How To Start Up A Clothing Line Business

Learn how thousands of people are earning up to $2.5M/month online.

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You've stumbled upon the idea to build a men's clothing line and now you're ready to take the next steps.

There's a lot to think about when building a business, so we put together a guide on how to get started, launch, grow and run your men's clothing line.

We also provide you with real-life case studies and examples of founders running successful men's clothing line (and how much💰 they're making today).

💡 Introduction To Starting A Men's Clothing Line

Purchasing Inventory For Your Men's Clothing Line

When first starting out, it's important to start small with your overhead to get a gauge for what people want.

Just remember - if you order a line of items that don't sell, it's nearly impossible to recoup the money lost.

Buying the right inventory takes research and planning in order to get it right.

Identify your target audience: Identify the age, gender, annual income that you will be selling to. This is a defining factor in ordering the right inventory that will sell.
Research your competition: Conduct market research and identify the different types of styles, price points, and materials being used. This will help you see what's trending and ways that you can improve/stay ahead of the competition.
Create an inventory wishlist: Identify what you need for the launch of your business and create a budget that you will stay within. Remember, it's okay to start small.
Find a supplier Make sure to first compare prices and analyze different options.
Delivery timing: Schedule the inventory delivery to match with seasonality and trending buying seasons

Pro-tip: It's easy to become biased based on your own fashion preferences on what types of shoes/apparel to purchase. This is where a lot of fashion businesses go wrong. It's important to base purchase decisions on current buyer behavior, trends in the market, and specific to your niche.

Players

Big Players

Ralph Lauren (3.3K Alexa Ranking)
Mens Clothing and Mens Fashion - boohooMAN USA (3.42K Alexa Ranking)
Grailed (3.63K Alexa Ranking)
Access Denied (5.55K Alexa Ranking)
GQ (5.71K Alexa Ranking)

Small Players

I Love Ugly - Revenue $300K/month
RomperJack - Revenue $60K/month
Lawrence Hunt - Revenue $20K/month
Bad Ass Work Gear - Revenue $15K/month
Million Dollar Collar - Revenue $15K/month
Crooked Branch Studio - Revenue $2.5K/month
DULO - Revenue $1.23K/month
Boystrous - Revenue $150/month

Search Interest

Let's take a look at the search trends for mens clothing over the last year:

🎬 How To Start A Men's Clothing Line

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Write a Business Plan

Writing a business plan from the start is critical for the success of your men's clothing line.

Why?

Because this allows you to roadmap exactly what you do, what your overall structure will look like, and where you want to be in the future.

For many entrepreneurs, writing out the business plan helps validate their idea and decide whether or not they should move forward with starting the business.

You may want to consider expanding upon these sections in your business plan:

Executive Summary: Brief outline of your product, the market, and growth opportunities
Overviews and Objectives: Overview of your business, target customers, and what you need to run your business
Products and Services: Specifics on the products and services your business will provide
Market Opportunities: Analysis of customer demographics, buyer habits and if your product is in demand
Marketing: Outline of your marketing plan and how you plan to differentiate yourself from other customers
Competitive analysis: Analysis of your competition and the strengths and weaknesses therein
Operations: Hierarchal structure of the company and what it will take to run the business on the day-to-day
Leadership Team: Detailing roles and responsibilities of each manager based on their specific skill-set
Financial Analysis Understanding of all expenses, operating budgets, and projections for the future.

Learn more about how to write a business plan here

How Much Does It Cost To Start A Men's Clothing Line

If you are planning to start a men's clothing line, the costs are relatively low. This, of course, depends on if you decide to start the business with lean expenses or bringing in a large team and spending more money.

We've outlined two common scenarios for "pre-opening" costs of starting a men's clothing line and outline the costs you should expect for each:

The estimated minimum starting cost = $1,763
The estimated maximum starting cost = $32,509

