of your customers recognizing you. It is the parts of your brand that you put forward and these can be visual or audio. Your task is to bridge the gap between your brand identity and brand image so that whenever someone comes into contact with your identity they automatically get the impressions that you want them to get.

Brand promise

A brand promise is closely linked to the brand experience and you should be keeping your promise with everything that people experience with your brand. It is a statement that tells your customers what they should expect. This can sometimes be seen in a tag-line or slogan but is often given in associations. It is important that you keep this promise constantly to meet your customers expectations and to build up a strong brand.

Analyzing brands

You should take a look at some existing brands and analyze them. It does not matter what types of brands you choose or if they are clothing brands or not. Try to choose brands that you are already familiar with and have had experience with so that you can analyze these brands from a customerʼs point of view.

If you are not sure where to look for the bands that you want to analyze, try looking on their company web site or at any promotional literature you can find. You should also look at the brandʼs products, either at home or in stores. Also, look out for advertising and commercials associated with the brand.

Section Two: Product Development

40

Get the full version of this book from

www.start-a-clothing-line.com

Visit the companion site for additional material, tips and tutorials, sample forms, and lots more useful resources for starting and

running your own clothing company.

Section Three

Promoting yourself

Work out your marketingWays that you can promote yourselfMake your company profilePromote yourselfBuild a web siteAttending trade shows

Section Three: Promoting Yourself

63

MarketingWhat is marketing?

arketing is an important part of any business and without some kind of marketing in place your business would not be

able to survive. But what is marketing? In basic terms, it is the two way communication between your company and your market. Any aspect of your company that has anything to do with giving out a message or receiving a message is a part of marketing.

Marketing management therefore is to control the message that your market receives, and to receive and decipher the messages that your market gives to you. To put this in more detail, the role of marketing in your business is to:

Attract new customers

It is very rare that a customer will come to you so you will need to go to them and tell them what you can offer them.

Keep customers

You need to use your marketing to keep customers. This could be by continually reminding them of your existence and also reminding them why they like your brand or offering them a reward for being loyal.

Understand your customers

People change, situations change and trends change. With these changes your customers individual needs change which means that you should keep up to date with what is going on with your market and what they are buying.

Section Three: Promoting Yourself

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The marketing mix

There are four Pʼs in marketing which are the tools that you will use to grow your business and your customer base. Getting the right combination of this marketing mix will put you in the right position in the market place. The four Pʼs stand for Product, Price, Place and promotion.

Product

The product is the item of clothing that you are selling. By listening to your customers needs and delivering what they want into the market place, you are on the right track.

Price

The second part of the marketing mix is to get the price right. Price is how much your customers will pay for your products. There are many factors that you should consider when pricing your products which I will discus in more detail later in this book.

Place

This is where you will sell your products and is often referred to as the distribution channel of your products. It is important to make sure your products are sold in the right place.

Promotion

The way in which you will tell the market about your clothing and the benefits of your brand are through promotion. In this section of the book I will discuss promotion and the different ways in which you can promote yourself.

Section Three: Promoting Yourself

65

Types of promotion

When deciding on the what type of promotion to use, you need to take into account the nature of the garments, what stage they are at in their life cycle and what money you have available to invest. There are many forms of the promotional mix and these are usually split into two different groups, ʻabove the lineʼ and ʻbelow the lineʼ promotion.

Advertising

Advertising is a visual message used in magazines, on TV commercials, billboards and radio commercials.

Public Relations

Public relations is a way of gaining exposure through topics of interest. This can be seen as magazine articles, newspaper stories, radio and TV interviews.

Publicity

Publicity is using sponsorships to gain credibility. This can be seen when celebrities or music groups wear certain brands that they have been sponsored to wear. Sponsorship can be very expensive if you are trying to get a big name celebrity to endorse your brand. However, why not try giving away your clothing for free to smaller music groups that fit in to your target market.

Section Three: Promoting Yourself

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Internet

Online promotion and e-marketing is becoming increasingly important and it is almost at the point where if a company does not have a web site it arouses suspicion to the credibility of that company. Internet marketing can also include e-commerce, email marketing and pay per click advertising.

Word Of Mouth

Word of mouth is essentially when one person not associated with your company recommends or tells someone about your brand. Personal endorsement is much more powerful and plays a much larger role in buying decisions than any advertising you may do.

The problem with word of mouth is that it is impossible to control or create and the only way you are going to entice people to say great things about you is by offering a good quality product and good service to all of your customers.

It should also be noted that word of mouth will also work in reverse and anyone that has had bad experiences with your brand will let this be known to people that they come into contact with.

Point Of Sale

Known in the industry as POS, a point of sale is associated with the physical place in which the product is purchased. This can mean the retail store or the checkout counter but more commonly refers to a manufactureʼs display used for sales promotion. Think about walking around a store, the cardboard shapes that products sit in or light boxes displaying the brand name. These are examples of Point Of Sale.

