Selling online is one of the most practical and profitable strategies to start your clothing business. You reduce the costs of a venue, you have a much larger audience throughout the country, you are not limited to one location and you can start with a lower investment. There are different ways to start sell clothes onlinelike , or start with what you have in your closet.
Take advantage of the potential of buyers in Mexico. There are around 57 million users who buy online, according to data made in January 2021.
For you to achieve it successfully, you can rely on our guides on where to buy clothes to sell, and even to sell them.
This will allow you to detect mistakes that you could be making in your business and that have serious consequences such as decreased sales and loss of active users on the site. Do not worry, it is very common at the beginning of any venture. Keep reading because these are the 20 most common mistakes when selling clothes online.
Mistakes when selling clothes online
1. Sell only on social networks
Limiting yourself to selling on a single channel like Instagram or Facebook is not practical at all. Also, not having a website reduces the credibility of the brand and gives the impression of not being a formal store. On the other hand, it is not easy for the user to see the entire catalog of clothes that you have in your inventory.
This causes the user experience to be very limiting for those who are viewing your products, especially during the time of purchase. For this reason, Instagram has the Shopping section that redirects you to an online site of the brand where you can make the purchase safely.
📌 Tip: Lean on platforms to open your own online store to get out of the informal sale on social networks and have your own link. And as a complement, use social networks as a channel to call to action and attract visits to your page.
2. Show poor quality or unrelated photos
Visual appeal is everything when selling online, so photos matter a lot. These give the public an idea of the quality that the product they will receive at home will have and stimulates the purchase or flatly discourages them.
Try to take product photos with the best quality and lighting possible. When uploading them to your store, take care that the photo is related to the product you are pointing to; For example, if you are describing “dress with white flowers”, take care that the photo belongs to that garment. If you add more than one photo per garment as in carousel, check that they all belong to the same design.
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3. Have poor logistics
Make sure you have the availability of the clothes you promote in your store. In such a way that when you have a sale, you can send it to the customer as soon as possible and avoid inconvenience. In the same way, investigate what is the so that the shipments arrive on time and, on the other hand, that the costs do not go out of the margin that you have contemplated.
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4. Neglecting the quality of the packaging
At this point the customers have already made the purchase in your store, but your goal is not over. The way in which they receive the merchandise they paid for has a lot to do with the reviews received by your brand and is an important factor in determining if they will become frequent customers.
🎁 Choose a plastic envelope type bag or a box. Add details like a tissue paper wrapper or package it as a gift. Yes you can, customize the bags or boxes with your brand’s logo.
5. Providing inefficient customer service
An online store is open 24/7, but of course it is not that you do not sleep to answer messages. Establish a schedule to solve the doubts of your clients. Either through Instagram or through the chat of the platform you use, try to answer questions about sizes, shipping time, availability of the clothes you sell and other things that may arise. The main thing is to provide a friendly and efficient treatment.
🤖 When your budget allows it, integrate a chatbot to automate responses and provide higher quality service.
6. Placing photos or descriptions that do not correspond to your garments
The relationship photo and description is very important. Users scan the online catalog quickly, so to catch their attention, aesthetics are important. Take care that each photo has the correct description of the product and, above all, the price. Putting a photo of a skirt with a description of an oversized blazer can make your store look business casual or suspicious.
7. Not connecting your social networks with your online store
Social networks like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are a tool to give your brand more exposure. Take advantage of them to reach your potential buyers, call them to visit your online store and finally, take them to the purchase.
In the biography of each social network you must have the link to your website and take advantage of resources such as Instagram Shopping, where it is possible to add the link of the products directly in the photo so that users have the exact link of the garment they want to buy. You can also link your store in the Facebook Marketplace to redirect them to your own site.
📓 Remember that each social network is different and the strategy must be different.
8. Not updating your inventory
A common mistake in fashion e-commerce is not updating inventory. It can be very frustrating for the user to add items to the cart and when they try to pay, they are not available because they are out of stock.
