When starting a clothing brand, the natural first step is to find a good clothing manufacturer to produce your garments but there are other costs to consider, some being vital to having a successful brand.
Below we will explore some of the cost factors to take into consideration.
Manufacturing Costs
This is forefront of your business. Firstly, set a budget aside for sampling.
You can end up spending a lot of money on sampling if you are testing various clothing manufacturers to see which is most suitable for you.
Once you find your suitable factory, you will then need to budget the cost of the bulk order,
as well as freight costs and any potential import tax and VAT on the order.
Design Costs
There will usually be some design work needed when starting your brand.
At minimum this will be a logo design and a lot of factories will require CAD designs or tech packs for your garments.
Investing money in to creating tech packs can save you money in the long run as it will lower the risk of mistakes on your samples.
Website
You will need a website to have an online platform to sell your garments from.
There are different options for this from making a custom website from scratch or using a platform like shopify which will require a monthly fee.
Marketing Costs
Good quality garments retain customers but your marketing is how you gain those customers in the first place.
You should set aside a monthly amount for marketing your brand and naturally increase this when you are getting a suitable return on investment from your marketing.
Marketing can range from sponsored ads, retargeting and paying influencers to post social media images wearing your clothing.
Content Creation
Good content will add value to your brand.
Poor content can easily devalue your brand so you need to consider the costs of creating that content.
These costs can include photography, videography, models and studio rental.
Other Costs
Other costs to consider for your brand will be costs such as trademarking your brand
(check your brand name is not already trademarked using a trademark checker,) accounting fees,
staff costs (if and when employing staff,) rental of a unit and purchase of equipment e.g. a printer, postage bags.
These costs should all be included in your budget and included in your business plan.
Summary
In a competitive industry, it is important to do things properly.
If you take shortcuts that other brands are not,
you will likely lose customers to the brands who are focusing on creating a better customer experience.
As well as being a leading clothing manufacturer, we also provide services from modelling shoots,
CAD and tech pack design, web design and digital marketing.
If you have any questions regarding any of our services, please feel free to get in touch through our contact form.