Myths about starting your online clothing business in India:
- No, you can’t start a clothing brand without any investment
- Starting a custom clothing business in India isn’t a low competitive niche
However, if planned and executed strategically and data-driven, the chances of succeeding in your clothing business will increase. This is what I will be sharing with you in this guide.
How does an online clothing business model work?
An online clothing business model, often utilizing Print-on-Demand (POD), revolves around creating and selling custom apparel without managing physical inventory. Here’s the breakdown:
Step 1. Design: You design clothing based on trends or target audience preferences.
Step 2. Partner with POD Service: You partner with a POD service that handles printing and shipping upon order.
Step 3. Set Up Online Store: You list your designs on a website or platform like Shopify.
Step 4. Customer Orders: Customers browse, choose designs, and place orders.
Step 5. POD Service Fulfills: Your POD partner prints and ships the order directly to the customer.
Step 6. You Earn Profit: You keep the difference between your selling price and the POD service’s costs.
Key advantages:
- Low upfront investment: No need to buy and store inventory initially
- Scalable: Easily add new designs and adjust production based on demand.
- Flexible: Cater to diverse customer preferences and trends.
For example, you showcase some of your high-demand products on an E-commerce platform, where your clients get a chance to select items of their choice and up to 7+ on-demand printing options. We then help you create these customisable clothing prints and ship them to their addresses.
Today, the online clothing business is getting more attention among people. While I was searching for its statistics, it was found that Statista experts are estimating the value of the global fashion e-commerce market to reach $1.2 trillion globally. You can also be a part of this industry by starting an online clothing business with us.
The demand for custom printing in the past 12 months has been depicted in the graph below.
Can you really start an online clothing business from home?
Yes, you can start an online clothing business from home as this doesn’t require huge investments, physical infrastructure, big warehouses, or managing inventories. But, with the POD business model, you need design tools and a good knowledge of marketing.
You can sketch new designs for your clothing lines using paid tools or use free templates available on the Internet.
For example, you can pick up a free template for t-shirt designs from Canva, and then customise it as per your choice.
Explore some pre-built cool tshirt design templates on Canva.
How? That’s a question that most new businesses ask us! Here’s what you can do.
You can sign up with us for Print on Demand services, where you only need to worry about creating unique apparel designs.
We do the rest of your tasks, from printing your orders to shipping them to the required destination and tracking for returns.
For apparel design, you can use design tools or hire freelance designers from platforms like freelancer.com, Upwork, Fiverr, etc. You can also use free design resources from Freepik and Pexels.
With the POD business model, you can save time and money on manufacturing items and increasing unnecessary stocks to meet changing customer demands.
If you are teaming up with us, we will also help you with branding. However, you need to concentrate on marketing your brand on different platforms.
Learn about the tshirt printing business plan with our free template
How to start online clothing business in India?
Step 1. Choosing the right online clothing business idea (with USP)
Before you decide to choose your products, you need to select a consumer base and a clothing niche you want to sell in. Your niche ensures you list products in your online store and create a whole clothing line around the potential customer base you want to target and position your store on the marketplace.
One great example of an online clothing store is ONLY.
Their niche? Western fashion-forward styles and Denim are their lifeblood.
Their target audience? Women and Kids.
How to choose your niche?
- Remember the trending clothing niche for 2024: Vintage, Athleisure, Genderless, Sustainable, and Recommerce (second-hand clothing lines) fashion
- Try to have unique selling points (for example: chasing the fast fashion trend, following catwalk trends, selling quality products, affordable clothing line for urban middle-class market)
What is the earning potential of your niche?
From working with hundreds of online clothing store, we can state that the profit margin could be from 20% to 45%. However, the cost of acquisition might be high initially as you may spend on paid advertise to acquire customers.
Here’s an example:
- You run a custom clothing store where you design clothes based on customer preferences.
- A company wants 20 t-shirts with their logo printed in the same color.