Section Three: Promoting Yourself

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Direct sales

Direct sales is approaching people directly with a sales pitch with a common form of this being telephone sales, those annoying people that call you at home and try to sell you insurance. If you want to get your clothing into stores, you may be doing a lot of this.

Direct Mail

More popular before the rise of the internet, direct mail is sending promotional literature through the postal service or snail mail as it is sometimes called today. Direct mail offers a higher quality image that your customer can hold in their hands, such as a brochure or catalogue, and its benefits over email are that it is more likely to be looked at. A downside is that it is highly expensive to use as a mass mailing strategy and is being used less and less by marketers. However, this method can be more useful as a follow up method.

Above the line and below the line

When people talk about ʻabove the line promotionʼ, they are talking about types of promotion that use the media to communicate with the market. When we talk about media we are referring to mass forms of public communication like TV, radio, magazines, newspapers and the internet.

ʻBelow the line promotionʼ refers to methods of promotion used that do not use mass media and are usually short term incentives to ʻbribeʼ customers to buy products. Examples of below the line promotion are coupons, price promotions, free gifts, loyalty schemes and competitions.

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Section Four

Selling Your Product

Find stores to sell toAnalyze which stores are appropriateCreate a look bookPrepare to approach buyersPitch to prospectsSell clothing to storesUse agents to sell your clothing

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Retail Hit listWhere to sell your products

fter all the time you have put into designing and promoting your clothing range it is now time to sell your ideas and get

your clothing stocked onto the shelves of stores. The first aspect of selling that you are going to need to know is who you are going to sell your products to.

To achieve this, you are going to create a list of stores that you are going to attempt to sell your products to, known as your retail hit list. You will then work through this list, calling the stores with your pitch to set up meetings to sell those stores your clothing.

How to find stores

From your initial research, that you did in section one of this book, you should already have an idea of the stores that you want to sell to. You need to compile a list from the answers that you received from your survey and you will also need to extend onto the list so that you can create a comprehensive directory of retail stores appropriate for delivering your sales pitch to.

There are many resources available to you to find stores. Try searching the internet for directories and store web sites. Also look in printed trade directories which will give you a list of clothing stores in that area covered by the directory. Your local library may have business directories from other areas. Alternatively online versions can now be found on the internet.

Trade DirectoriesExhibition catalogues

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A

InternetFriendsMagazines

Creating your retail hit list

You should aim to list at least 100 stores in every major city that you choose to distribute your products to. You should also be entering into selling your products with the expectations that most of these prospective customers on your list will fall through.

An example of how this may work is that by calling 100 stores with your pitch you might only convince 20 of those stores to meet with you. Out of those 20, 10 are then interested but only five give you a confirmed sale. This is sometimes referred to as the backwards plan.

This realism will stop you from being disappointed later on with the pain of rejection, which is one of the biggest hazards of direct sales. You should learn not to take this rejection personally, as it is not directed at you, and know that every ʻnoʼ will take you closer to a ʻyesʼ.

Keep your list organized. Create categories by city and then sub categorize stores as appropriate. For each listing you will need their full contact information which includes a contact name of the buyer if this information is available. Make sure that you include the full address of the store, a contact telephone and if they have a web site, the URL and an email address.

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A Store AnalysisWhich stores are suitable for your products

Undertaking a store analysis will help you to determine which stores are suitable for your product and will also give you invaluable information about those stores. You can then use this information to put yourself at an advantage and use it in your selling technique. You should do basic research on all the stores on your list and you can research each store by visiting them or taking a look on their web site to find the information that you require.

Does the store sell to the same market as you?

Usually the answer to this question is obvious. For example, if your range is theatrical based then attempting to sell to a sports store will be a waste of your time and theirs. Sometimes the answer to this question is not so obvious and at these times you should use your own instinct or use the answers from the other questions to assist you in your decision whether the store is appropriate or not.

Do your price points fit in with the stores?

Take a look at the prices of the clothing and look to see if similar items to yours are generally priced at the same level at which your clothing will be sold. Do not confuse your selling price to stores as your price points and remember that a store will generally multiply by three the price at which they buy the product from you.

Where in the store will your product be placed?

Take a look inside the store and see if you can imagine your products on their shelves and racks. Can you realistically see your

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products fitting in with certain themes within the store or will it be out of place?

Whose range does it sit along side?

Who your range sits alongside within stores can refer to its possible physical location within that store. Stores will usually group similar brands and styles together within sections of the store and you should know which brands your products will sit most comfortably alongside. Keep in mind that there is a high chance that these brands are your key competitors.

Does the store only stock established brands?

