• 4 Tips for Researching and Finding Wholesale Clothing Suppliers

    May 15

    Starting a retailer business requires having a long-lasting and good relationship with your wholesale clothing suppliers. Following are some points to consider for finding good clothing wholesalers and ways to enter into agreements with them.

    1. Wholesale Clothing Business

    The clothing wholesale industry is very huge and widely channelized. There is a hierarchy through which these wholesale clothing dealers work. First on the list comes the manufacturers, who sell to wholesalers. Then comes the wholesalers who sell the goods in the local market and then at the end comes the brokers who sell goods to small-sized local stores. Wholesalers sell products to a number of businesses and retailers, sometimes through an agent and sometimes independently.

    2. Bulk Purchasing

    Wholesale business is very popular due to the volume-related benefits. It means the more products you buy, the higher profit you earn and the lesser cost you incur. Initially, you would be having a small business and your lower sales will not allow you to buy at such a huge level and create relationships with large wholesale dealers. So in the start, smaller wholesale dealers will sell you the products, and eventually, as your business will grow and your sales volume will increase, you will get in touch with large wholesale dealers to negotiate a high volume of goods and lower prices.

    3. Verdict & Choosing Wholesale Dealers

    Finding good and credible clothing wholesalers is tough from whom you can get products of good quality at cheaper prices but there are certain ways you can achieve this:
    • Trade newsletter and magazines
    Go through these weekly or monthly magazines to find wholesale dealers which fit the type of your business.
    • Brand Distributors or Manufacturers
    Usually, brand distributors or manufacturers sell only a large volume of goods if sold directly but you can interact with them so they can help and direct you in finding small level whole dealers for your industry.
    • Surf the Internet
    Internet is the best place for finding merely anything. You can search wholesalers online relevant to your category by mentioning your zip code or address so it gives you localized wholesale dealers. You can also use Yellow Pages and other directories such as Wholesale Central to search wholesale dealers for your business.
    • Ask
    The best solution to know about something is by asking around. Obviously, you can’t ask about such information from your competitors but you can find someone in your social circle who is associated with such type of business or consult someone by attending local events at the Chamber of Commerce or local town events.

    4. The Agreement with Wholesale Dealers

    Once you have found and interacted with your needed wholesale suppliers, it time to work around your suppliers. The more you negotiate, the best you can settle on. Negotiate volume discounts, exchange and return policies, and lead periods. Before signing a contract, read it carefully or get it to vet from your lawyer if needed. Perform your own research for those suppliers along with background checks and obtaining references. Don’t forget to include pricing terms, schedules, delivery details and quantities to be ordered in the agreement terms.
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  • How to Start a T-shirt Business

    May 15

    Starting a business is always exciting but comes with risks and rewards. You always do some research work before starting off with anything. There can be times of profit and times of loss. It brings a financial boost for you and gives you a sense of owning a successful business. To start your wholesale clothing business, the following are the ways we have gathered for you to achieve the best result.

    Starting a Wholesale T-shirt business: Passion

    For starting a business the first thing you need is passion. You need to put in all your passion and show yourself the dedication of starting but more likely maintaining a successful business. It’s going to be really tough in the start as it is not going to be a white collar timed job. You would have to do things you can’t expect to do while being employed. There is independence but all the success and failure depends on you. In the beginning, you may not see any success and things would get hard, but you have to do it if you are passionate and are dedicated to making your business successful.

    Starting a Wholesale T-shirt business: Have a professional website

    In this modern era, the base of any successful business is the way it communicates with its customers. That is why you need to have an appealing and professional website in place to attract and retain your customers. It’s not much of an investment because many cheaper website plans are available in the market today and gradually you can upgrade.

    Starting a Wholesale T-shirt business: Find a good Wholesale T-shirt printer

    Now is the time you buy a good screen printer so that you can print and sell awesome Wholesale T-shirts. It is the main area of business and you should ensure that you buy a printer that provides good quality merchandise to the customer. You should make sure that the printer you buy for printing Wholesale T-shirts is capable of printing multiple colors and the ink is not visible or easily washable after use. You are the one who needs to have full confidence in your product. If you are satisfied and fully confident about your product, your customer will surely like it.

    Starting a Wholesale T-shirt business: Research and plan your business

    Planning a first and major step before setting up a business. You need to properly research the industry you are setting up your business and learn about your competitors. If you don’t devise a map and procedure with a flow to start your clothing business, it’s a possibility you end up failing. Research and plan things like which market to hit, what policies to adopt for penetrating the market, who will be your major customer base, and what type of shirts you are going to produce.

