Zero sales, clothing brand...

[Fritz.dvl]

I've started a small clothing brand but I haven't got any sale yet.
I spent $1000 (it's a lot for me now) to create first products - everything is sewn locally etc - about 25 pieces.
(creating it took about 6 months, everything made out of scratch. My first real business ever)

I started selling few days ago and run Facebook ads - now they have 100k reach.
My website is visited by 100 people each day and I still haven't got any sale, my marketing budget is running up.

I don't know what is wrong - my product is good, unique and many people like it but no one buys it (1,5k likes on IG).
In Poland there are many small clothing brands and they're just putting big text with basic font with their name on a hoodie and people buy it.
My products are unique and feel premium. Description of my product is like a story telling, I try to connect with people and make my brand seem special. Price is about 70$ (with shipping) (other brands prices are much higher)
Does anyone have any advice on what should I do to get sales?
I really want to work hard on it but I don't know what should I do.

I would rather not give away any details like name or website

Tiktok is the way to go. All the attention is there. It completely change the way I thought about marketing and sales. If your product is really unique and you're willing to stand up to talk about... Go there and take advantage of it

 

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[Kung Fu Steve]

Still curious why not target adults who have disposable income instead of teenagers.

 

[ZCP]

80stees.com
@Kung Fu Steve has bought $xk of shirts. target him.

sell your shirts in the streets, dude. get some INSTANT feedback. talk up your story. build a following.
read Daymond John

 

[Kung Fu Steve]

80stees.com
@Kung Fu Steve has bought $xk of shirts. target him.

Dude there's a buy 2 get 1 free until tonight at midnight.

 

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[ZCP]

everytime i get on that site, my cart has $1500 in it ..... damn them

 

[windchaser]

If you want to target teenagers, I will definitely focus on TikTok instead, that is where they mainly are.

Considering you have product but no budget, I would also prioritize influencers over paid ads. Start with microinfluencers, they are more open to unpaid collabs in exchange for products. That would likely yield a better ROAs. And , if you go with the paid ads, do not waste you budget on trafgic and reach ones. Always go for conversion (even if it is add to cart or view content, those work very well for me). Experiment on audiences, expand age group and interests.

Also, I would reconsider target audience and/or price point. How many teenagers can afford a 70$ sweater? And the ones who do, why would they buy an unkown brand over a established prestigious one?

 

[ZCP]

dammit ... they have christmas tees now!

 

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[jdh]

You got your fair share of what you could have done better next time, so i'm focusing on what you might still try now before calling it quits.

1. Get feedback from your target audience
1.2 Someone suggested selling on the street, i like that but make sure it's your audience. If you are trying to sell to grandparents instead of your joungsters that feedback will be worthless. Go where your audience is. This is important. Go where your audience is and get feedback.
1.3 You might also get it from your website (if you are sure your ads attract your target audience). Use an exit popup, a chat tool, put a phone number there, offer an amazon voucher if you can call them. Get creative: MAKE CONTACT. Your audience knows much better than any of us.
1.4. As a bonus, if you have multiple audience groups, chose the one you like most and would love to hang out with. Makes your life a lot easier.

2. Speaking of which, posting a stereotype persona of your audience and what your value skew for them is might get some people here smarter than me to come up with other ideas. You might even have them search for similar products and get feedback: IF someone here matches your audience.

3. Just a thought experiment. If i would run an ad saying "free trip to new york" your analytics could look the exact same. I know you are thinking haha i'm not doing that, but to some degree you probably are. People are clicking on your ad out of curiousity or intention and expect something. then either your website does not deliver or they were just curious, wrong point in time, wrong audience etc . What does your ad say and what do you deliver. Just something to consider.

4. You say other brands are selling. Like other's have said, don't forget that the brand matters. Gucci could probably sell plain sweaters with a G, you probably can not.

5. If other brands are selling indeed, they will leave traces on the internet. Use similarweb to see where their traffic comes from, adwords tools/google search to see what they are bidding on (and what their LPs look like), seo tools where they rank, check their instagram etc, use that tool that shows you exactly what facebook ads they are running (facebook ads library) or try talking to their customers. Not saying to copy their copy verbatim but getting a healthy dose of inspiration.