- You use a Print-on-Demand (POD) service provider to produce the shirts.
POD Service Provider Charges:
- Production cost + GST
- Printing cost + GST
- Shipping cost
Calculating Profit:
- Total Cost: Add up all the POD service provider charges (production, printing, shipping, and GST).
- Desired Profit Margin: Decide what percentage profit you want to make on each t-shirt (e.g., 30%).
- Profit: Multiply the total cost by the desired profit margin.
- Selling Price: Add the profit to the total cost to get the selling price per t-shirt.
Example:
- Cost per t-shirt = Rs 291
- Desired profit margin = 30%
- Profit per t-shirt = Rs 291 * 0.3 = Rs 87.3
- Selling price per t-shirt = Rs 291 + Rs 87.3 = Rs 378.3
So, if Your cost of the product is Rs 291 and you want to earn a 30% margin, you can keep the selling price at Rs 378.3, and your profit is Rs 87.3.
Relevant resources for you:
Step 2. Finding names for online clothing business
As the right outfit can set you apart from the crowd, so can the right name for your business can improve your position in the market. The name of your store must reflect the sophistication of your clothing line.
For example, if you are selling luxury fashion clothing or timeless classics, your brand name, like LUXEPOLIS, must speak of luxury and quality.
Similarly, for a sports brand, you need a name that offers consumers a sense of strength and motivation. A plus-size clothing brand must have a name that embraces body positivity, e.g., The Pink Moon, FabAlley, and Amydus.
No matter what name you choose, make sure it reflects your USPs and attracts consumers.
TIP: You must check whether some other store has the similar name or the domain name as yours.
Step 3. Legally register and setup your business in India
Choose the right structure
Once you have chosen a unique name, you need to decide on a business structure. In India, businesses usually have three common structures: private limited companies, limited liability partnerships, and sole proprietorships.
For e-commerce businesses, registering your online store as a sole proprietorship can be good, as you are the sole person running the business.
Purchase an unique domain
To open an online business, you need to first buy a unique domain from the right domain registrar.
Multiple domain registrars are available online, but you must compare their pricing and services before choosing. Here’s how you can purchase a free domain
Obtain Director Identification Number
(Source:https://www.mca.gov.in/MinistryV2/dinprocess.html)
You need to then register yourself as the director of the company working within India on the MCA website. Before that, make sure you have an account on the website.
However, if you don’t have DIN or DSC, you can register yourself on the MCA website as an individual through the ‘new user registration’ link.
Another essential document you must have as an online store is a DSC or Digital Signature Certificate. This is the only legal and secure method that allows you to sign papers digitally. You can buy such DSC from a Certified Authority (CA) as listed by the MCA (Ministry of Corporate Affairs).
The cost of getting a DSC may vary as there are multiple entities issuing DSCs, and you must check its charges with CA. You can usually get a DSC within a day, and it is valid for one to two years.
Reservation of name
(Source: https://www.mca.gov.in/Ministry/pdf/SpicePlusFAQS_20112020.pdf )
Once you have decided on a name and checked its availability, you then need to reserve your business name. According to the government of India, any company incorporated with effect from 23rd February 2020 must make an application for reservation of name through the web service Part A of SPICe+.
File for incorporation
(Source: https://www.mca.gov.in/Ministry/pdf/SpicePlusFAQS_20112020.pdf)
Now, you can proceed with company incorporation by submitting all the required documents to the Registrar of Companies (RoC).
You can incorporate your company electronically through Simplified Performa (SPICe+ INC 32) along with eMoA (SPICe+ INC 33) and eAOA (SPICe+ INC 34).
If you are incorporated through the SPICe+ website with an Authorised Capital of up to ₹15,00,000, you can get a “Zero Filing Fee” concession.
Register for GST
Every e-commerce business or an online clothing business must register for GST online. You can visit the Good and Services Tax site to apply for new registration without visiting the government office.
