Business Fashion
Creating your Fashion Business Website
By: startafashionbusiness.co.uk
In this day and age it’s impossible to make it as a fashion designer without a website. Not only is your website essential for online marketing, it can also be a venue for selling clothing direct to the public. But how should you go about setting it up?
The first thing you need to do is to register a domain. This is the online address at which your website will live. Ideally it will feature the name of your business, and you should keep it as simple as possible. You’ll need to pay a monthly fee for this address, but it doesn’t have to be very expensive. You’ll also need to rent server space - the physical space where the data for your site will be kept.
If this already seems too complicated, you can hire a professional web design consultant to help. A professionally constructed website is guaranteed to look good (or you should ask for your money back), but it can be expensive, and in the early stages of building your business it may not be practical. If you would prefer to have a go at constructing you own website, you can find good html and CSS courses online for free. Learning what you need to know to make a simple site is fairly easy. You can always call in a consultant for help with extra features like Flash or Java applets.
The most important thing about your website is that it should be accessible for as many customers as possible. Check that it runs on different operating systems with different browsers. You can then start to tailor it to the needs of your fashion business.
What Should Your Fashion Website Feature?
When people visit a fashion website the first thing they want to know about is the designer. This doesn’t mean you need to write your autobiography - what’s important is your designer brand identity. This should include your logo, a consistent colour scheme, a consistent style and one or two high quality images featuring your most impressive work. You should write a friendly but professional introduction welcoming visitors to the site. This should include lots of words which people looking for a site like yours might enter in search engines. Changing this introduction every week or two will help to keep search engines interested.
It’s essential that your website is easy to navigate. Providing a menu bar at the side or at the top and bottom of each page is the easiest way to do this. This should offer links to each of your other pages. Keep your categories simple. You might want to list clothes by type (eg: ‘jackets’, ’shirts’ etc.), or you might prefer to list them by season (eg: ‘Spring collection’). It’s a good idea to have a ‘new’ page so that returning visitors can check out your latest creations.
Each category page should feature a full size image of one of your designs along with thumbnail images of the others available - visitors can click on these to see larger images. Using thumbnails cuts download times and makes it easier for potential customers to access your site.
Once they’ve seen your designs, visitors will want to know how to buy them. You should either provide an online order and payment system (most online banks can help you set this up for free) or full contact details for your business and advice on how to find your retail outlets.
Online Marketing for your Website
There’s no point in having an impressive fashion website if nobody knows it’s out there. As soon as you’ve launched your website you should start your online marketing campaign. Here are some simple tips to get you started:-
- Make sure you’re listed by as many search engines as possible.
- Arrange to be listed in online fashion directories.
- Arrange to be listed in online business directories.
- Talk about your site in business and social networking communities. Blog about it.
- Participate in link exchange schemes.
All of these options are open to you for free or for very little money, so you should make full use of them before you worry about paying for more traditional online advertising.
Setting up a website for your fashion design business may seem complicated, but provided you take it in simple stages you’ll be surprised at what you can achieve.
Selling Your Fashion Designs Online
By: http://www.startafashionbusiness.co.uk
Every year, more and more people involved in the business of fashion try to sell clothing online. In such a crowded marketplace, how can you make your own business a success? The women who make up the bulk of this marketplace are continually bombarded with advertising, but the fact is that even when they visit heavily promoted websites they don’t always make purchases there. To improve your sales, you need to put yourself in their position and think about what they want out of a clothing site.
The business of selling online is still controversial in fashion circles. Some designers feel that it cheapens their work, reducing the sense of exclusivity attached to their products. Such people often prefer to use online promotional pages featuring contact details or the names of retail outlets rather than selling directly. If you’re working in high end fashion, this is an option you should consider. For most designers,however, online sales now make up an invaluable portion of revenue.
Make it Easy
If you do decide to operate a direct sales website, the number one rule is that you should make it easy to use. Women are often less confident about their computer skills than men, so it’s particularly important not to put them off with an overly complicated interface. Think about the things you would want from a clothing site if you were inexperienced in shopping on the web. There are several factors you should prioritise:-
* Clear categorisation-Make it easy for visitors to your site to find the particular items they’re looking for. This doesn’t mean that you can’t tempt them with impulse buys at the same time. You can, for instance, suggest similarly styled or complementary items on the sales page for a particular piece of clothing.
* Illustrations-These should not only be flattering, they should be informative. Make sure you show not just the front but the back of the garment. Think about what you would want to know about it before buying. You only need one image on your catalogue page, but the item page should have more.
* Further Information- What would you normally be able to find out in a shop, by touching and moving clothing, that you can’t find out from an image? Describe the fabric (being mysterious will put off people with allergies and skin sensitivities). Note details like the number of pockets a garment has and how it fastens.
* One-click shopping-Once people have decided to buy, they don’t want to have to mess about. Your shopping system should enable them to purchase the garment with as little effort as possible. Requiring registration means delays and will put some customers off, but it’s worth offering a more streamlined process to registered customers so that they don’t have to enter their details every time.
* Security- Make sure that your payment system is a secure as possible, and that it looks secure. Customers will be uncomfortable about handing over their credit card details otherwise. Provide guarantees and, if possible, a return policy, so that customers can be confident that their purchases will arrive promptly and in good condition.
Keep ‘Em Coming Back for More
If a customer has been willing to buy from you once, the chances are that they’ll be willing to buy from you again. With so many online clothing sites out there, however, there’s a risk that they’ll forget where yours is - or even that it exists at all!
To keep customers coming back, it’s a good idea to encourage them to register with you and, ideally, to sign up for a mailing list. You can make this list worth their while by offering discounts and access to an exclusive fashion blog. Emphasise that it’s free to join and use it to keep them updated about new additions to your site.
The business of fashion is always competitive, but good service is a great way to win loyal customers. There are still a lot of women out there who find shopping online intimidating, so it’s your job to show them that it can be a positive experience, no more risky or difficult than shopping on the high street. Give them what they want, and they’ll give you great online sales.
In the spirit of independence
We are Brooklyn Fashion Week.
Every Brooklyn Fashion professional having an event during Week will be viable for a listing on www.brooklynfashionweek.com calendar!
Brooklyn Fashion is slated as a creative and cultural tourism event. that utilizes new technology, our goal specifically is to showcase local, regional and international visitor, build awareness of Brooklyn as a fashion destination and extend the potential for business opportunities.
Brooklyn Fashion is a Street theater, runway mystique, business sourcing and trade mission, Creative and Cultural tourism, Technological unconference; models in aisle and sidewalks; It is classification, semantic, hyperlinks and online Media.