The current UK climate is looking bleak, to say the least, and throughout this time of pandemic panic and the furlough worries many people will be feeling their entrepreneurial spirit coming to life, after all what else is there to do when you are trapped within your own home for weeks on end with very few changes to the daily routine. Many people have thought about starting a t shirt business, but most do not have the knowledge on what is required to set up and run a successful business. We have been working hard on putting together a list of the essential steps you must take to ensure success in your fledgling t shirt business. There isn’t a specific order to these steps, however we have put them in an order in which we see most appropriate. These steps can be revisited at any time, and it is advised to revisit these steps regularly to ensure you are on track to achieving your goals.
Market Research
Before you make any plans, create any designs, or think of a name, it is essential to carry out some market research to understand how the market is looking and the companies in which you will be competing against. Once thing to be aware of is the seasonality of the market as understanding peaks and troughs of demand will help you adjust your stock levels accordingly, so that you don’t end up with a backlog of orders, or unsold stock.
Define Your Audience
When carrying out your market research it is important to begin defining your audience and gathering an understanding of your potential customers. It is important to ask the questions, what do these people want to buy? what motivates these people to buy? Once you begin to understand the answers to these questions you can further develop you audience understanding to gain insights such as the types of online places they frequent, other types of brands they buy and their social and political standpoint.
Define Your Brand
Once you have an understanding of the market that you intend to operate in, who you will be competing against, and who’s custom you hope to be winning, you can begin to create you brand tailored to your audience, by doing things this way you can design your brand bespoke to a subset of customers. If you have a brand already then you can take the learnings from carrying out the market and customer research to further develop your products and brand story.
Find a Supplier
To solidify your brands success, it is vital to produce quality garments, and this means both the garment it is printed on, and the print itself as no company wants items returned due to lack of quality. To achieve high quality, you need to source a supplier that can provide your business with the best products on the market, such as Banana Moon Clothing who are experts in personalised and customised clothing, giving your business the assurance that you will provide the best garments resulting in customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty.
Market Your Products
Marketing is a key function of any business, and it is very rare a business can survive on limited marketing, here are a few examples, but decide for yourself if you think they are actively marketing. In the digital age we are fortunate enough to have a wealth of user data available to use which can boost your marketing and increase your targeting, especially through the use of social media meaning with a limited budget you can accurately target your desired audience.