That was my brain dump, repeating some things others have said as well. Hope it helps and much success to you!

 

[John Y]

Another member suggested that you upload pictures of people wearing the clothes you are selling.
I agree.
And the easiest way to do it is through "place it" (www.placeit.net).
In a few minutes you will have professionally-looking pictures of people “wearing” your clothes
and simply you may unsubscribe the moment you finish, having paid only for one month
(instead of paying precious time (and money) for a professional photoshooting).

 

[Xeon]

1)

Kay Bahd Apparel | Representing Rural Canada

Canadian lifestyle clothing brand representing rural Canada. Inspired by the things we say from coast to coast in the Great White North. Worn by Canadian Icons.

kaybahdapparel.ca

2)

https://www.youtube.com/c/ApparelSuccess/videos

3)

You are being redirected...

All from the same guy behind Kay Bahd Apparel.

 

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[ToneDoinIt]

I've started a small clothing brand but I haven't got any sale yet.
I spent $1000 (it's a lot for me now) to create first products - everything is sewn locally etc - about 25 pieces.
(creating it took about 6 months, everything made out of scratch. My first real business ever)

I started selling few days ago and run Facebook ads - now they have 100k reach.
My website is visited by 100 people each day and I still haven't got any sale, my marketing budget is running up.

I don't know what is wrong - my product is good, unique and many people like it but no one buys it (1,5k likes on IG).
In Poland there are many small clothing brands and they're just putting big text with basic font with their name on a hoodie and people buy it.
My products are unique and feel premium. Description of my product is like a story telling, I try to connect with people and make my brand seem special. Price is about 70$ (with shipping) (other brands prices are much higher)
Does anyone have any advice on what should I do to get sales?
I really want to work hard on it but I don't know what should I do.

I would rather not give away any details like name or website

I specify in threeeads. I could sell out your whole stock within 1 month of having aaccess to your accountws. Sorry fro typos hugnry and time is limitd.

 

[rymf]

Thank you for help

Spoiler

Hey man I came across your post. I think I can help you a little bit here. I sell home decor products in India through instagram. I think same principles you can apply in Poland.

First of all, your target audience is probably more on instagram than on facebook. So just open up instagram business account and start posting. Initially get your family and friends to follow you there. Once you have 10-20 posts start running promotions.

Now for small businesses like you when you run promotion, select the goal of your campaign to be "messaging". I was running traffic straight to my website but was not getting any sales. You can try this even with facebook.

When you run messaging ads, people start to enquire about your products and some of them buy. And these ads are really cheap if you know your target audience.

The most important thing is the post itself. You need to add multiple images or a video of your product. And it becomes even more powerful if you take the lifestyle photo of your product. I mean like some people wearing your hoodie and playing basketball or people sitting in a sofa and having a good time. If the photo is in plain white background I have found that people do not connect and don't buy from you or message you.

Also bring something unique to your product which does not increase the cost but increases it's value. This will differentiate you from your competition. You can look for the ideas at pinterest or etsy.

Once you have sales through messaging campaign. Ask your customer that how was the product. Take the screenshot of this and post it as a story and a highlight.

And when you have got these reviews, you can leverage them to make more sales and more reviews. After this, you can start doing website campaigns. Post these reviews on the website to build trust. I directly post the screenshots next to my product photos. Even if i make a single sale, i generate profit to even out the cost of the campaign.

You can apply these similar concepts to facebook ads I think.

Screw the ads. Validate your product/design first by validating THE STORY of your brand. Get on tiktok/instagram tell a good story or at least a story that resonates with an audience. Some kid from the hood slapped on a patch of hoodies and made 500k in 6 months off of tiktok....even though he sells locally to barbershops who then sell his hoodies. Fashion retail is all about the story.