You need a few documents for E-commerce registration
- PAN card of the proprietor
- AOA (Articles of Association)/MOA (Memorandum of Association)
- PAN Card and Aadhar Card of the Authorised signatory
- TDS detail
- Certificate of incorporation
- PAN card of the company
Step 4. Create design for your clothing items.
Customers shop for clothing lines to make themselves a part of the glamour industry. These people can take your clothing brand to the sky limit, but to attract them towards your business line, you need creativity. Your mom in her 60s may not have the same choice of colour and design as you have in your 20s.
So, when you are starting a clothing business, you must keep in mind the audience’s demands in your niche. This allows you to stand out from the crowd and showcase your unique styles.
Here’s how to create exclusive clothing designs.
- Before starting to design, you must research the latest fashion trends focusing on colour and designs
- You can use online tools like Canva that allow you to create simple designs from existing templates
- For exclusive designs, hire a professional designer from online job boards like Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer.com
- If your budget is little higher, you can also buy designs from creative market, like Etsy
- Additionally, you can use free design resources available online from freepik, and pexels
Step 5. Find the most affordable (yet high-quality) dropshipping clothing manufacturer
Now, it’s understandable that a business in its initial stage has difficulty with investments. Most of the investments go with inventory management, shipping, packaging, and branding. It is when you can collaborate with a dropshipping clothing manufacturer like Qikink.
Why are such services helpful?
- No extra stocks and unnecessary wastes
- No worries with manufacturing, shipping and returns
- Quick dispatch of products within 2-3 working days
- Access to exclusive branding options
- Multiple printing options including DTG, DTF, Embroidery, Sublimation, Vinyl, etc.
- Convenient customer support system on Call, E-mail, and Whatsapp
- Integrate with Shopify and WooCommerce store for seamless order processing with complete automation
There are multiple dropshipping clothing manufacturers in the market, but you need to carefully compare them to find the best one. We don’t recommend you go for cheaper options but affordable companies that focus on providing high-quality fabrics and prints.
Step 6. Setup your online store and list products
Choose an e-commerce platform
There are multiple e-commerce platforms in India that you can try, like Shopify and WooCommerce, or marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart.
Qikink integrates with top E-commerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce. So you can use these platforms to connect your store with us and experience complete automation in order placing and processing.
Signup at Qikink.com
You can click on the ‘signup’ link available on the Qikink website and create a free account.
Now, you are not just some regular entrepreneur running to business daily and spending hours checking inventories, managing staff, and worrying about sales. With Qikink, call yourself a couchpreneur; it means an entrepreneur who does their business from their home couch and not running around for warehousing, inventory management, merchandising, printing, and logistics.
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Upload your designs on Qikink
You can upload your clothing designs with Qikink. There are numerous tools available for designing, like Canva. You can also hire freelance designers to do the task and attract customers. Once you receive your client orders, we take care of manufacturing and printing the clothing and ship products directly to your customers.
List your products on the ecommerce platform
Now, you must focus on listing your unique clothing range on these platforms. This includes adding a good product description so that customers can better understand the item before purchasing. For example, if you are selling cotton clothes, you must mention your USPs, such as 100% cotton and 180 GSM super combed bio-wash fabric.
You must also see if the product description matches your product display. Add multiple pictures of your clothing items so that clients get a 360-degree view of the item and then decide whether to place an order.
You can get an overview of how to list products on Shopify from this video.
Step 7. Integrate payment gateway
Every online clothing business must have an authentic payment gateway. These tackle the increasing online payments by accepting credit and debit cards, net banking, etc. Here’s how you can choose right now.
- Consider the cost of a payment gateway including its set up fees, monthly payment, and transaction charges
- Number of currencies they support and payment methods (Credit and Debit cards, net banking, NEFT, UPI, etc.)
- Time taken for processing payment
- Availability of recurring billing and international payments
- Advanced security measures for fraud detection and risk management availability
- Seamless integration with third-party tools
We have listed some of the top payment gateways that you can consider for your online store.