Startup Expenses: Average expenses incurred when starting a men's clothing line.	Min Startup Costs: You plan to execute on your own. You're able to work from home with minimal costs.	Max Startup Costs: You have started with 1+ other team members.
Office Space Expenses
Rent: This refers to the office space you use for your business and give money to the landlord. To minimize costs, you may want to consider starting your business from home or renting an office in a coworking space.	$500	$5,750
Utility Costs For Office Space: Utility costs are the expense for all the services you use in your office, including electricity, gas, fuels, telephone, water, sewerage, etc.	$200	$1,150
WiFi & Internet: Whether you work from home or in an office space, WiFi is essential. Although the cost is minimal in most cases, it should be appropriately budgeted for each month!	$50	$100
Total Office Space Expenses	$750 (min)	$7,000 (max)
Equipment & Supply Expenses
Technology Office Equipment: This includes (but is not limited to) physical items such as: laptops, cameras, monitors, microphones, speakers, headsets. Technology needs grow as your company evolves, so to minimize costs, try and only purchase what is needed for you to run your business at the time.	$500	$5,000
Total Equipment & Supply Expenses	$500 (min)	$5,000 (max)
Inventory Expenses
Upfront Costs For Inventory: This includes all upfront inventory you will need in order to launch. Be sure to compare prices of wholesalers to ensure you're getting the best deal and margins remain high.	$300	$5,000
Inventory Storage: If you decide to have a physical space for your men's clothing line, whether it be used for inventory or as a showroom, you may have monthly rent payment or a large down payment associated with renting/buying the space.	$0	$5,000
Package Design: Packaging refers to wrapping and protecting products during distribution, shipping, and sales.Your package design is your customer's first impression of your brand, so it's important you spend some time and energy to get this right from the start.Many businesses design their own packages using design software and tools. There is always the option to outsource this to a design expert, but that route tends to be much more expensive.	$50	$3,000
Shrinkage: Shrinkage refers to the loss of inventory at any point between the purchase from your supplier and the purchase by your customer. Although you will try to avoid this at all costs, this does happen sometimes (especially in the learning stages of your business), and it's important to plan ahead financially in case this happens. Fortune states that retail shrinkage costs U.S. retailers approximately 1.4 percent of their total sales.	$0	$1,000
Distribution costs: Depending on what distribution plan you choose, expenses such as renting vans, hiring delivery drivers and gas costs can add up. If you are looking to save money upfront, you may want to consider conducting distribution on your own.	$0	$750
Total Inventory Expenses	$350 (min)	$14,750 (max)
Software Expenses
Design Programs & Software: These programs might include the Adobe family of design tools: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and others. This is typically a monthly subscription ranging from $10-$50/mo.	$0	$50
Email marketing tool: If you plan to grow your email list and email marketing efforts, you may want to consider investing in an email marketing platform (ie. Klaviyo, MailChimp). We put together a detailed guide on all of the email marketing tools out there + the pricing models for each one here	$0	$100
IT Support: IT support installs and configures hardware and software and solves any technical issues that may arise.IT support can be used internally or for your customers experiencing issues with your product/service.There are a variety of tools and software you can use to help with any technical issues you or your customers are experiencing. This is a great option for businesses that do not have the means to hire a team of professionals.	$150	$2,000
Accounting & Invoicing Software: It's important to have an accounting system and process in place to manage financials, reporting, planning and tax preparation. Here are the 30 best accounting tools for small businesses.	$0	$50
Project Management Software: You may want to consider using a project management and collaboration tool to organize your day-to-day. This can also be very beneficial if you have a larger team and want to keep track of everyones tasks and productivity. For a full list of project management tools, check out this full list here.	$0	$25
Internal Communication Tool: If you plan to have multiple members on your team, you may want to consider an instant message tool such as Slack or Telegram. The cost is usually billed per month (approx $5/user/month) or there are freemium versions available on many platforms.	$0	$20
Social Media Management Tools: If you plan to do social media marketing for your men's clothing line, you should consider investing in a social media automation or publishing tool. This will save you time and allow you to track performance and engagement for your posts. Here is a list of 28 best social media tools for your small business.	$0	$50
Payroll Software: The main purpose of payroll software is to help you pay your team and track each of those payments (so that you don't have to do it manually). If you do not have any employees or have a very small team, payroll software may not be necessary at this stage. Here are the 11 best payroll tools for small businesses!	$0	$200
Online data storage: It's important to make sure the information for your men's clothing line is stored and protected should something happen to your computer or hard drive. The cost for this is affordable and depends on how much data you need to store. To learn more about the different options and pricing on the market, check out this article.	$0	$299
Total Software Expenses	$150 (min)	$2,794 (max)
Website Costs
A Domain Name: Your domain name is the URL and name of your website - this is how internet users find you and your website.Domain names are extremely important and should match your company name and brand. This makes it easier for customers to remember you and return to your website.	$12	$200
Business Email Hosting Service: An email hosting runs a dedicated email server. Once you have your domain name, you can set up email accounts for each user on your team. The most common email hosts are G Suite and Microsoft 365 Suite. The number of email accounts you set up will determine the monthly cost breakdown.	$1	$15
Total Website Costs	$13 (min)	$215 (max)
Advertising & Marketing Costs
Customer Research & Surveys: Many men's clothing line's conduct industry and consumer research prior to starting their business. Often times, you need to pay for this data or hire a market research firm to help you in this process.	$0	$300
Affiliate Marketing Commission & Fees: If you want to increase revenue for your men's clothing line, affiliate marketing is a great way to promote your product to a new audience. When determining affiliate commission rates you will offer, you will want to take into account the price and margin for your product to ensure affiliate marketing is worth it for your business. According to Monitor Backlinks, the average affiliate commission rate should be somewhere between 5% to 30%. To learn more about how to set commission rates, check out this article..	$0	$250
Influencer Marketing: Partnering with like-minded influencers is one of the most effective ways to grow your social media presence. Many small businesses simply gift a free item in exchange for an influencer post, or pay the influencer directly.	$0	$750
Press: If your business and story is unique enough, press and media attention may come to you, but odds are, you may need to do your own outreach and budget for this. We put together a guide here that discusses different press opportunities (both free and paid).	$0	$500
Google Ads: With Google Ads you have the ability to control how much you spend by simply setting a monthly budget cap. Additionally, with these ads you only pay for results, such as clicks to your website or phone calls! It's okay to start with a small budget at first and make changes accordingly if you see valuable returns.	$0	$300
Facebook & Instagram Ads: With Facebook and Instagram ads, you set your budget and pay for the actions you want (whether that be impressions, conversions, etc).You can learn more about pricing based on your impressions here.	$0	$350
Total Advertising & Marketing Costs	$0 (min)	$2,450 (max)
Other Expenses
Credit Card Processing Fees: If you process credit cards then you will need to deal with interchange fees - which is usually around 3% of total charges. These fees are often forgotten about and can hurt cash flow if not taken into account.	$0	$300
Total Other Expenses	$0 (min)	$300 (max)
Total Starting Costs	$1,763 (min)	$32,509 (max)

