When Is It A Good Time To Launch A Fashion Chain Store?

Starting a fashion chain store is an important decision, and you need to be extra thoughtful about it.

As tempting and profitable it seems, launching a fashion chain store is a challenging decision. 

If you already have an existing fashion store running, sending your customers to your chain store is going to be a huge responsibility, especially when your customers are used to your personalized online experience.

Starting a chain clothing store: What you need to know

Selling clothes anywhere, online or in-store, is a decision that will have its consequences along the way.

Since eCommerce has been growing significantly in popularity, a variety of major businesses are flocking to this trend and trying to provide an ‘online experience’ to their existing (and new) customers. 

Despite eCommerce holding over 27% of the fashion market, brick-and-mortar stores still enjoy massive popularity, especially in the fashion industry. 

Starting an eCommerce website for your fashion store is budget-friendly, easy and convenient, and caters to a larger audience. On the contrary, starting a chain clothing store requires significant capital, major improvements from the existing stores you have, having a favorable location, and hiring employees to keep the store running.

With all these factors, it’s normal to ask yourself whether you are ready to launch a fashion chain clothing store or not. 

Setting up a plan for your chain clothing store

Even if you already own a clothing store, you still need an idea and a business plan to start the next fashion chain store.

Understanding what kind of a store you want to open is mandatory. 

• Who is your target customer?
• What is your preferred location?
• What are you going to sell offline?
• How many employees do you need?
• How much competition will you have?

Starting a chain store is like starting a new business. 

Marketing, presentation, and business funding also play a very important role. Just like your other store(s), you can analyze your capital used in setting up the other stores, researching the area costs and your marketing costs altogether.

As part of your business plan, you need to know what your customers expect from you and what options you will be offering. 

Are the rest of your stores doing well?

If your existing stores have been profitable, it means it’s time to establish a new extension of your business. And if it’s not, you might not want to move this fast.

Since you are going to launch a chain store, you’ve to realize that the rest of your stores play an important role in this decision as well.

The success of your existing store could be repeated for your new store as well if you are following the same pattern of business. 

Considering factors such as the timing and the inventory needed is important to evaluate if your next store could ensure the same success as the rest of your stores.

However, if you are just starting and are planning to set up a few stores at once, you might want to slow down, since you have no idea how well the market is going to treat you. Setting up new stores one by one is always a better idea than setting up multiple stores all at once.

Is the current market scenario favorable enough? 

The last few years have been a rollercoaster ride for brick-and-mortar businesses. With the pandemic, a lot of businesses have either shifted online or stopped their services altogether. 

This calls for a question - is the market favorable enough for your next fashion store?

When considering the market situation, try to evaluate the current economic conditions, the buying behavior of your potential customers, and the demand for your product.

One of the best ways to expand to a new physical store is to experiment first with pop-up shops. Pop-up shops open in temporary locations for a particular period of time and can give you a good idea about how potential customers could be interacting with your products.

Not only that, you can also open pop-up shops every now and then in new locations to expand your business to newer areas and find newer clientele.

Are you prepared for a grand opening?

A grand opening is a great way to complement the specialty of your business. 

Rather than having an overpriced celebration, it just needs to be an event that people could attend. 

Planning a grand opening is rather simple. As far as guests are concerned, including people from your team as hosts and keeping your store open to everybody walking in is a great idea.

To get extra coverage for your event, approaching local media outlets is a great strategy. Along with that, hosting these events with your followers online through social media is also going to keep people in the loop.

Another important thing is to take the timings extremely seriously. Rather than opening your store on a busy Monday morning, plan it for a Saturday when people would be stress-free and would love to be a part of this event. Having heavy discounts in your store the same day makes a lot of sense as well.

Is your in-store experience good enough?

Despite you personalizing your online shopping experience, it can’t still beat the in-person shopping experience. 

With physical space, you are in control of the mood of your shoppers. To enhance their shopping experience, you can decorate your store and include everything your customers would expect from your store. 

This includes the presence of trial rooms, the stacks you use to put clothes in, the presentation, how you display your products, what kind of a scent or music you have, and what they first see when they enter and leave your store.

Having good staff also personalizes the shopping experience and improves the overall standard of your chain clothing store.

Together, these things contribute to an immersive shopping experience and encourage your customers to come back for more.

Conclusion

Launching your fashion chain store is a decision that could be made after evaluating scores of factors. 

To start a new chain store, you need to identify your target audience. Once you know your audience, you can accordingly bend your selling strategy to cater to such an audience.

In starting a physical store, legal requirements are involved as well, so you might want to check those boxes as well. After everything is done as per your strategy, find the best marketing channels for your business. Plan a grand opening and start with a personalized shopping experience for your shoppers across all your chain stores. Whether you want to build your online fashion website or launch a physical store, you can start by connecting with Fashinza to source your clothes quickly and easily. We’ll provide you with adequate resources to scale your brand.