Hi all... here's my story

[rhonab]

My name is Rhona and I'm new to the FastLane Forum.
I come from the oil industry, we have a family company that provided equipments and services to the oil industry, but due the restrictions in the oil market and working under Venezuela's environment , it became a no longer stable business, still open, but with little operation happening in the last year.
Under this scenario, we decided to look for new ways to do business, and one of these was to start an online retail fashion store in Miami.
I have no background about ads, Instagram, digital marketing, etc. I'm starting to learn about it, and I am passionate about fashion. We already launched the online store on November 1st. So far no sales have been made, I am beginning to question if we chose the right niche of products, also we hired a company to manage the web site, Instagram account, Facebook, basically all digital marketing plan. Currently, after 14 days online, the website has been visited by 519 people. After spending more than 20,000 dollars on digital marketing, which includes website, ads, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and creating the content, it doesn't make sense to me how we haven't made one sale. It may also be that I am too anxious.
I joined this forum seeking for support to run this business, learn about the process and make it a successful company.

 

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[sparechange]

Please stop spending money, 20 grand is way over spending and whoever is managing your store is robbing you without a gun.

 

[sparechange]

What makes you different from all the millions of online stores around? O my, fill a need in the market, people don't need another fashion store. I'll let the other sharks that swim the forums take over..

 

[rhonab]

What makes you different from all the millions of online stores around? O my, fill a need in the market, people don't need another fashion store. I'll let the other sharks that swim the forums take over..

What makes us different? some of our woman pieces are exclusive, with a very few quantity. I don't know if that really makes "the different"

 

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[xoxojbelle]

Hi!

So a few months ago before I read The Millionare Fastlane, I was creating a dropshipping clothing boutique for girly girls. After reading it, I dropped that idea althogether. To increase your likelihood of succeeding in business, you should consider forgoing your passions and really look for a need in the marketplace.
After taking that to heart, I'm now building a niche outdoor store (I'm not an outside person at all). In his book, MJ describes the nesct principle, which would be need, entry, control, scale, and time. Please use the forum's search function to read more about these.

Anyways, I'm sorry you're going through this!
It will be tough to compete in that market and it's sad that you've wasted that much money with no sales. Think of it as a really expensive education.

 

[sparechange]

What makes us different? some of our woman pieces are exclusive, with a very few quantity. I don't know if that really makes "the different"

If you unsure of your brands uniqueness that's not a very good thing. If I buy nike Jordan's I'm gonna believe my jumpshot increases 50% people will think I'm cool. If I buy lulu lemon my a$$ is gonna look amazing and I'm a part of a culture. If I buy the millionaire fastlane I'm a part of an entrepreneur culture. If I buy a Rolex people will respect me and think I'm rich, if I buy $200 guess jeans I'll have the best looking pair. Etc etc. you have to convince people to give you money for an over saturated product. Do you have a physical store in the real world? IMO women tend to be compulsive shoppers that will overspend at malls or small stores. And make shopping an experience (going out with friends) sephora has maybe the best shopping experience and la senza. Look into visiting those stores in the mindset of consumption.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I'm starting to learn about it, and I am passionate about fashion.

So far no sales have been made

Ah yes, so "follow your passion" doesn't create sales? No way!

As others have mentioned, read the books. They might give you the ideas/strategies to turn your fashion goals into reality, or perhaps, steer you entirely in a new direction.

Bottomline, no one gives a shit that you're passionate about fashion unless that passion translates into relative value. Our product comes in limited quantity doesn't equate to relative value no more than a unique piece of toast that looks like Jesus.

 

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[rhonab]

Ah yes, so "follow your passion" doesn't create sales? No way!

As others have mentioned, read the books. They might give you the ideas/strategies to turn your fashion goals into reality, or perhaps, steer you entirely in a new direction.

Bottomline, no one gives a shit that you're passionate about fashion unless that passion translates into relative value. Our product comes in limited quantity doesn't equate to relative value no more than a unique piece of toast that looks like Jesus.

Currently I'm reading The Millionaire Fastlane , also reading Marketing (Kotler Armstrong), lets see what is the result of this.

Thanks for your input

 

[TheCj]

I recall, recently reading about a huge fashion brand that built itself by giving away clothing to people with large social media followings. The attractive women would post wearing the new clothing it looked good on them and drove people to go buy.

