The trends in the post COVID world are savagely favoring the online economy. By the early 2020’s the US ecommerce consumer audience was at about 35% of the total US population. And, that rose up to above 65% by April 2020. Talk about the impact COVID has had on the industry, humongous indeed!
The ecommerce audience across the world would double by 2022 than what it was by the end of 2019. These numbers demand attention not only from the retail but also from the B2B domains. Typically, the local businesses led smaller enterprises for the products such as the stationery or the uniforms or typically any B2B print should move to on-demand business.
Reason – once the consumer moves to the online platform for their retail demands – they are ought to find more solace for their B2B demands, too. COVID is changing the consumer buying habits for those who did not change in 2 decades of e commerce revolution.
Your digest for this post…
- Challenges and the opportunities for an online uniform store
- Industries
- The Approach to Start Your Business
- Examples and Reasons for Success
- Marketing Uniform Business Online
Challenges and the Opportunities for an Online Uniform Store
The changing habits lead to serious opportunities for e-tailers to map a larger scope. Another simple reason is that if your consumer cannot reach you; you can still run your business through iPads.
Yes, you can typically sell catalogs of uniforms for schools, or hospitals, or various others via simple means of social media. But, does that open up larger audiences for your business? The largest opportunity for an online uniform business is not just the school uniforms or the hospital scrubs. Those give your business the visibility. However, the larger piece of the pie is the businesses and community groups needing personalized items for parties, for annual functions, etc.
There is no market leader at present for the online uniform stores. And, that is the reason it is the biggest opportunity in the online space. There are challenges to entry and some to attract the customers, too. However, with the right mix of marketing and having a functional online uniform store can help you get over these challenges.
At present, the entire business of selling uniforms is governed by the relationships. There are entry-barriers for the beginnings, there are monopoly players in every region, and the result is the suffering consumer. In the US, one can easily buy a t-shirt for a child for less than $9.99, but the school uniform t-shirt would be sold at three times the price.
The buyer does not have an option. For a retailer, unless you are a preferred supplier, you are likely to have no buyers walking into your store. But, having an online uniform store changes this game dramatically. All it needs is the accurate size theme of the given uniform and a way for the buyer to choose their sizes on your web store. Done!
The idea of print-on-demand takes care of warehousing risk. The idea of online selling takes care of the door-to-door delivery. And, it also opens up the opportunities for multiple sellers for multiple regions. Fair competition!
The scope and the method for how to start a uniform business online varies for the given industry. The basic idea is the same as having a website and preset designs on your site for the uniforms – the difference is in how you tap your customers. Instead reading this post, if you would just like to jump on a zoom call, click the button here and we will schedule a call for you.
Diverse Scope as per the Industry…
Selling uniforms online seems a simple idea. However, based on the variable stakeholders, the approach to sell varies.
For example, while selling school uniforms, the businesses can target the schools, the parents, and somewhat the children, too. However, while starting a scrubs business, the target audience should be just the hospitals and sell in bulk.
Selling School Uniforms Online
The standard approach is to affiliate with the school and start selling school uniforms online. The web-to-print mechanism can allow the businesses to create templates for selling uniforms of wider range online. The goal for the business then would be to bring the parents on to your website and bridge the trust to buy from your store instead of the offline store.
If you are the preferred seller, you would be able to offer better fittings and wider scope of personalization to the parents. Click the button below in order to see how the template based online product personalization tool works.
Starting a Scrubs Business…
In a larger scope, one can look at this option as anything personalized needed in a hospital setup. Starting from the scrubs, the masks, even the gloves, and more. The buyer is the hospital and not the medical staff.
An online uniform store would enable the hospital buying managers to come to your site and order themselves with the needed customizations. Having a product personalization tool with 3D preview could make this journey really smooth. However, the starting point of this business is through vendor registration with the hospital and that would remain the key area to be successful.
Annual Days and Theme Parties
Let’s say, a group of 20 dancers want to theme their office logo with a tagline for an annual day function at the office. Or, a similar setup for a party. To be a popular website selling uniforms has its own perks. However, if you were just a shop across the corner doing uniform business, could you still be an option for such time-bound requirements.
A functional online uniform store would allow the buyer to personalize the goods and order online. A web platform gives visibility and access like none other. The personalization tool itself, the previews, and displaying the order delivery date – makes the whole process viable for such requirements.
BrushYourIdeas has vast industry experience working with businesses selling uniforms. We do not just offer integration services, but we have a fully functional tool and we would welcome the opportunity to showcase what we can do.