- RazorPay
- CCAvenue
- BillDesk
- PayU
- PayPal
- Instamojo
- Cashfree
For more details on payment integration read our blog.
But, if your customers want to pay with cash at the time of delivery, we can facilitate that as well. For COD orders, our courier partner collects the cash from respective customers and transfers it to Qikink’s account. You can then either add that amount to your wallet or to your bank account.
Step 8. Promote your new online clothing business
1. Start with your known people
You can design your clothing ranges and request your friends and family to purchase them. They can share their experience on social media or go live to encourage fans or people in the network to purchase your products. When you are starting your marketing with a family, chances of getting sales through word of mouth increase.
2. Content marketing and Search Engine Optimisation
You can leave a long-lasting impact on your target consumers with trending blogs and articles. This can be related to fashion trends, new gala shows, covering fashion experts’ views, etc.
Then, implement the top SEO strategies, including keyword optimisation, link building, and technical improvement. So whenever people search for relevant keywords on search engines, they find you appear on top results.
3. Social media advertising
Social media platforms are a great way to connect with people. You can share new designs, trending news, visuals from your latest fashion shows, etc, on social media handles. For example, hire a photographer and share your product photographs on Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook. This will attract the attention of your target audience.
4. Video marketing
Video content is getting more attention these days, and you can use that tactic to reach more people. Either create videos on your own or ask people to review your products and share these videos on multiple sites. This increases trust among customers, leading to increased sales.
5. Email marketing
You can send promotional emails to customers and grow your business. This is because traffic generated from emails is always high, leading to more engagement and purchase intent.
👉 Learn about effective marketing strategies to grow your online store
Step 9. Validate your profitable clothing business niche and product combo
Quick validation of your clothing business improves your possibility of setting up a profitable business. It helps you determine the genuine need for your clothing items in the market, and minimize the risk associated with launching new concepts. Additionally, it saves you time money and effort by focusing on clothing business ideas with higher potential.
Here’s a few things you can do
Identify existing problem
You need to build a prototype of your clothing lines to see if they solve an existing problem. But, before you do that you must test and validate your idea.
For example, if you are starting a clothing business, you must ask yourself a few questions like what problem you are solving, who is the person facing the problem, and what defines them. Let us consider clothes that prevent sun allergies which are common among women.
Define how you are solving the problem
Once you know the problem, you must then focus on how to solve it. Going back to our previous example, you wanted to solve sun allergy problems with clothing. For that, you can design breathable sun protective clothing with a built-in SPF (sun protection factor) of 50 or more to protect against UV rays.
For such an idea, your ideal customers may be someone who has inherited sun allergies or has a medical condition. These people will always look for clothing items that protect the skin from the Sun.
Conduct surveys with potential consumers
Surveys will help you understand whether your product is really solving consumers’ current problems. This validates your assumptions and determines whether your idea is valuable for the market.
You can also conduct interviews on forums and online support groups and engage people in sharing their stories and find effective solutions.
Map out customers journey with persona story maps
Gather all your information collected from the first three steps to build this 2D map. The customers and their problems may have different layers and the map will provide you with visuals of all their touch points and hurdles they will face in moving through the purchase process.
It will help you understand how consumer needs change throughout the journey, what provokes their purchase decisions, and keep your product consumer-focused.
Set up a website to implement ideas
You need to set up a website, with a landing page and a signup page to test your product idea in a real-world setting. It is where you can place your first product and drive traffic to it through PPC advertising. If you find that there’s no market for the product, you can immediately stop producing further items and rethink your idea.
Test and analyze product ideas with PPC advertising
PPC can help you in bringing your ideas in front of potential customers and confirm whether the niche is suitable for your investments.
You can run Adwords or Facebook Ads to test and validate your ideas. With a $200 investment in PPC advertising, you can save hundreds of dollars from manufacturing clothing lines that have no market.