Emily Casseday, founder of Blush Boutique Co describes how she was able to stay under $10K to get off the ground:

Because we were starting small, we didn't have a lot of overhead. One of the biggest downfalls of starting a business is having too much to carry without a lot of income, which is why we decided to start in my basement instead of fully going brick and mortar.

We wanted to test the waters first to see if we had a viable business for our community. In order to finance the beginning of our shop, we used some savings and one credit card. Our goal was to never outspend what we made, so we started with a limit of $10,000 on the card and paid it off as we went. That first year, we didn't take a paycheck so that we could completely get out of debt.

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Emilie Casseday, on starting Blush Boutique Co ($25,000/month) full story ➜

How To Find A Supplier For Your Men's Clothing Line

Here are the steps to consider when finding a supplier/manufacturer:

Know your design

One very critical step to finding the right supplier is having an initial idea of what your design/product will look like.

Sketching is one of the most simple ways to get started in the design phase.

What's great about sketching is that you can practically do this anytime, anywhere - even on the back of a napkin.

To get started, all you need to do is pick up a pen and paper and start drawing - or if you are working on a virtual/software product this can be a diagram that outlines the user interface or experience.

Decide your supplier type

You'll want to identify the type of supplier you are looking for.

Here are some questions you may want to ask yourself prior to searching for a supplier

Are you looking for a manufacturer to produce your product idea?
Do you want to find a supplier that can simply purchase existing products for you?
Do you want a drop-shipper to supply and fulfill orders?
Do you want a domestic supplier or an overseas supplier? Read more about the pros and cons of each here

Where to start your search

Once you have an understanding of what type of manufacturer/supplier will be best to bring your idea to life, there are several areas you can start your search:

Domestic Suppliers

Makers Row
Kompass
Thomas Net

Overseas Suppliers

Alibaba
IndiaMart
Oberlo
AliExpress

Manufacturing Example

The next step was to look for manufacturing partners, but funnily enough, we didn't even know what we were looking for. Are we looking for the fabric itself, or a company that produces dress shirts?

We knew the properties that we wanted, so looking through online directories we set up a spreadsheet with possible companies and started emailing them with our requests to "make dress shirts from sports materials".

At the end, we emailed all the companies that had a website, as well as an email address (you'd be surprised how many didn't) and started setting up meetings in a span of a week that we can take off from our jobs and travel back to Bulgaria to meet with all of them.

At first, most of them didn't know what we were talking about and looked a bit confused, but after a week of meetings and discussions, there was one company that said they could be able to create such a product, so we decided to shake hands and proceed to make samples.

Julian Samarjiev, on starting DULO ($1,233/month) full story ➜

Raising Money

Since the startup costs to start men's clothing line range between $1,763 - $32,509, there are ways you can raise money to cover these costs.

Here are a few ways you can secure additional funding:

Launch your product on Kickstarter
Raise capital by asking friends and family
Apply for a loan
Find an investor!

Revenue Expectations

We've interviewed several different founders in the men's clothing line and asked them how much $ they're making today.

Crooked Branch Studio

$30K/year in revenue
Sells bow ties
Solo founder
0 employees

I Love Ugly

$3.6M/year in revenue
Sells premium menswear
Solo founder
20 employees

Boystrous

$1.8K/year in revenue
Sells clothing, accessories, menswear
Solo founder
0 employees

DULO

$14.8K/year in revenue
Sells dress shirts.
2 founders
0 employees

Bad Ass Work Gear

$180K/year in revenue
Sells tough work gear
Solo founder
1 employee

Million Dollar Collar

$180K/year in revenue
Sells built-in confidence
3 founders
0 employees

How To Name Your Men's Clothing Line

It's important to find a catchy name for your men's clothing line so that you can stand out in your space.