I've run Facebook ads for a few years now and this is going to be ridiculously difficult to figure out what the problem is because business unfortunately isn't so cut and dry as to what the problem is. It's not like for example a car that is leaking coolant and you can replace hose and it fixes the problem, it's much more complex. Also you're in a absolutely brutal market.

Anyways, like mentioned by others above, the price could be an issue and since you're already losing money you could change the price and make it $40 for example to see if people buy it and run a conversion campaign for a week but to be honest it probably won't work. I've tested this theory many times of reducing the price and it never worked. But it's a quick change so see how you go.

As has been mentioned in this forum previously the best way of validating your product is when people take their wallets out and pay you for your product, I agree with this. Those people in real life that you said are interested but won't buy it are either being friendly and are really not interested or they are not your target market, or both.

lastly, Facebook ads is pure trash imo even though it's what I do, lol. CPC's, CPM's, etc are crazy expensive at over $100 CPM's, and anywhere from $3- $15 CPC so it may as well be impossible to become successful on it and also Facebook just sucks at finding customers.

If I could go back in time I'd focus on Google shopping ads, just makes so much more sense as people are actually searching for your product where Facebook there isn't much buying intent or it's much less, maybe you could test your product there? I get the feeling that you will run into the same issue (no sales or little sales)

Good luck man hope you figure things out!

Invest in the INSIDERS subscription, post there more details about your business, ideally a link to the website and maybe screenshots of your ads (posts on the inside aren't indexed by Google), and you'll learn what's wrong.

The alternative is to keep wasting money not knowing what to fix or if it can even be fixed.

Well, all the messages you got are as far as it can go here. You have no message, no story, no differentiator but want to charge the same price as other actual brands that have all those things.

Why do you think it doesn’t work?

Without seeing what the problem is, we can talk generic all day long and it won’t help you one bit.

Tiktok is the way to go. All the attention is there. It completely change the way I thought about marketing and sales. If your product is really unique and you're willing to stand up to talk about... Go there and take advantage of it

If you want to target teenagers, I will definitely focus on TikTok instead, that is where they mainly are.

Considering you have product but no budget, I would also prioritize influencers over paid ads. Start with microinfluencers, they are more open to unpaid collabs in exchange for products. That would likely yield a better ROAs. And , if you go with the paid ads, do not waste you budget on trafgic and reach ones. Always go for conversion (even if it is add to cart or view content, those work very well for me). Experiment on audiences, expand age group and interests.

Also, I would reconsider target audience and/or price point. How many teenagers can afford a 70$ sweater? And the ones who do, why would they buy an unkown brand over a established prestigious one?

You got your fair share of what you could have done better next time, so i'm focusing on what you might still try now before calling it quits.

1. Get feedback from your target audience
1.2 Someone suggested selling on the street, i like that but make sure it's your audience. If you are trying to sell to grandparents instead of your joungsters that feedback will be worthless. Go where your audience is. This is important. Go where your audience is and get feedback.
1.3 You might also get it from your website (if you are sure your ads attract your target audience). Use an exit popup, a chat tool, put a phone number there, offer an amazon voucher if you can call them. Get creative: MAKE CONTACT. Your audience knows much better than any of us.
1.4. As a bonus, if you have multiple audience groups, chose the one you like most and would love to hang out with. Makes your life a lot easier.

2. Speaking of which, posting a stereotype persona of your audience and what your value skew for them is might get some people here smarter than me to come up with other ideas. You might even have them search for similar products and get feedback: IF someone here matches your audience.

3. Just a thought experiment. If i would run an ad saying "free trip to new york" your analytics could look the exact same. I know you are thinking haha i'm not doing that, but to some degree you probably are. People are clicking on your ad out of curiousity or intention and expect something. then either your website does not deliver or they were just curious, wrong point in time, wrong audience etc . What does your ad say and what do you deliver. Just something to consider.

4. You say other brands are selling. Like other's have said, don't forget that the brand matters. Gucci could probably sell plain sweaters with a G, you probably can not.

