Alright alright alright, let’s finally talk about getting your money back! It is time to discuss the sales plan and, even though this is not rocket science let’s face it, inserting yourself in the market as a new brand can be hard. Obviously working with a marketing company is the main goal to make real sales, but there are a couple of steps and details that you need to know before handling everything to your marketing company.
Now, working with any marketing company should be smooth and they should be able to coach you through the process, present you with a sales plan and sales goals per month or quarterly - if you are a new brand and you will be creating two collections a year, obviously your sales goals need to be monthly or quarterly.
Anyhow, working with your marketing company should be like working with your production manager, a learning process. But, trying to break down some details you will need to know and some information that you will need to provide to your marketing company, here are a couple of steps to create your sales plan.
1. Wholesale and Retail prices
This is the moment you will look back to your costing sheet and see exactly how much it costs to produce one garment and what the wholesale & retail prices should be.
When working directly with customers you do not need the wholesale price, BUT never forget to add the wholesale profit margin. You never know when a store will contact you and present a nice purchase order OR, mainly, what stores your marketing company can get you in.
2. Branding deck along with your collection photoshoot
If you are a new clothing brand, a very professional, detailed, and perfectly organized branding deck is crucial. This is the first impression your customers will have of your brand and, when trying to work with retail stores, your look book along with your branding deck is what they will look at and show to their customers as well.
What is the branding deck? A presentation of who you are, what your brand is, tag lines, voice tone, color pallet, target audience, current collection, current collection photoshoot, past collection (if any), past sales numbers (if any), influencers that work with your brand, social media, literally what your brand is and brand application.
3. Lookbook
Ok, you do need a photoshoot and you already know that, but regardless of a super cool editorial, you also need a lookbook.
The lookbook is nothing more than an e-commerce kind of picture. Front and back of the garments, usually on a white background, perfect lighting (to show the details), along with the commercial-style number, color information, each size available, and price.
4. Price list
Ok, your look book will show the price for each garment, but here you want to make a simple list with style numbers and price. No pictures are needed, only the style and the price. This is a good way to present a price point to your buyers. From the lowest to the highest price point, you will be able to target stores/buyers that would work best for your brand.
5. Inventory list and your MOQs
You can add the quantities per garment to your lookbook, but an idea to keep your lookbook aesthetically clean is creating a separate sheet with style numbers, in-stock quantities per style (and size and color) along with the minimum order quantity you are requiring from buyers.
What is the minimum order quantity (MOQ)? Do you remember when I mentioned MOQs required from fabric vendors and trims vendors? Well, this is the same thing, but the other way around!
When you have your collection ready and you want to talk to buyers, it is industry standard that brands will require a minimum quantity per style, and you (and your marketing company, obviously) are the ones deciding on the MOQ based on the size of your production.
6. Connecting to stores
As I mentioned, your marketing company will provide you with the sales strategy and sales goals, but you have to be prepared for everything they will ask from you and your production manager.
So, this is the last step of developing a successful clothing line, but do not worry! INSIDE THE FASHION INDUSTRY blog series is never going to be over. I hope you have found this blog series helpful and actually got some work done. Please remember you can always schedule a free 30 min consultation with me in case you have any questions. I have so much more to tell you and a lot more behind the scenes to share with you!
Schedule your free 30 min consultation here https://go.oncehub.com/BarbaraSessim
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