How to launch uniform business online:
Next up is following these steps to launch your business online:
Step 1: Budget
Deciding the budget of your uniform business is the first step. As you will be working to take your store online, there will be multiple things which need your attention. But for you this would become difficult. This is when defining a budget will help.
While you are defining it, you will get more clarity on which product or vertical of your business needs more attention. Moreover, it will help you get more investors if needed for your business. Apart from this, having a clear budget helps you and your team to define goals for the next quarter or year for selling uniforms. Lastly, it even helps you to understand your business’ ROI.
Step 2: Audience
In uniform business having clarity on your target audience is very important. There are two ways to get customers i.e. B2B and B2C. Mostly, in uniform business you will have to go with the B2B option. Do market research and define communities, schools, offices, NGOs, hospitals, etc. in your area. Further, check which of them requires your service and then reach out to them.
For selling uniforms, the B2C business model won’t be helpful. As getting orders can become difficult. Even if you get them they will not be bulk orders hence resulting in a decrease of your ROI.
Another major reason to define your target audience is getting detailed insights into your customer base. You can also understand the market niche and depending on it try to make your product better.
Step 3: Selecting the Right Technology Platform:
You can sail through everything when you have the right technology. When launching your business online, you would need a stellar website and product designer tool. A combination of these will help you have a fully-functional website with the added USP of customization offerings. To start with, there are platforms like Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, and a lot more. However, make sure to be specific with your requirements to pick one.
Out of all these, here’s a quick overview of two leading technology players:
Magento Product Design Tool
It is a goto solution when talking about eCommerce platforms. We can say every second website you see is powered up by Magento.
- Merits:
– It’s scalability has made it easy for developers to develop websites, link any extra pages if needed, and more.
– SEO friendly, using the SEO friendly feature companies can easily stand out on Google. It improves visibility and helps in decreasing search engine optimization
– Managing more than two stores has become easy. Now, developers can easily create and manage more than two stores and help businesses to serve better.
- Demerits:
– It is an expensive solution if you are planning to run a small store. Things like regular updates, security patch updates, and more can add up more value.
– Installation and modifications can be difficult to do if you are not an experienced developer.
Shopify Product Design Tool
Shopify is another most used solution when we talk about eCommerce stores. Below are some of its advantages and disadvantages:
- Merits:
– Simple to set up business online. It helps businesses to work efficiently on business and help them increase their ROI.
– Shopify leads in customer support. As a business owner if you face trouble at any place then you can easily go to their FAQs, email/ chat support and get help.
– Get multiple options for your storefront themes. This helps your business to get customers and retain them on your website. Use the theme which suits your business and see the results.
- Demerits:
– It is not so SEO friendly or supports CMS. Yes, businesses cannot make their website feature rich and add blogs, vlogs, etc.
– Websites made on Shopify cannot scalable much. In the long run when website traffic increases and transactions happen, it cannot handle the workload.
WooCommerce Product Designer Tool:
WooCommerce is helping businesses to scale up their websites. Below are merits and demerits of it:
- Merits:
– It is said to be fairly secured in comparison to other technical platforms with regular security patches.
– WooCommerce has a large community with thousands of documentation, articles, and informative guides. It becomes easy for developers to gain help when needed.
– It is easy to customize and integrate plugins
- Demerits:
– Performance is hampered when plugins are been integrated this many a times results in delays in loading your eStore
– It needs extra payment to get plugins and use them. So, one needs to make sure and read plugin information properly.
API Connectors:
With this solution you can integrate the Product Designer Tool with every eStore regardless of the platform their store is based on. That’s one of the major benefits of having API integration. However, there might be connection issues which might hamper your user experience.
All in all, Magento emerges as a one suitable platform that provides you all in one. Good user experience, secured store, SEO benefits, etc. For many eCommerce platforms having these three things is important and you get them all in Magento.
Today many companies are going overboard to provide their customers with the best in class customer service. Integrate tools like product designers from Brush your Idea and give your customers an opportunity to showcase their creativity.
Create and let your customers design creative designs. This will help you to get the right customers, increase bulk orders, and brand awareness. With the help of product designer tools, your customers can create their own designed uniforms, place orders right. This helps your uniform business to boost and stand ahead of competition.
For instance, some schools have reached out to you to get their school uniforms design. Then instead of calling you, giving directions for designs, color combinations, last minute changes and all. They can directly visit your website, using product designer tools, place an order, and place an order right away. This makes selling school uniforms an easy task, avoids any unnecessary communication and last minute changes.
