How to Start an Online Clothing Store With No Money
Dreams about becoming an owner of a fashion line aren't far-fetched, even if you have no existing capital investment. There are several tested strategies to help you figure out how to start an online clothing store with no money and turn it into a successful business. You can even kick it off as a side occupation, and if it hits in the right direction, you can quit everything else and focus on selling online.
How to Start an Online Clothing Store With No Money in a Few Steps
Working through an online marketplace platform or running any other kind of internet business is liberating in many ways even if you're starting your reselling business without money. It allows you to become a true digital nomad - you can move around, travel, and be independent of a location because your enterprise goes with you. But if you have naught money to get you started, you'll need to learn some tricks on how to open an online clothing store while being cashless. There are several methods to approach online selling on multiple platforms, but they all have the same starting point.
Begin by Deciding on a Product That Can Be Considered a Part of a Desirable Clothing Line
You may be thinking about creating or selling some athletic clothing items or perhaps luxury dresses, but if you are not sure how these items would fare in an online world, you should explore your options first. Here's what you should do:
- Search for the most sold items on the best online UK marketplaces, like eBay, Amazon, or Etsy.
- Visit Google Trends and check how popular and searched for these products are. The demand of the majority of customers will steer you in the right direction.
- Additionally, explore further using Pinterest, for example, to combine popular goods into complete looks.
Additionally, keep an eye open and make sure you pick suppliers that have good ratings in terms of quality and customer service. Another tip is to begin selling with inexpensive pieces, so you can attract a wider audience and give potential buyers a good reason to purchase them.
Kick It Off by Trying Dropshipping
One of the best tips for eCommerce business owners is to try dropshipping if they want to explore the marketplace and figure out the best online selling platforms. Dropshipping perhaps sounds confusing, but it's a simple method. Once you pick the vendor, buy the product that a customer is looking for and have them shipped directly. It's a perfect solution for those that don't want to keep an inventory with them or simply don't have space and time to deal with physical goods.
Try Some Marketing Techniques for Your Business Through Influencers
Everyone and their mother is on Instagram nowadays, so you should use it to your advantage. Find some micro-influencers that can be leveraged towards promoting your products, contact them directly, and offer discounts and coupon codes. Add around 30% of the affiliate fee for any sale they make, and you will gain a lot of partnerships.
You can also start posting on multiple platforms and look for influencers on another social media website. But keep in mind that Gen Z, for example, stays away from Facebook and that Instagram is most effective when it comes to driving up the revenue. If you want to identify the more popular accounts, you can use a tool for Instagram statistics and start reaching out to those people.
Explore the Free Platforms for eCommerce
While having a website you share your products on is ultimately the best solution, it's not a convenient one when you have insufficient funds. That's why we recommend hosting your store on an existing marketplace platform or even trying with several popular ones. Good solutions are to sell online with Shopify (your Shopify could end up being a really successful store), Squarespace, a successful Etsy or a similar website, which usually starts at around £20 per month. This can be considered a sweet deal for all of you who are at the beginning of your entrepreneurship (check out the Etsy fees, for instance).
If you think you won't be able to keep them all in check and get back to your customers regularly, try using cross listing software. If you're worried that you don't know much about what does cross-listing mean when you sell, it's simple - you place the same or similar products on several different websites to reach more people. And software for selling online will help you see all the incoming messages and orders and reply on time.
No Business Can Be Started for Free, but These Ideas Can Make It Work With Minimal Investment
Although using micro-influencers for marketing the goods is a bit tricky, because as the posts become old, they tend to be forgotten, and the sales of that certain piece stop. But smart marketing, dropshipping, and selling through a multi-vendor marketplace platform will get you started on the right foot, and help you towards succeeding in e-Commerce.
And once you make a decision on selling on several websites, Zipsale - a free cross-posting software will help you keep everything in check. It will enable you to quickly respond to any questions and messages your customers might have and help you increase the number of positive reviews as well as your revenue.