Some stores will only stock established known brands and they will be very reluctant to purchase from you until you have built up a customer base. In this case it is much more sensible to focus your time on those stores that are more likely to take a chance with a new label.

Undertaking a store analysis

Try to visit as many stores as possible to conduct your research. Physically seeing inside the store will give you a much better feel for the store to put you in a better position when selling your products to them. You will have previously visited their store and will have greater understanding of how they operate.

It is not always possible to visit hundreds of stores in each city and this is usually because of travel costs and the time it will take to achieve your goal. You should at the very least visit the stores within your local area or that are in easy traveling distance to get an idea of the difference between stores from the perspective of selling to them.

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Get the full version of this book from

www.start-a-clothing-line.com

Visit the companion site for additional material, tips and tutorials, sample forms, and lots more useful resources for starting and

running your own clothing company.

Section Five

Production Management

Source the materials neededChoose a production routeManage production

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Sourcing MaterialsPlanning your production

ou will need to have your production routes planned prior to selling your ranges and make sure that you are aware of

minimums, lead times, the capacity and skills at the factories. If you intend to use a factory or CMT (cut, make and trim) unit, you will need to book space with an estimate of what you might need and you should not just hope that they will have the space available. Also, make sure that you pre-book space with screen printers or embroiderers if needed in production.

How are materials sourced?

The word ʻsourcingʼ is used in business to describe the process of obtaining products or materials needed in the manufacturing of your clothing. What, where and how you source your materials will depend on the clothing that you make, the quantities you produce, your production route and even your own personal ethics.

In most cases you will need to source in the fabrics and materials used in the production and deliver them to your place of manufacturer before production can start. However, this is not always the case and if those materials are common for the manufacture they may already have their own supplier and be able to source those products in for you. A good example of this is screen printers where the most common material to print on is T-shirts. They will already have a relationship with wholesalers and will source in regular large quantities of T-shirts. A downside to this is that they will add money onto the products to make more profit. Although, because of the high volume that they order, they may get those products much cheaper and this may level out the cost for you.

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Y

Even if the manufacturer usually obtains their own materials, most will allow you to source the fabrics yourself and deliver the materials to them, if this is the most cost effective and efficient method for you.

You will source your products either from a wholesaler or straight from the manufacturer. A wholesaler is a distributor that will purchase the materials at very high volume and store them in a warehouse. The wholesalers will have a network of business to business customers who will then purchase those products in bulk. Those business customers could be smaller to medium clothing manufacturers or resellers. Clothing manufacturers that require much higher volumes will usually source direct from the manufacturer, this is if they can meet the minimum order quantity and can then minimize the cost per unit made by minimizing the sourcing costs.

The supply chain

The supply chain is the process through which raw materials become clothing on the shelves of stores. It is each stage of the productʼs life, starting from the yarn which is a long continuous length of interlocked fibers. The yarn is made from cotton that is cultivated by farmers and supplied to a cotton mill for spinning. The yarn is supplied to a factory which weaves the yarn into fabric. Another company will then take the unprocessed fabric and take it through a process of removing the lint, bleaching and dying the fabric. The fabric will then be purchased by a clothing manufacturer who will use the fabric to make T-shirts.

The T-shirts will then be sold in high quantity to wholesalers who will distribute the T-shirts to T-shirt printers. The T-shirt printers will then print on to the T-shirts from the clothing designerʼs specifications and deliver to them.

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In this example of a typical supply chain is a network of independent organizations that have to source, process and deliver a product that is within its customers needs and of quality. A good supply chain is one that runs smoothly, decreasing cost and increasing efficiency. Although you have little control over the supply chain other than who you choose to supply your materials from, the clothing industry is one of the oldest in the world and has had many years to mature and become optimized.

Lead Times

One of your concerns to take into account when sourcing materials are lead times. In basic terms, lead times are the time it takes for the material to get to you. This could be delivery from the warehouse or this could mean the time it will take to manufacture and deliver the fabric to you for more specialist fabrics. You will need to understand and work the lead times into your ʻcritical pathʼ which I will go into in more detail later in this section.

Minimum Orders

Sometimes when ordering the materials that you need, you may have to meet the minimum order requirements. This is the least quantity that is available to purchase from the supplier which will usually be either in price or the quantity of items. Generally, purchasing direct from the manufacturer will have a higher minimum order value than a wholesaler. Some suppliers may not have any minimum order but will give you an incentive to purchase higher quantities by offering free delivery over a certain amount, or the cost per unit may reduce the higher the quantity that you buy.

It is not prohibited however to negotiate the minimum order value with the supplier and, with experience in dealing with suppliers, you will understand how to make a mutual decision to fit the values around both of your needs.

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Get the full version of this book from

www.start-a-clothing-line.com

Visit the companion site for additional material, tips and tutorials, sample forms, and lots more useful resources for starting and

running your own clothing company.