How to Start a Clothing Business at Home

The first step in starting a home clothing business is deciding what types of clothing to sell. It is more beneficial to sell a particular niche of clothing, such as children's clothes vs. clothes in general. Customers tend to respect the expertise of specialists when shopping for specific clothing. Sell clothing items in which you are interested or have product knowledge. For example, sell women's casual clothes if you previously sold them on a job.

Step 1  Set aside a portion of your home for an office. Choose a spare bedroom, for example, so you can take advantage of the home office deduction for tax purposes.

Step 2  Decide whether you want to sell your products retail or wholesale. Consider that your profits will be greater in retail, and that larger companies usually sell wholesale.

Step 3  Obtain a vendor's license through your county or city administration office, as you will need to collect sales taxes from in-state customers. Apply for a doing business as license if you use a fictitious name for your business, according to Business.gov. Obtain your DBA from the same place you get your vendor's license.

Step 4  Find a wholesale or manufacturer supplier for you clothing products. Go to the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors website at NAW.org. Call the main office and ask them to send you a list of clothing wholesalers. Order free retail trade publications from a good website. Peruse the classified ads in these trade publications for potential wholesalers. Examine the site for clothing manufacturers.

Step 5  Call several of the wholesalers and manufactures. Find out which ones sell the products you plan to market. Ask the wholesalers and manufacturers if they will drop-ship products, which means they will ship products to your customers. Go with the drop shipping option as it will eliminate large investments in clothing inventory. Select the wholesaler or manufacturer that provides you with the lowest unit cost on clothing.

Step 6  Obtain a merchant account from you bank so you can accept credit card orders.

Step 7  Set up a website for your home clothing business, or have one designed for you. Contact your supplier for pictures of the products you sell. Include these pictures on your website along with product descriptions and prices.

Step 8  Promote your clothing business by mail. Order a mailing list of clothing buyers through the Direct Marketing Association. Ask for the Cheshire or sticky labels of potential customers. Place the labels on envelopes. Insert your sales letters and brochures in the envelopes and mail them out.

Step 9  Hire a search engine optimizer to achieve a first-page ranking in search engines, including Google.com and Yahoo.com. Help your search engine optimizer create three- to- five-word phrases that best describe your products. Make sure these keywords are listed within the contents of your website for optimal results.

Step 10  Order products from your wholesale supplier when customers place orders. Pay the wholesaler just the wholesale price of the clothing, then keep the rest for yourself. Send customers' names and addresses to your wholesaler if you are using a drop shipper.

by Rick Suttle, Demand Media