Here are some general tips to consider when naming your men's clothing line

Avoid hard to spell names: you want something easy to remember and easy to spell for your customers
Conduct a search to see if others in the space have the same name
Try not to pick a name that limits growth opportunities for your business (ie. if you decide to expand into other product lines)
As soon as you have an idea (or ideas) of a few names that you love, register the domain name(s) as soon as possible!

Why is naming your men's clothing line so important?

The name of your business will forever play a role in:

Your customers first impression
Your businesses identity
The power behind the type of customer your brand attracts
If you're memorable or not

It's important to verify that the domain name is available for your men's clothing line.

You can search domain availability here:

Find a domain starting at $0.88

Although .com names are the most common and easiest to remember, there are other options if your .com domain name is not available. Depending on your audience, it may not matter as much as you think.

It's also important to thoroughly check if social media handles are available.

As soon as you resonate with a name (or names), secure the domain and SM handles as soon as possible to ensure they don't get taken.

Here's some inspiration for naming your men's clothing line:

Fenestta check availability
Urban Alchemy check availability
Finer Threads check availability
Signal & Steer check availability
upcycled check availability
Mile High Style check availability
UnHinged HipHop Wear check availability
Choice Clothes check availability
Finch's Fashion check availability
Blueberry Bean check availability
Costume Forever check availability
Impressions check availability
Paisley Tree check availability
Fashion Faze check availability
Tingle check availability
Socialoft check availability
Anticiso check availability
Square Ford check availability
Giversion check availability
Hobnob check availability
Well Worn check availability
Dual Trak check availability
Lovely Lady Fashion check availability
Above the fold check availability
North park check availability
To Impress check availability
Green Fabrique check availability
Maddisson check availability
Looks at Life check availability
Brossoc check availability
BeyondLimit check availability
Active Pilot check availability
Funky Fashion check availability
Bad Street check availability
Chosen Clothing check availability
Bay City Clothing check availability
Dressing Down check availability
Rules of Conduct check availability
Ax 3000 check availability
34 Threads check availability
Fusion Fashion check availability
DisRobed check availability
Fashion Flare check availability
Starched Naked check availability
Finest Stitch check availability
Harrislyn check availability
Imperative check availability
Dwell check availability
Naked & Neon check availability
Hawthorne Apparel Co. check availability
Thread Co. check availability
Abandon check availability
nustitchLine check availability
Delany & Ives check availability
aerolo check availability
Brozzo check availability
Epic touch check availability
Vintage Corner check availability
Fort Knocks check availability
Elegant Apparel check availability
Modern Walk check availability
Get Glowing check availability
Jelly Kelly check availability
Fashion Science check availability
Cozway check availability
On the Field Sportswear check availability
Naked Attitude check availability
West Side Street Clothing check availability
Forever Teen check availability
Givty check availability
Bare & Running check availability
Shaken not stirred! check availability
Textilmatic check availability
Flint Grey check availability
Level Threads check availability
Friends of Fashion check availability
Boundless Beauty check availability
Bag of Beauty check availability
Sublime Trend check availability
Prescott check availability
Naked Salute check availability
Clothing Crew check availability
Forester Flannels check availability
Yellow Dash check availability
Fabulous Fabrics check availability
Dressify check availability
Blue '42 check availability
Trendy Threads check availability
Full Circle check availability
Kris van check availability
Runnics check availability
Glamorous Glow Fashion check availability
Sleek Style check availability
True & Trusted / Trusted & True check availability
Dewitt check availability
Odin Marie check availability
Clothing Condo check availability
Clever Clother check availability
Clothing Connection check availability
Centerbend check availability
FoxHill Fashion check availability
Cool Cloth check availability
Jack jacob check availability
Wearing What check availability
L. Alexander Apparel check availability
Retronic Wear check availability
Dress Me check availability
Wyndow check availability
Redwood Sportswear check availability
FastWear check availability
Fashion Favors check availability
Good Garments check availability
Bare Garments check availability
Elegantik Dress check availability
Network check availability
xtrem xchng check availability
UnButtoned ButtonDowns check availability
Fuego check availability
Stitch and Darn check availability
Great Scot check availability
Oxxon check availability
Budget Beauty check availability
Lavish check availability
Fray & Sinew check availability

Read our full guide on naming your men's clothing line ➜

Gia Paddock, founder of Boutique Rye explains how they came up with the name of their business:

What took the longest was deciding on a name and our logo; I wanted it to be meaningful, and I cared so much about what people thought.

Looking back, my advice would be to quit thinking about other people. This is my business, and all that matters is if I am happy the name and logo.

A popular national brick & mortar women's boutique that many may have heard of is called Francesca's… How original, right? So we came up with Boutique Rye named after our son, Riley. We put "boutique" in front to be a little different.

Now came the logo… Oh man, was this a task. We hired a graphic designer that we went to high school with, and went back and forth with him for about a month and a half. I wanted something that really described my style which is kind of "boho chic" and decided on a dreamcatcher. The dreamcatcher is also what our son's nursery was decorated in, so it truly felt like a family business.