This discourages the customer and it is very easy to abandon the purchase. So try to have your online inventory as accurate as you have it in physical. Always keep track of the day, update how many pieces you have left of each model and in this way it will be easier to know which units you need to stock or what type of clothing you should add to your catalog.
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9. Offer a single payment method
Gone are the days when you could only pay one way. To win more customers and make it easier for them to buy from your store, have several methods available.
In addition to debit or credit cards, you can include PayPal, Mercado Pago, PayU and Conekta. There is also the payment in convenience stores where a folio is issued at checkout for the customer to go to a branch to pay.
💵 Another alternative is electronic wallets or ewallets like Google Pay. Discover what you can have in your ecommerce.
10. Not contemplating all the expenses and costs of sale
As they say out there, “you have to measure the water to the sweet potatoes.” A very common mistake of entrepreneurs is not charging the value of their product or service correctly. When setting the prices of clothing, also consider the cost of the details you invested in such as transportation, packaging, shipping cost, brand design, social media advertising, platform, photos, your salary and that of your employees, etc. .
📦 Regarding the shipping cost, remember that you can schedule the payment process so that the customer covers it depending on their location and how quickly they want to receive it.
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11. Request registration as a purchase requirement
In the same way that users leave a page online when you throw banner ads and pop-ups that don’t even let them read; they are discouraged from making a purchase if the store asks to register to pay. It is not necessary that you put this requirement, it will only make you lose potential customers who perhaps already had the cart and the card ready.
📌 Always think about how you can facilitate the user experience and make the payment process easier.
12. Failure to comply with delivery times
If you are promising a certain period of days to deliver the order, you have to fulfill it. Every customer is looking forward to your product, especially if it is clothing that they plan to wear for the first time or give away at a certain event. So before setting delivery times, make sure you can meet them.
🚚 Tip: Choose what works best for your business: external packages or a delivery team within your business. Parcels are a very common option when businesses are starting up.
13. Storage without quality and hygiene conditions
Having a fashion e-commerce also means storing the merchandise very carefully. To have your clothing stock in the best order conditions, follow these steps.
- Use organizer boxes and shelves.
- Create categories depending on the type of garment, for example: men’s, women’s, children’s and unisex clothing.
- Then separate by collection type, whether you are guided by seasons (spring/summer) or by style (casual, evening party, daytime, etc.).
- From there, create subcategories by type of garment: dresses, blouses, pants, jackets, skirts, shirts, sweaters, skirts and accessories.
- Place the merchandise you need to sell first in front.
- Avoid the entry of food, drinks and liquids into the area where you have the stock.
- Define who will be the people authorized to handle the clothes, take control of the inventory and make the shipments.
- Generate barcodes to facilitate the control of your inventory.
14. Have a single sales channel
Just the act of selling clothes online opens up a world of possibilities for your brand. If you’re already there, don’t limit yourself to just one sales channel! If you sell through social networks like Instagram and Facebook, take advantage of the platforms to open your online store and link those profiles to your own e-commerce.
Take your customers and followers to a link where they can see your entire catalog. An online store will give you more credibility with potential buyers and they will feel more confident about making a transfer or payment for your products.
15. Not include size charts
Ask your wholesale clothing suppliers for a size chart according to the garments they manufacture. They will have a list of sizes and measurements. In a tab of your store, add this size guide. You can base yourself on the tables used by other clothing stores such as Zara or H&M that have known and standardized measurements.
👚 If your case is that you buy second-hand, bale or vintage clothing, you can also be inspired by the American clothing size charts, since most of this type of clothing comes from that country.
16. Do not specify if the model is for women, men, children or unisex
Photos can be misleading in this regard, so pay attention to details. In the description of each garment, add who the model is for, especially when it is for children. For example “pink skirt for a girl” or “t-shirt for a boy”. If it is women’s clothing, you can specify this information by writing “flower skirt for women”.
📌 Also specify if the garment is unisex, this type of clothing can win you many customers, because fashion is geared towards genderless clothing.
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