Step 10. Scale it up
1. Double producing items that sell more
Once you identify which product items are working for your business, you can work on them to scale up. You can double down on those elements and eliminate the ones that aren’t working right now.
For example, your anime-printed t-shirts have received more sales during the past few months than your logo-printed t-shirts. So, you must double your production for anime-printed t-shirts and if necessary you can eliminate producing logo-printed ones.
2. Hire more talents
You can also look into hiring professional designers, content marketers, video editors or social media managers to improve your designs and marketing. They can create good impressions in the market and gain more customer attention.
3. Focus on marketing channels that target your ideal consumers
Not all marketing channels can work for your online store. Therefore, you must focus on how each channel performs and who drives more consumers to your store. You must invest only in the most effective channels to scale up your business.
4. Collaborate with POD service providers
Additionally, make sure you are collaborating with top print-on-demand or dropshipping companies like Qikink, who can fulfil any number of orders in a required period.
What is the profit margin in an online clothing business?
The profit margin in online clothing business is approximately 30% to 50%. However, it depends on multiple factors like clothing niche, market demands, quality of products, printing rates, etc.
You can use our calculator to understand how profitable your business can be with us.
For example, if you are selling unisex classic T-shirts for ₹499, which actually costs you ₹160, and the number of products sold is 500, you can make a profit of ₹2,49,500.
Start your online clothing store in India with Qikink
We know starting a business is not easy, especially when you have low capital. But money shouldn’t limit your dreams, so we at Qikink have launched Print on Demand services. Low initial investment, no inventory management, less waste, and minimal risks are some of the benefits you get with the POD business model.
Here’s how you can start with.
- Signup and Connect your eCommerce store with Qikink
- Create your products with your designs at Qikink Dashboard
- Update and launch your store
- Promote your online business store
- Check customer orders for shipping
- Qikink provides custom prints and delivers the orders to your customers
- COD amount collection and deposit in your wallet/bank
👉 Learn about how the dropshipping business model works.
Now, the question is how the process works for the POD model.
The customer purchases a t-shirt at your store, and this order gets delivered to the POD supplier at Qikink. Now, you can charge your customer $50 for a t-shirt, and the supplier manufactures the product for $30. The supplier then directly ships the product to the customer and makes a profit of $20.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to register dropshipping businesses in india?
You can register for dropshipping businesses in India in a few steps
- Select a unique name and structure for your business
- Get your Director Identification Number (DIN)
- Obtain Digital Signature Certificate (DSC)
- Incorporate business with Registrar of Companies
- Apply for GST certificate
- Get other required licenses
How much does it cost to start an online clothing business in India?
To start an online business in India, it costs you approximately ₹30,000 – ₹1,000,00 to start an online clothing business in India. However, if you are collaborating with a dropshipping clothing manufacturer, your initial investment can be lower. You only need to spend on design tools or hire designers, pay for integration with eCommerce platforms and payment gateways, and marketing costs.
What is the best dropshipping clothing manufacturer in India?
Qikink is one of the best dropshipping clothing manufacturers in India. There are numerous other names on the list, including Shopify, IndiaMART, My Online Fashion Store, AliExpress, Trendsi, and many more.
What are dropshipping items to sell online in india?
Top dropshipping items to sell online in India include clothing and accessories, electronics, home decor and furnishings, health, beauty and personal care, footwear, baby products, office supplies, phone and computer accessories, and pet supplies.
Is online clothing business profitable in India?
Yes, the online clothing business is profitable in India, especially if you are using dropshipping services.
For example, you charge a client ₹120 for a designer t-shirt and forward that order to a dropshipping clothing manufacturer who will charge you ₹90 for the same. Plus, they take care of manufacturing, packaging, shipping and returns. So you make a profit of ₹30 on selling one item.
With over 10+ years of experience in the industry, Our founder has dedicated his career to helping brands achieve exponential growth through innovative print-on-demand solutions.