I tried googling to find the company I read about, but google gave me results for more than a handful of different fashion "empires" that grew this way.

Found the company I read about before Fashion Nova.

 

[Xeon]

I recall, recently reading about a huge fashion brand that built itself by giving away clothing to people with large social media followings. The attractive women would post wearing the new clothing it looked good on them and drove people to go buy.

I tried googling to find the company I read about, but google gave me results for more than a handful of different fashion "empires" that grew this way.

Found the company I read about before Fashion Nova.

Interesting. I checked out their site and googled about them. I like how their branding is all about those curvy-busty-kylie-jenner-types.
I'm not sure where they get so much money in the beginning to even fund the whole free-clothes campaign however. Maybe investors?

Anyway, strategies like these are not suitable for most of us. There's another one : Wildfox.com
Here's the story: How Wildfox Built a Successful Fashion Business Out of T-Shirts

The article didn't explain how an odd-job Kim suddenly surge and managed to get Beyonce and other big names to wear and back her apparel, but I assume she made some connections during her filming course. Check out the price of the graphic tees here: Graphic Tees - Wildfox
US$70 - US$85 for a top! (tbh, the designs look normal and that's being polite)

Considering that fast fashion (like Forever 21, which sells their clothes at US$7 per piece or less) is the rage nowadays, I'm surprised businesses didn't close shop.

I'm interested to know what the top dogs here make of all these. Are these outliers?

My personal opinion from looking at all these is that in fashion, if you want to make it big like wildfox or fashion nova, you need celebrity connections + $$$ investment at the beginning.

If I'm not wrong, even Daymond John of shark tank had connections to rappers (he was a rapper himself) when he started FUBU back then. Heck, even Johnny Cupcakes was a musician when he started his clothing line!

 

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[rhonab]

Interesting. I checked out their site and googled about them. I like how their branding is all about those curvy-busty-kylie-jenner-types.
I'm not sure where they get so much money in the beginning to even fund the whole free-clothes campaign however. Maybe investors?

Anyway, strategies like these are not suitable for most of us. There's another one : Wildfox.com
Here's the story: How Wildfox Built a Successful Fashion Business Out of T-Shirts

The article didn't explain how an odd-job Kim suddenly surge and managed to get Beyonce and other big names to wear and back her apparel, but I assume she made some connections during her filming course. Check out the price of the graphic tees here: Graphic Tees - Wildfox
US$70 - US$85 for a top! (tbh, the designs look normal and that's being polite)

Considering that fast fashion (like Forever 21, which sells their clothes at US$7 per piece or less) is the rage nowadays, I'm surprised businesses didn't close shop.

I'm interested to know what the top dogs here make of all these. Are these outliers?

My personal opinion from looking at all these is that in fashion, if you want to make it big like wildfox or fashion nova, you need celebrity connections + $$$ investment at the beginning.

If I'm not wrong, even Daymond John of shark tank had connections to rappers (he was a rapper himself) when he started FUBU back then. Heck, even Johnny Cupcakes was a musician when he started his clothing line!

Thanks for you feedback. The secret behind Forever 21 y buying large amount of inventory over 1000 pieces per model per color, so each piece cost around $3.... hard to compite in early stage with that prices.

 

[TheCj]

I have zero experience in clothing or social media... but from what i got from it was, I have clothes I message people in this my target market being attractive women who have a lot of followers. I offer them free clothing in return for them sharing pics and links on there social media if they like the clothing.
I don't think any of that requires any money except for giving them free clothing... So even if you were willing to give away $5000 dollars worth of clothing to 5-10 people with large followings, wouldn't that be more productive. If able to get 100,000's to millions of people seeing your clothing i think would get some feedback as to if the clothing would sell.
Even if just started with trying to give a free outfit to one person with a following should give some idea I would think.
I thought the whole point of social media was it levels the field of who you can reach out too, so you don't have to luck out knowing famous people growing up.
Can basically do what the big companies do but you are a smaller company targeting smaller "social media celebrities", I don't see a person turning down a free product...
Just from people's progress thread's here, reaching out to people who have social media followings seems to be a low cost way of marketing..
Seems Forever 21 has been in business since 1984...
But again my advice is worth what you paid for it..