Online Retailing

[madman1611]

Hey, guys. New to the forum! I've been reading around a lot and some of us are going to be successful entrepreneurs! I've personally come up with not ideas yet but I am sort of thinking into e-commerce. I'm thinking of retailing clothing online. My question is, do you guys/girls believe that there is a customer base for purchasing clothing online? It's done on e-bay but I've never actually seen a fully dedicated site selling clothes online.

[akula]

welcome

good question

it doesn't really matter if there is a "customer base for purchasing clothing online" in general

What matters is whether you in particular can afford to build a base of customers

This requires you having the proper marketing and balance sheet

Your marketing plan will deal with distribution, differentiation and other competition/ebay related issues

Your balance sheet will have the requisite cash required for you to fund your struggle to breakeven

[nordicnomad]

Akula makes a real good point here.

Marketing is a lot of trying everything until something works and the notion of your business reaches somekind of critical mass in the mind of your target consumer that your sales take off.

So success in marketing comes from 2 things, being able to reach the critical mass as quickly as possible, as inexpensively as possible, and as effectively as possible. Which is basically you "marketing plan". And then having the financial fortitude to hang on when your marketing plan doesn't work just like you thought it would.

That extra little wiggle room makes all the difference.

As for your idea, sure people will buy clothing online... The problem is will they make a habit of it. I know I won't because I can't trust people's concepts of what numerical size equals my fat ass. So I have to try everything on before I buy or hope I bought large and can have it tailored down to a managable degree of comfort.

The only thing I'd recommend selling online when it comes to clothing are novelty T-shirts with funny slogans and honest to God can't find it anywhere else acessories. Nothing else is really proven unless you're an existing retail chain with massive brand name recognition.