5. If other brands are selling indeed, they will leave traces on the internet. Use similarweb to see where their traffic comes from, adwords tools/google search to see what they are bidding on (and what their LPs look like), seo tools where they rank, check their instagram etc, use that tool that shows you exactly what facebook ads they are running (facebook ads library) or try talking to their customers. Not saying to copy their copy verbatim but getting a healthy dose of inspiration.

That was my brain dump, repeating some things others have said as well. Hope it helps and much success to you!

Another member suggested that you upload pictures of people wearing the clothes you are selling.
I agree.
And the easiest way to do it is through "place it" (www.placeit.net).
In a few minutes you will have professionally-looking pictures of people “wearing” your clothes
and simply you may unsubscribe the moment you finish, having paid only for one month
(instead of paying precious time (and money) for a professional photoshooting).

1)

Kay Bahd Apparel | Representing Rural Canada

Canadian lifestyle clothing brand representing rural Canada. Inspired by the things we say from coast to coast in the Great White North. Worn by Canadian Icons.

kaybahdapparel.ca

2)

https://www.youtube.com/c/ApparelSuccess/videos

3)

You are being redirected...

All from the same guy behind Kay Bahd Apparel

 

[Daniel.]

You haven't lost any money, this is simply a paid lesson - you're learning!

As others mentioned, Brand Marketing is a BEAST. I may be wrong here but it seems that you're following similar copy to your competitors. Be different.

Yes, you can run more Ads or tweak the audience but I believe you may need to focus on your core offering

Answer these questions:

Why should I buy from you?
What makes you different than your competitors?
etc

Use those answers to help differentiate yourself and push your message

You can then do a bit of AB testing with different Ads and start tracking metrics.

Create a bit of scarcity on your landing page or site, for example, create a fake clothing item and label it "SOLD OUT"

 

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[woken]

LOL(link)

I can definitely understand your frustration.
Trying to offer value then something like in the link above comes and people buy it lol.

Controversy? Well, sometime it works.

 

[Paydette]

That's what I am constantly trying to do, but little results - maybe I'm doing it wrong.

Maybe your story isn't compelling?

 

[BlackMagician]

If you seriously need help, I can spare 30min call with you and help you.

But let me help you get a better clarity on why you are not getting sales.
1) Product-Market Fit: You said people are buying the similar low quality product in your local but not yours which is made from "scratch" and have higher quality.
So, did you validate that they are looking for something that is made from scratch and of higher quality? As MJ mentioned, in this niche, top branding & marketing is the killer.

2) You thought now you have products, you have added storyline, you pushed ads, you will get sales.
But multiple factors comes into play.
Not getting sales can be because of many reasons and if you dont fix all of them (most of them atleast), you won't get sales.

Lets take audiences as example: You are targeting teens. Do you really know that they are the potential audience?
In Education space, many brands sell to kids. But parents are the real potential buyer and decision maker.

So knowing who your exact audience is crucial.

Now lets take traffic - You can traffic ads, reach ads etc. You wont get any sales. I am not going to dive in deep on this but here is
PRO TIP: For ecommerce store, you run only conversion campaign for COLD audience.

Only conversion campaign will give facebook the right data to analyse.

--------------

There are multiple factors that causes you no results and if you are not going to share any details/numbers, no one can help you.

Truthfully, no one is going to STEAL your idea, niche, name because YOU haven't proven yourself that its successful.

_________

Best advice: Sell offline. Go to local market and sell there. I am sure it will sell if you tell the story. 25 piece is nothing. Don't blow $1k dollar on ads.

 

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[Gary]

80stees.com
@Kung Fu Steve has bought $xk of shirts. target him.

sell your shirts in the streets, dude. get some INSTANT feedback. talk up your story. build a following.
read Daymond John

I'm with Zane. Two things will forever go together for teens: music & clothing. Put the time into making your presence at local concerts, festivals, street events. Get high-quality pics of them wearing them AT THE EVENTS. Offer them them a discount to put on the garment immediately and then snap the photos of them wearing it with the crowds in the background. Build upon that using a handful of events. In a short amount of time you should be able to tell the visual story of how mobs of young people can't get enough of your drippy clothing at the coolest events in town.