8 Shockingly Common Mistakes Aspiring Online Fashion Store Owners Make

As an aspiring fashion boutique owner, you’re eager to fulfill your passion for fashion, though with very little finances readily available to you. Despite the common saying “you need money to make money,” you can turn your dreams into reality without breaking the bank.

While funds certainly help, you don’t need a large amount to get started. You just need a quality fashion wholesaler, a passion for fashion (which you already have with Mikaree), a drive to pursue your goals and knowledge on the top eight surprisingly common mistakes fashion eCommerce owners make, so you can avoid falling victim to them.

Putting Everything Into One Pot

You have your mind set on what you want to do. That’s great! However, you want to refrain from putting all of your eggs in one basket. Many store owners will invest all of their funds in one particular thing, such as a fashion wholesaler or marketing, and then they have little funds to put towards the future. This makes it exceptionally difficult to grow and worse, to make a comeback if, say, the clothing supplier you chose ended up being a disaster.

As a rule of thumb, you want to put some of your money in areas of your eCommerce fashion store that will have a fast ROI. For example, purchasing trending wholesale clothes for summer during the springtime is more likely to convert than purchasing spring clothing in fall.

At the very least, you never want to place all of your money in one thing. You always want to have a little bit of funds left over “just in case” which leads us into the next topic…

Having Zero Emergency Funds Available

Similar to the prior, a common financial mistake many aspiring fashion eCommerce owners make is failing to have emergency funds available. A safety net will give you peace of mind that you can achieve your goals, regardless of the hurdles that present themselves.

With any business, unexpected “surprises” will occur and having some funds set aside for these moments will help you maintain a positive customer experience. For example, Canada’s postal service recently went on strike and the United States shut down their government. This left many online fashion store owners scrambled for alternative ways to ship their products to their customers.

Unfortunately, these options came at a higher price; businesses who couldn’t afford to spend an extra dollar or two to get packages out had many disgruntled customers. Then, they had to spend their time and effort trying to salvage the customer relationship which is costly in its own right.

Now, this is only one example of the random things that can happen when you own a business. Don’t be fooled – they happen. So, set aside from funds for emergencies. You’ll thank me for it later.

Buying Now But Paying Later

There’s nothing wrong with putting some money on your credit card as you fill your online eCommerce business with trendy styles from your favorite wholesale clothing supplier. However, relying solely on the “buy now, pay later” concept can lead to significant problems in the future. So, avoid using credit as much as possible and only spend what you can pay right away.

Another idea is to host pre-sales for your products prior to purchasing them from your fashion wholesale. This allows you to get some funds in prior to forking over a ton of cash.

Though, if this is an approach you intend on doing, you must inform your customers that it is a pre-sale and that the items will not be shipped immediately. Better yet, provide them with a general timeline (and stick to it).

Having No Business Sense

You don’t need a business degree but you do have to have some business sense when launching your own fashion eCommerce store. The good news is that pretty much everything you need to know can be found online. It’ll take a lot of time and research, but sharpening up on your business skills will come to you as a huge benefit.

Once you have a strong foundation of knowledge, it’s important to keep learning. Online marketing, Google’s SEO, fashion trends and customer behaviours are always changing. You need to stay current with what’s going on, so you don’t have to play catch-up later.

No Marketing Knowledge

In addition to increasing your business knowledge, you need to research current marketing trends. Social media is a powerhouse for building an online fashion brand and generating leads but that’s only one of the hundreds of online marketing tactics that can take your business to the next level.

So, do your research. Just like business knowledge, everything can be found online.

Spending Too Much on Other People

Launching your own online fashion store takes a lot of time and effort. You will be tempted to hire someone to handle this task; another to handle that task, and so on and so forth. Add in the fact that there are many websites out there offering freelance workers for chump change, and spending $5, $10, $15 here and there for a bit of personal free-time may seem like a good idea.

While there’s nothing wrong with delegating different tasks to other people, one of the most common mistakes aspiring fashion boutique owners make is paying everyone else to do the work. You will run out of money and not all online freelancers can be trusted – especially if they’re offering services to you for really cheap.

Ask any business owner, and their days consist of 10-14 hours of work because that’s what it takes. You have to work your butt off in order to establish your brand. You have to spend hours on social media; writing product descriptions; taking pictures; researching trending fashion suppliers, etc.

Once you start to make a bit of money, you can slowly reduce your work hours by hiring help, but this should not be your number one priority. If you aren’t willing to put in a ton of work, perhaps owning a business isn’t for you.

Failing to Trust Their Instinct

Always trust your gut, especially when it comes to spending money. If you’re researching online fashion wholesalers and your intuition is telling you that the clothes are going to arrive moldy and cheap, find another wholesaler. There are a ton of quality fashion suppliers out there (such as yours truly).

You do not and should not ever feel weary about your purchases, and if you do, pay attention to that red flag. Your intuition is almost always right and when your money and your business’ success is on the line, you never want to take that risk. And there’s no need to.

At Mikaree, we pride ourselves on offering quality wholesale clothing and a positive customer experience for both yourself and your customers (and if you're not satisfied, you can always just return your purchases within 30 days!).

Sign up for our clothing wholesale account today to explore our collection of fashion trends.

Trusting Any Wholesale Fashion Supplier

We decided to save this common mistake aspiring fashion store owners make for the end because it is the most important. Your online fashion store’s success relies heavily on the fashion suppliers you use to stock your online shelves.

If you use a low-quality clothing supplier, whether they don’t commit to shipping deadlines or produce poorly made or damaged products, your customers will have a low-quality experience with your shop. What’s worse is that they may even spread poor word-of-mouth, and as a new fashion business, this is something you cannot afford. So, always do your research before choosing a clothing supplier. There are many great clothing suppliers out there and just as many that will promise you quality and deliver nothing close to it.

Fortunately, we can check this one off of the list for you. At Mikaree, we provide quality wholesale clothing to online fashion stores across the globe. We believe in a positive customer experience for both our customers and yours. We stick to shipping deadlines and provide affordable, trendy fashion that suits the needs of your customers and of your business.

Create a wholesale fashion account with us today, and explore the vast discounts and fashion trends available right now. All of the information you need about Mikaree clothing supplier can be found online, from the product details, materials used, shipping dates, stock and more.

What Now?

Now that you know the common mistakes to avoid as an aspiring online fashion store owner, it’s time to start researching. Research business practices and marketing techniques; read blogs about writing product descriptions and SEO-rich pages; discover the current and predicted trends for 2019; create a detailed budget and business plan; start branding your business online and sign up for a wholesale clothing account with Mikaree’s to browse our incredible wholesale collection of trending fashion.

And of course, tune back into our blog because we provide you articles on everything you need to know about launching your online fashion store – from marketing and business tips to current trends, styles to retire, and more.