Gia Paddock, on starting Boutique Rye ($10,000/month) full story ➜

Setting Up Your Men's Clothing Line (Formation and Legal)

When it comes to setting up your business, you may find yourself in a place where you have to make some financial and legal decisions.

The first thing you'll want to decide on is whether you want to be an LLC, S-Corp, or C-Corp.

These three options are found to be the most common when starting a small business, and all serve to protect your personal assets and also provide you with certain tax benefits.

LLC: All income and expenses from the business are reported on the LLC personal income tax return.
S corp: Owners pay themselves salaries + receive dividends from profits.
C Corp: C Corps are separately taxable entities that file a corporate tax return (Form 1120). No income tax is paid at the corporate level and any tax due is paid at the owners individual expense.

Depending on where you're conducting business, you'll also want to consider securing the proper permits, licenses and liability insurance.

Learn more about securing the right permits and licenses ➜

Need to start an LLC? Create an LLC in minutes with ZenBusiness.

Determine Which Business Bank Account You Need

There are hundreds of banks out there, and it can be overwhelming to find one that's right for your business.

Here are some factors you may want to consider:

Location - Is your bank close enough that you can easily make deposits or get cash?
Low Fees - Make sure to understand any and all fees associated with setting up and maintaining your bank account. Ask for a list - banks usually try to keep this hidden and in the fine print.
Online Banking Services - Make sure you can easily navigate through your online portal and you have easy access to everything you need.
Line of Credit - What do your options look like (even if you don't need this now, you may need this down the road).
Every bank has something that differentiates them from the rest, so make sure whatever that is applied to your needs and values.

Check out this list of the 13 Best Banks for Small Business in 2020 and what makes them so unique.

How To Price Your Mens Clothing

One of the most challenging aspects to starting a men's clothing line is determining how much to charge for your mens clothing.

When businesses under-price their product, this can be extremely detrimental to their bottom line and reputation.

Often times, businesses under-price their products to drive demand and volume, but that last thing you want is for customers to view your product/service as "cheap." Additionally, this can have a big impact on the type of customer you attract, which can be difficult to recover from.

On the other hand, when businesses over-price, this tends to be just as damaging to the business.

When customers buy, it's likely that they will explore the internet and look at other competitors to ensure they're getting the best value + deal. This is why it's so important that you research your competition and understand where you land in the marketplace.

Here are some factors to consider when pricing your product:

Understand your customer

It's important that out of the gates, you identify the type of customer you want to attract and how much they're willing to pay for your service. One great way to do this is by surveying your customers. Here are some important items you'll want to takeaway:

Customer demographic: Age, gender, location, etc.
Buying habits of your customer: What they buy + when they buy
Level of price sensitivity with your customer

All of these segments will help you identify the type of customer you're attracting and how to price your product accordingly.

Understand your costs

When pricing your mens clothing, it's critical that you first identify all of your costs and consequently mark up your mens clothing so you can factor in a profit.

The actual cost of your mens clothing may include things like:

The actual cost to make the product (ie. raw materials, supplies, manufacturer).
Shipping + overhead fees
Rent
Operating costs to run your business

You may want to consider creating a spreadsheet with every single expense involved in operating/owning your business. This will give you an idea as to what you need to generate in order to at the very least, break-even and will help you price your products to factor in a profit.

Create revenue goals

When determining the price of your mens clothing, you'll want to create goals for revenue + how much profit you want your men's clothing line to make.

This process is simpler than you may think:

Think about your breakeven cost (by completing the above step).
Create a revenue goal based on your break-even cost
Evaluate the # of items you plan to sell in a given period (make sure this is a realistic number)
Divide your revenue goal by the number of items you plan to sell

This figure will help determine your estimated price per product in order to meet your revenue goals.

Evaluate your competition

The last piece in determining how to price your mens clothing is by simply looking at your competition.

The best way to do this is by finding like-minded businesses that offer product(s) with similar perceived value. Then, you can compare prices of the different businesses and determine where your mens clothing fits best in the marketplace.

All of these factors play an equal part in pricing your mens clothing, so it's important you evaluate each one individually to come up with an accurate price that will help optimize your business from the start.

Lauren Costanza, founder of Bluminary provides us with a detailed spreadsheet of all of her costs associated with running her business:

I knew this would be a self-funded adventure, and I set aside $3,000. During the first three months, I had a detailed spreadsheet where I tracked where the money was going and what was going toward products versus researching and developing new products.

The spreadsheets involved columns and rows of numbers to craft a budget and gain an understanding of how much would need to be invested at each stage of the process - from gathering supplies to building a website, and shipping materials.

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Lauren Costanza, on starting Bluminary ($500/month) full story ➜

🚀 How To Launch Your Men's Clothing Line

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Build A Website

Building a website is imperative when launching your business, and with the right tools in place, this can be a simple task to check off the list (without having to hire someone).