Product designer tools support Shopify, Magento, Php, WooCommerce, and API integrations. So, select the platform of your choice and easily integrate our tool.
It is a difficult question indeed and it takes a lot of factors to decide the best technology for your ease. Afterall, it is a decision you would need to live with until you reach break-even. Therefore, instead, worrying about the best, share your requirements with us and we will guide you through.
Companies providing Uniform Business Online:
Here’s some inspiration from the companies who are taking uniform business online and changing the way businesses interact with customers:
Uniform buckets are synonyms when we talk about uniform business. They have been serving in the industry and creating the various work wears, corporate wear, hospital wear, hotel wear, etc. Their USP is styling, quality product, and on time delivery.
Uniform bucket gives the boring office attire a creative touch by customizing. You can customize a variety of office clothes, create design templates, custom designs as per their need, and more. They have been selling uniforms for decades and have served customers. Their USP is low price, fast delivery worldwide, and 24/7 customer service.
They are a complete business established in it from helping their customers to set up online stores to being authorized distributors and manufacturers of many companies. They are mainly dealing in B2B business and helping their customers have their own eStore. Apart from this, they are also helping customers in manufacturing various apparels and distributing.
When talking about uniform business companies, you can not afford to miss on uniform advantage. They have been part of selling uniforms since its inception. Widely known for their quality products in the medical industry. They provide designed uniforms for all industries at low prices and customer care.
The key takeaway from all these businesses we can take is providing services in almost every industry, at comparatively low cost, and efficient customer service. In the near future, if you think of expanding then like Stitchlogo you can expand your business towards manufacturing as well as distributors for many companies.
Market your Uniform Business Online:
Once you are done with taking your uniform business online next comes marketing. It plays a vital role in getting you leads. There are multiple ways you can do marketing like SEO, PPC, influencer marketing, social media marketing, collaborating with third party websites, and more.
Talking about SEO and PPC marketing they help you to stand out from the crowd on Google. SEO takes 6 to 8 months to take you online whereas PPC gives you immediate results. In many cases, people prefer both types of marketing as they have their own advantages and disadvantages.
Going further with influencer marketing this a new way businesses are marketing their retail uniform. You can reach out to social media influencers, sign a deal with them, explain them products, and make start with marketing campaigns. Another way is to directly market your products on social media. If your major target audience is GenZ or millennials then social media marketing for your retail uniform will help you a lot. You can also get detailed insights about your customers, their feedback, customers’ data like age, gender, location, and more. Utilizing all these data you can make your products more useful.
In the eCommerce business it is important to increase website traffic and it will be the only medium to start with. Thus, I suggest you start with increasing your social media presence and diverting that traffic to your website. Once you have grown your social media presence, you can start with SEO/PPC. It will help your website to rank on Google.
Moreover, you can also list down your business on various online directories. Instead of listing them anyhow you can list them in niche directories. This will help you to get the right business. Below are some more things you can do while carrying out marketing.
- Google Display Advertising:
Having a uniform store is all about displaying your best products. So, make sure to have pretty photographs, killer copy and there you go! Make sure to Run your advertisements on a regular basis. This will help you to have better visibility on Google.
- Email Marketing:
You can send timely emails to your customers regarding discount offers, new launches, sales, etc. This will help you to retain your existing customers and serve them better.
- Giveaways:
This is sort of a trend today when companies market their products. You can reach out to your customers, put some offers, do some quizzes, etc. and give them exclusive giveaway offers. This will help you to reach better and to more customers.
Look at your business model of your uniform business and then decide which type of marketing technique you would like to implement for your uniform business. Also remember that it is always good to have a combination of different tactics. It will minimize the chances of failure, where if one of your campaigns doesn’t do well, you have other options to work on.
Conclusion:
Starting your uniform business can be difficult at the beginning but with the help of the right tools, development partners, and marketing strategies you can win over. So, now it is your time to get the best out of all the resources and take your retail uniform store online. It will provide you with an opportunity to connect with customers around the globe and offer them the best products and services.
Of course, there are many competitors in the market but that should not stop you from starting your business. Provide creating customer designer tools as your USP and stand ahead of your competitors.
One of the major benefits of taking store online is to provide your customers ease of ordering online. Come out of your comfort zone and provide your best customer service with the best products. Follow these discussed steps and launch your uniform business online.
Having served in the industry for decades we know exactly what things are needed to set up the business. Brush your Ideas have been serving in the industry for decades and helping clients to set up their eCommerce sites. If you need expert advice, our technical experts will help you at every step when you set up your business.
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