Small Clothes Shop

Raychi

Hi all,

I am thinking of starting up a clothes shop in the village where I live. I have done some research and also business in college so I'm not completely in the dark. However I was hoping for some advice relating the best place to buy wholesale clothes? My target market is teens to young women.
Any general advice about start up also would be appreciated.

Thanks for your time

hairyslug

Have a look at fashion city in Ballymount.
There is also parisian.co.uk, handy if you are starting out as terms are fairly simple

You can always try Chinese suppliers to, can't vouch for any but they would have the ability to personalise the tags.

jimmii

Googling gets you plenty of results too unsurprisngly there are a ton of UK based fashion suppliers out there.

Moda is the main end of year show in Birmingham you've just missed the main early UK one in Feb but there's lots of shows you can visit too that will give you the chance to look at lots of suppliers in one go.

nosilver

Clothes shop in a village simply won't work. Yes, local people will always tell you its a great idea, but when it comes to parting with their cash, its a different story.

First, you have about 6 seasons in fashion. Items will go out of fashion very quickly especially in the teens and young women category.

Second, you will probably have to buy "pack sizes" of many items leaving you with end of line stock you have to sell below cost.

Third, you simply will not be able to compete with the nearest main town which you can be sure that everyone will go to at least once a week or so.

Fourth, retail is a difficult trade to make money in. Clothing retail is notoriously difficult.

Fifth, a "local village" will never have the population to support a clothing store.

Sixth - The internet is gettign bigger and bigger for fashion shopping.

Seventh - Proper research would show comparables. You would need to find a comparble size village and find a similar shop and see if that does well. I travel the country a lot and can't think of one village where I have seen a clothes shop.



The absolute most important aspect of retail in my opinion is the "turn" on stock. If you had €15,000 worth of clothes (that's a small stock), can you turn it 4-5 times in a year? In fashion, that would equate to about €150,000 - €180,000 retail turnover. And after costs, even that turnover would barely turn a profit. It also equates to €3,000 a week turnover and that would be a challenge in a good size town. I know a store in Waterford that had a good location in the city centre and it struggled to do 2k a week and he lost a lot of money and closed after 2 years.

Sorry to put a damper on the idea, but a small population area will simply not support a clothing store of any description especially teen and young women (two very distinct markets)

Something else to note.

In fashion, mother's and young children may shop in same store, but once kids turn 11/12 the last place they will shop is where their mother's shop. Pennys/Primark is probably the only store to buck this.

Similarly, young women will not shop in a store that caters for the 35+ market and the 35-50 person won't shop in the stores that cater for the 50+ market. There will of course be exceptions, but they are few and far between.