    Starting a Wholesale T-shirt business: Know your market and customer base

    Connecting with the market you are going to launch your business is very important. Most people start up a business success but they can’t run it and maintain it because they don’t really know their market and the customers they have to attract. You can’t be a supermarket which sells anything. You need to hit a specific customer base and for that, you need to research your desired clothing market. If you know about your customer, how to attract them and retain them, then you are going towards a successful business run.

    Starting a Wholesale T-shirt business: Finances

    Financing is the key point for starting any business. You need to keep track of your accounts and finances once your business is in the run. Maintaining a business is very crucial and stressful but if things are planned, it’s not that difficult. You can maintain your accounts in start on your own to save the cost and later on hire an accountant if needed. You need to timely file your taxes so that you are doing the business in a legit way and your customers know that.

    Starting a Wholesale T-shirt business: Treat your customers

    You should treat your customers as you would want to treat yourself. Put yourself in the place of your customers and then analyze what are their needs and demands. This way you would get a better idea of how to improve your business and make it successful. The clothing business is somewhat crucial with respect to customer satisfaction and requires more attention to attain positive results.

    Starting a Wholesale T-shirt business: Never give up

    If you are passionate about your business, you should never give up. Failures are not something to be stressed off, but they open new learning ideas for you. One who is making mistakes, it means he is doing something. So don’t lose hope and always strive to the best of your efforts.

    Starting a Wholesale T-shirt business: Promote your business

    Last but not the least, devise meaningful strategies to promote your clothing business. In the start, you would need extensive advertising in order to penetrate your brand in the market but it will pay the price later on. You can create multiple ways of interactions with your customers like a Facebook page, Twitter, email, phone calls, and subscription emails. Also, create blogs to attract people towards your business explaining the things you sell. All the best!
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  • How to Design for the Apparel Market

    May 13

    There is a simple rule that you have to keep in mind while designing for wholesale T-shirts market; people appreciate simple, easy to understand, recognizable, and generic ideas. Very arty and complicated ideas don’t work well with the wholesale apparel consumer market. Impenetrable ideas, subjects, and executions are usually a big no for the T-shirt industry. Let’s take the example of Death on a Pale White Unicorn, a best seller at www.shirt.woot.com. The designer of the shirt was able to design it in one and a half hour only. But the concept behind the death on a unicorn was very simple and easy to understand. Hence, was well received by the blank T-shirt industry. We have many examples of complex T-shirt designs that don’t do well in the wholesale markets for apparels and T-shirts. Complex designs don’t work for the mass market, at all! Then there is this argument that certain whole T-shirt websites work in a vacuum where the consumer preferences are extremely specific, but this is not true. We have seen wholesale T-shirt websites that attempt to introduce extremely artistic designs but tend to lose their market share ultimately. We can generalize this by saying every wholesale business attempts to edict its theoretical market, but the ultimate consumer authority put them into a niche. When we look at the sale patterns of wholesale T-shirt websites, which offer a wide variety of genres and sell a different shirt every 24 hours, the pop culture related T-shirts still emerge as winners there. Looking at sale patterns of various Blank T-shirt and wholesale websites we know that the designs with a reference to pop culture are a hit everywhere. So, we can say that artsy designs work for niche markets only. The mass market doesn’t have the ability or want to understand these complex designs. When designing for the wholesale market you have to keep in mind that most people want to wear something that communicates a positive message to the rest of the world. We live in a world where symbols connote different meanings.  People here don’t want to feel alienated and seek acceptance. So, they opt for designs that are easily understood or convey a positive message. Artists, if they like, can try to introduce new symbols, but it is important to spread awareness about them first. So, that they are accepted around easily.  Currently, the designer either has to come up with designs that use an existing symbol or introduce new symbols and work for their acceptance. The second option is indeed very difficult. Here, let us highlight this finding for you that the generic themes like landscapes, abstracts and portraits remain the most selling themes even for the gallery art. We are certain that you know now what design path you ought to follow in order to be successful. Your selection will mainly depend but you can also generalize the concept by looking at the existing market trends.  When you study the blank T-shirt market carefully you will find a bend toward a specific topic or an issue, consistency, as well as explicit design rules. Like references to pop culture are a big hit currently.
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