Pick a domain name that's easy to remember and easy to type
Choose a Web Hosting Plan (ie. Shopify, Squarespace)
Make sure you choose the right theme and design
Implement the proper page structure (ie. about page, contact page, pricing etc)

To learn more about how to build a stellar website with little stress, we give you all the details on this step-by-step guide.

There are a ton of different websites platforms out there, and it's important to choose the right one that will set you up for success

Shopify is most commonly used for eCommerce boutique businesses and Squarespace is most commonly used for physical storefronts.

Here's everything you need to know about these two platforms:

Web Design

Once you have chosen the domain, web hosting, and platform, it's time to get started with the design phase.

Themes are a great way to produce the fundamental style and identity of your website - this includes everything from your font design to your blog post styles.

One of the best ways to get started is to simply explore the various themes (free or paid depending on what you're looking for) and test them on your site.

If web-design really isn't in the cards for you, you may want to consider outsourcing a web designer to help bring your vision and brand to life.

Traditional Launch Strategies For Your Men's Clothing Line:

There are various different ways you can launch your men's clothing line successfully.

Here are a few different strategies to get customers excited about your men's clothing line:

Set up a Facebook page for your business. This is a great way to establish an online presence
Host an event in a fun location with drinks & food. This is a great way to get exposure in the local community.
Get Press! Pitch your story to the media and you may just land in an amazing publication
Live sales to get customers excited
Send a hand-written letter in the mail with a discount on your services to the local community/neighborhoods.

Make Sure You Get The Package Design Right

The way you package your men's clothing line is often the first impression your customer has - so it's important to get it right.

You may want to ask yourself these questions:

If my product is on a shelf next to hundreds of other similar products:

Will my men's clothing line stand out?
Will the branding/packaging create a connection with my customer, and hence, lead them to buy?

There are hundreds of tools you can use to help with packaging and design:

Canva - Allows non-designers to create beautiful Instagram/Pinterest posts, flyers, business cards, etc.
Stickermule - High quality custom stickers you can include on or in your packaging.
Noissue - Custom tissue paper and compostable mailers
Rollo Label Printer - A great tool to print all shipping labels at home

Gia Paddock discusses how live sales on Facebook was KEY to her launch success:

Our official launch happened the day after my birthday, July 26, 2017.

I decided to get the word out by going "live" on Facebook. When you have a personal profile, Facebook will allow you to record yourself in real time, and they allow any of your friends to click on the video and watch if they want. I told everyone our background story and that we would have our first live sale that next night, which was a Thursday. Little did we know Thursdays would be "our day"!

Live sales were something that I wanted to do, and it was different than other online boutiques I had seen. Basically, I would go "live" on our boutique's Facebook page with our new inventory and show each item, give a little description on it, how it fits, price, sizing, etc. It really feels like I am everyone's own personal shopper, which is amazing!

Our first live sale was pretty successful. Most of our first customers were my friends or acquaintances from school. We decided to start right away and do a giveaway if they shared the live sale video. We gave away a $100 gift card raffle as an incentive to anyone that shared the video.

This would prove to be by far our best strategy to grow the boutique without spending a dime on traditional advertising.

Gia Paddock, on starting Boutique Rye ($10,000/month) full story ➜

🌱 How To Grow Your Men's Clothing Line

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Social Media Advertising

Social Media Advertising is one of the leading ways to get the word out when it comes to men's clothing line.

There are various different Social Media platforms available to you. Some may be more critical for your marketing efforts than others, however, it's important to have an understanding of what's out there and available to you.

Let's talk about a few of the main platforms and what makes them unique:

Facebook Advertising - more than 2 billion monthly users. Facebook is the best for lead generation + capturing email addresses for e-commerce businesses.
Instagram Advertising - approximately 500 million monthly users and has a higher audience engagement rate than any other platform. Instagram ads are best for linking to a product page or landing page and reaches the 18-29 age group most effectively.
Twitter Advertising- Small businesses typically use twitter ads to drive brand awareness, but the platform is meant more for organic engagement (and is not as heavily used for paid advertising)
Pinterest Advertising - 175 million monthly users and most effectively reaches the female audience. Pinterest is great for promoting products without "promoted". The promoted pins have a way of blending right in.
LinkedIn Advertising - 227 million monthly users and is geared towards the B2B market and generates the highest quality leads. Great platform for recruiters, high-end products and services that will help businesses

It's important to first define your goal/objective so that you don't waste time and money into the wrong platform:

Here are some different questions to ask yourself as it relates to your goals:

Do I want to simply drive brand awareness?
Do I want to drive users to my website to gather information?
Do I want to increase sales and get my customer to take action?

From there, choose the platform that targets your audience best and start experimenting!

Learn more about social media advertising ➜ here.

Growth Strategies From RomperJack

Facebook and Instagram Ads

We use this platform to find new customers and to retarget current interested customers. Facebook ROAS is about 4.2X.

In the beginning, we casted a very wide net to find our target audience and as we got more and more sales we narrowed that audience down. Now we run lookalike campaigns based off our customer list.

