Before diving into a new side hustle or turning your passion for fashion into a business, it’s crucial to know if—and when—it’s truly a smart move. Otherwise, what starts as a dream project can quickly spiral into overwhelming stress, unexpected challenges, and a painful hit to your bank account.
What Are The Potentials With An Online Business
E-commerce provides so many opportunities for growth and profit if well thought out, competitive and if the logistics work, but how exactly can it provide a secondary or even primary income for some people?
There Is No Limit
Like with physical stores, you are strictly limited to how much stock you can fit in the space, so while you can grow your business through opening more physical stores, that comes with more overheads, such as the cost of rent, staff and everyday bills.
However, an online store isn’t limited by space, and you could essentially have 1 of a million things, and those items can be drop-shipped from anywhere in the world.
The sky is the limit with these things, so you would never have to withhold items due to space.
Global Reach
You can reach thousands, even tens of thousands of individuals, through online platforms more than you do with anything else and in such a short space of time as well. There is nothing comparable to it, and while the reach isn’t always relevant, it’s harnessing that brand awareness and providing countless situations and chances for people to buy into your product.
How Easy Is It To Start Your Own Online Business?
Low Entry Barriers
This is a very good starting point for any side hustle or big business plan because you don’t have to have a large amount of funding or capital to begin your online business. As mentioned, there are things such as dropshipping where all the logistics are taken care of, and your main goal is to market your product, customer services and so forth to get those orders in and eventually turn a profit.
That is not only a great start to your online business, but it creates no excuse, no pressure and no risk for any financially detrimental loss, making it such an attractive opportunity if you have a product and business plan in mind, which leads me to my next point.
You are looking at start-up costs of anything between £2,000 and £20,000, but again, this is completely dependent on what kind of fashion business you want to start. With the initial start-up, you’ve got to think about website set-up, fabric sampling, sewing, materials and packaging and even any potential staff, whether it’s you and a friend or relative.
Create a Business Plan
This doesn’t have to be anything crazy, just a rough guideline on how you want the year to go and what steps you need to take to get there. This could include, in month one, saving money for a startup; step two, creating a Shopify template and basic website; and step three, doing research on x, y, and z.
This should all come after you have done the research and established what kind of fashion brand, e-commerce brand, and company you want to be, whether you specialise in acting as a space for other brands, your own handcrafted products or a type of reseller. The list of variations and opportunities that you can take with this brand is incredible.
Based on your business model type and what kind of market you are in, whether it’s men’s streetwear, women’s jewellery or shoes, it will dictate how easy it is for you to not only start your journey but also for it to come with rewards and profits.
Learn From Mistakes
There is no foolproof way of doing business and with developments with AI, cookies and just overall Google updates and rules you will be thrown a few spanners in the works along with the good stuff so it’s best to take everyday like a lesson from the day before and during those hard moments to really relish, commit and take time to figure out the next steps in your plan.
While the initial set-up is easy, it’s the first and second years that are truly going to make a difference and turn your start-up into something that has the potential to grow.
Is it Profitable?
E-commerce is a forever-evolving landscape with AI having its influx now, with more and more users turning to Gemini and ChatGPT for fashion inspiration. There are more and more opportunities for your brand to be seen, and this also suggests that while people are struggling financially with inflation, the e-commerce sector isn’t slowing down.
Other platforms, such as TikTok Shop, where you can pay micro-influencers purely with commission from their sales and so forth, it’s very easy to market and push your brand.
Here are some statistics that support this notion:
- Global e-commerce sales are projected to reach approximately $6.86 trillion in 2025, an 8.37% increase from 2024. Some estimates even put it over $7 trillion.
- The number of global digital buyers is expected to exceed 3 billion in 2025, representing about 38% of the world’s population.
- Mobile commerce (m-commerce) is booming, with sales expected to reach $2.51 trillion in 2025, accounting for a significant portion (around 59%) of total e-commerce sales.
Overall
In today’s competitive world, especially within the fashion industry, while the initial set-up can be relatively straightforward, it’s what you do after it – whether it’s marketing, SEO, paid search, social media influencers or all of the above.
There are other considerations, such as the supply chain, growth, customer services, new collections and even collaborations, that are all exciting but need dedication, vision and a plan to ensure all the pieces come together and your fashion brand not only grows but survives within this already saturated and competitive market.
While it might seem intimidating, there are so many brands that have proven themselves, from small timers to now making millions on a monthly basis. Brands such as Closure London, Faded Store, Lucy & Yak, Tits 4 Tats and so many others – and who knows, that could be your brand one day.
