How to start a fashion eCommerce site and sell clothes online
Making money online can be accomplished through a variety of different ways, whether you’re looking to sell information-based services or products at a higher discount than any of the physical facilities. It’s important to note that if you’re going the product route, you really have to be competitive on price, unless of course you have a special angle. Selling clothing online gives you the opportunity to take advantage of either platform, whether it’s creating your own specialty clothing line and selling it at premium prices, or selling existing brands at a price competitive with major retailers. Either way, you’ll need an eCommerce site to help you make it easy to fulfill orders and collect payments.
Starting your fashion eCommerce site is easy. What you will need is a hosting plan and a merchant account to set up credit card payments online. If you’re going to do business online, then you really need to be able to accept credit cards, either through traditional means (the merchant account) or through payment intermediaries (like Paypal). Each of these methods has advantages and disadvantages. While you don’t have to pay anything upfront for a PayPal account, for example, you do have to give up a percentage of each sale. Business accounts charge a flat fee that won’t affect your sales once you’ve paid the monthly premium. Whichever method you choose, you need an online shopping cart that makes checkout easy and successful.
Your hosting provider should be able to set you up with all the tools you need to be successful. They should also be able to guide you through 24 hour customer service and easy to understand tutorials on how each procedure should be handled. What they cannot do for you, however, is create a product and price it competitively. If you are not making your own clothes, then you need to have a good wholesaler, who can offer you brand name merchandise at a discount rate. Some wholesalers may even be willing to ship items for you, so you never have to handle the product yourself. Regardless, price is of the utmost importance, because that’s one of the key reasons people shop online in the first place: to get better deals.
Once you have all the tools in place, it’s simply a matter of going out and promoting your business to the masses. Start with friends and family. Create a page on Facebook and other popular social media platforms. Use viral marketing, word of mouth, and special discount promotions, and before you know it, you’ll have more business than you can handle.