We also have a sales funnel setup to capture a customer at multiple stages. We run a ton of retargeting campaigns at different stages to finalize the sale.

Google AdWords

We use this platform for the mid-level funnel. People who find us through Google Ad Words by searching our key words means that they are seriously thinking about buying. We buy keywords like mens romper or male romper so when one puts that into google we pop up.

Justin Clark, on starting RomperJack ($60,000/month) full story ➜

Emily Cassedy, founder of Blush Boutique Co explains how their Facebook strategy is the #1 way of attracting new customers:

Our biggest tool for attracting customers and then keeping repeat customers has been social media and word of mouth. We made sure our social media platforms were attractive, inviting, and not too in your face.

We set up an editorial type calendar for our Facebook posts that we still use to this day.

For example, every Tuesday we have a vote post where our followers can vote on an item that we will bring into the shop. Our customers and followers love this and chime when that piece that is voted on comes in, we already have a set amount of people that will come purchase it because they were able to be a deciding factor.

We also make sure to do a live Facebook video when we get new arrivals to show what came in that week. The supply and demand of a piece then draw in more customers, even if one of the new arrivals sells out, they are still coming in to see what else we have in the shop.

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Emilie Casseday, on starting Blush Boutique Co ($25,000/month) full story ➜

Grow Your Email List

The more engaged list of emails, the more engaged customers, which ultimately leads to more sales.

One of the best ways to start growing your list is by providing your customer with something free (or discounted) in return.

This could also be anything from:

Ebook
Fascinating case study
Video series
Free week of the product
Discount on the product

Learn more about how to grow your email list and improve email marketing ➜ here.

Improve Your Email Marketing

Different types of emails

Here are the most common types of email campaigns you can send to your customers and their benefits:

Welcome emails - the perfect way to provide information from the start with a clear CTA. Make sure to tell your customer everything they need to know about your product or service.
Newsletters - a great way to give customers updates or send out your latest content
Product launch emails - the quickest (and easiest) way to increase sales is by selling to current customers. Make sure they're the first on the list to know about your new product
Promotional emails - promote discounts, deals coupons etc. Try and make this feel exclusive and for a limited time only
Abandoned cart emails - give your customers a reason to complete their purchase!

Here's a great resource for finding curated email designs, for all types of email campaigns!

Build A Blog

One of the most effective ways to build brand awareness and grow your business is through consistently blogging.

We've outlined some useful tips for you to consider when creating content:

Consistency and Quantity

Quality is important, but it should be the standard for any content you publish.

What's more important is consistency and quantity.

Consistency is as simple as committing to publishing and sharing a certain number of posts per week. For me, that's three per week right now.

This kind of commitment is key, because one day, a random post will blow up, and you will have never expected it.

Oversaturation

The easiest mind trap is to think "I'm posting too much", and "I need to give my readers/audience/this platform a break".

This is nonsense.

There is no such thing as oversaturation. Well, there is, but it is just someone else's opinion.

For every person that tells you you are posting too much, there is another person that wants even more of your content.

You should ignore people's opinions on how much you post.

Patience & Persistence

Keep posting, keep trying, and keep putting out good content on the regular. Your time will come, and when it does, it will change everything.

The only thing you have control over is your content.

You can't control how people will react to it. You can't control pageviews, likes, or shares.

So the only metric you should focus on is how much content you can put out in a week, month, etc.

Where to share your blog content

Mailing List

I know it sounds obvious, but the best places to share your content is on your mailing list. It is guaranteed traffic and it is a great way to get rapid feedback from your most loyal readers.

Send newsletters often. I have done once a week since starting, and I'm moving to twice a week soon.

Work on increasing your mailing list as well. Look into ways to increase your conversion rate to your mailing list. I added a flyout popup thing to my site and now I'm collecting ~30 emails per day.

An email newsletter is one of the most powerful assets you can have and it is worth its weight in gold.

Reddit

Reddit is one of my favorite places to promote content.

It is a very scary place because you will often get banned or heckled, but it can really pay off.

Create social media accounts for your blog, the main ones I use:

Twitter Facebook Instagram LinkedIn

Set up Buffer and share all of your blog posts to all of your accounts. All of these little shares really do add up.

Automate this as much as possible. I automated all of my social media for Starter Story.

Facebook Groups

When I started out, I put together a spreadsheet of relevant Facebook groups for my niche, and I would post to these groups whenever I had a big story I wanted to share.

Tap into your network

One of the most effective ways of getting the word out about your business is simply by tapping your network.

This means friends, family, counterparts, neighbors, even your uber drivers!

No matter where you are, there's always an opportunity to promote yourself and your business.

Authenticity

As a brand, you want to deliver an experience that authentic, honest and transparent.

Don't make the mistake of giving your audience less credit than they deserve.

Be Authentic

If you go around chasing every trend and only focused on yourself and money, you're going to lose very quickly.

There have been many times where we have been tempted to do this but stayed true.

Sure we sacrificed sales, but we kept our integrity, played the long game and people saw and appreciated that, and really began emotionally investing in the brand.

Valentin Ozich, on starting I Love Ugly ($300,000/month) full story ➜

Provide Great Customer Service

Providing exceptional care and creating relationships with clients is a great way to build your reputation and retain customers.

Whether you are an online business or a physical business, it's highly important to communicate with customers and make them feel like they are the priority.

Just remember: customer service represents your brand, values, vision and YOU as a person.

Customer service is huge for us. Like I talked about, building a community has been one of the best bi-products in the shop.

We want everyone to feel loved, cared for, and appreciated.

If we have a customer that comes in quite a bit, we will begin to notice what they buy and reach out to them if something new comes in if we think they will like it. We also try to call people by name and greet them as if they were entering my home, not just the shop.

Another great way we retain customers is through a loyalty point system. When a customer gains enough points through their purchases, they are rewarded with a discount. It's our way of saying "thank you" for having them be a great customer.

Emilie Casseday, on starting Blush Boutique Co ($25,000/month) full story ➜

🏃🏼‍♀️ How To Run Your Men's Clothing Line

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How To Retain Customers For Your Men's Clothing Line

Retaining customers is one of the most effective ways to grow your men's clothing line.

Oftentimes, it's easy to find yourself focusing on generating new customers, vs retaining your current ones.

Look at it this way - you are 60-70% more likely to sell a new product to an existing customer than you are a new customer.

That's not to say that finding new customers and revenue streams is not important, however, the easiest (and most inexpensive) source of new revenue is right there in front of you.

Here are some ways you can retain customers for your men's clothing line:

Responding to comments on social media
Send discounts (or freebies) to loyal customers
Provide valuable content, for free
Write a hand written thank you note
Provide awesome customer service and build relationships with customers

To find out more tips and tricks on retaining customers, check out this article ➜ here

Outsourcing

If you can afford to hire someone to help support your men's clothing line, outsourcing is a great way to save you time and energy.

Most importantly, outsourcing can help you focus on the core growth of your business, versus spending your time on day to day tasks that other people can do just as well!

If you do plan to outsource your work, it's important to be hyper-familiar with the actual work involved.

Why is it important to be hyper-familiar with the work?

So you can understand how long it takes
So you understand the full process, edge cases, things that can go wrong.
So you can explain it in detail to your employee.
So you can make sure it actually works (for example - how do you know cold email works for your business if you're not on the ground floor trying it out?)
Understanding the tasks at a deep level will save you a lot of time and money.

Tools to get started:

As a men's clothing line, there are some tools and platforms you may want to consider when getting started:

Resources

We put together the best resources on the internet to help you start your men's clothing line.

Tools

Social media tools such as YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, Pinterest or LinkedIn
Analytics tools such as Sumo or Google Analytics
Advertising tools such as Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, Google Adwords or Google AdSense
Productivity tools such as Dropbox, Slack, Evernote or Google Suite
Reviews tools such as Judge.me, Stamped.io or YotPo
Payments tools such as Amazon Payments, Square, Stripe, Apple Pay, Paypal, Shopify Payments or Paywhirl
Design tools such as Sketch, Adobe Suite or Canva
Referral tools such as ReferralCandy or Talkable
Sales tools such as Bold Upsell or Upsell App
Seo tools such as Ahrefs
Customer service tools such as ManyChat
Shipping tools such as ShipStation, Royal Mail or DHL
Crowdfunding tools such as Kickstarter
Inventory tools such as Cin7
Financing tools such as Clearbanc or Shopify Capital
Platform tools such as Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce or Amazon
Payroll tools such as QuickBooks
Crm tools such as Streak
Accounting tools such as Xero or Quickbooks
Software deals tools such as AppSumo
Freelance tools such as Fiverr or Upwork
Email tools such as Klaviyo or MailChimp

Books

Launch a Kick Ass T-Shirt Brand: An Essential Guide to Building a T-Shirt Empire: Moust Camara
How to Start a Clothing Empire: Bruno Marino
Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup
Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup
Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

Web Resources

How to Start a Men's Clothing Store - Bizfluent
How to Start a Clothing Line: Your Complete Guide to Design, Sampling, Production & Packaging

Videos

How to Start a Clothing Line, God 1st Clothing
Start Your Own Men's Clothing Line with TRIO Clothier!

Case Studies

How I Started A Passive Income Business Online At 16 Years Old
How I Started $3.6M New Zealand Fashion Brand I Love Ugly
Launching A Menswear Brand During COVID Lockdown
Creating A New Type of Dress Shirt And Launching From Amsterdam
How I Started A Heavy Duty Work Gear Brand After Working On An Oil Rig
How Rob Kessler Invented A Permanent Collar Stay for Dress Shirts
How I Started A $60K/Month Business Selling Male Rompers
How I Launched A $20K/Month Sweat-Free Dress Shirts Brand

Want to start your own business?

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