Technological tools for your clothing startup´s success
We all read the news about Forever 21´s bankruptcy, and if you are like many, you took that news as a surprise! How come such a renowned clothing company suddenly file for bankruptcy? This challenged everything I knew about economics’ supply and demand and economies of scale, and my knowledge about marketing’s “successful” technique of using influencers to advertise a brand. However, after finding out the real reason why this happened, I had a flashback of a thought I had about the clothing industry: why open a store if you can just sell online? Maybe it was just a millennial thought, but this thought could have saved Mr. and Mrs. Chang´s company! Thanks to the digital era, physical stores are no longer necessary for success, and they can even be an unnecessary cost for starting or expanding your business (Wang & Kim, 2019)!
We had a chat with Ahmad Apparel, a Canadian-based apparel store, who gave us some powerful technological tools to use for starting and expanding your clothing company! Ahmad Apparel is an online-only apparel store “with one goal in mind- to promote RESPECT for one another, creating a global sense of LOVE & UNITY among mankind”. This brand has a great mission in mind, and they don´t conform with just selling stylish clothing, they also use part of their profits for monthly missions to improve this world!
Before we go in-depth to the interview with Ahmad Apparel, we need to understand what we mean by technological tools. As defined by IGI Global, a technological tool is “an electronic, digital or physical tool that can expand the human ability for performing tasks or generating products” (“Technological Tool”, n.d.) Therefore, technological tools can help us save precious time, organize our business better, and reach out to more customers than ever before!
Ahmad Apparel uses a wide variety of technological tools to have a strong online presence and be profitable.
Say goodbye to physical stores and say hi to success!
- Clothing design tools
Once you’ve figured out the name and logo of your store, the next thing to do is to figure out which type of clothing to sell. Consequently, you will need a way to do your designs in the best cost-effective manner. No more wasting paper on drawings that take so much time and might not look artistic. Thanks to technology, now it is easier to do those designs online using the following tools used by Ahmad Apparel. It is important to note that Ahmad Apparel is made in India but based in Canada, therefore, it requires online methods to send the designs to the textile fabric that will be doing the clothing.
- Pixaby: https://pixabay.com/
To find basics of the designs, Ahmad Apparel uses royalty-free images available for commercial use like Pixabay. Pixabay has millions of copyright-free images and videos. You can use these images and videos even for commercial purposes. The process is easy, just search for the image you would like, select the quality of the image, and download it. You don´t need an account to do it, and it is ALL free.
For example, if Ahmad Apparel wants to launch a white t-shirt with a phrase in Arabic, they will search “t-shirt” and download the free image on the left. This eliminates the cost of hiring models to pose with plain t-shirts.
- Adobe Photoshop: https://www.adobe.com/ca/creativecloud/
After taking the chosen image from Pixabay, Ahmad Apparel edits them on Photoshop. This image editing software can be used on desktop and iPad for US$20.99/month. Once the image is transferred to photoshop, Ahmad Apparel determines the design, length, color, position, and more to achieve the desired clothing outcome. For many of the designs, they use freelance calligraphers to hand create designs, which they scan and digitize with photoshop as shown below!
The good part is that Photoshop is not only useful for clothing design, it can also be used to edit photoshoots for new apparel as the business starts to expand!
2. Website development and e-commerce platform tools
Once you know what type of clothing to sell, the next step is to create a website for your store! Many of us saw that Youtube advertisement explaining how using WordPress for website development is like cutting a chicken with a saw, it does the job, but it could be done better. Even myself, a vegan, understands this analogy first hand. I still remember starting my vegan blog *ironically* on WordPress; however, I can´t seem to remember the day I finally finished it! Yes, because it hasn´t happened yet! WordPress consumes so much time, and I´m still figuring everything out before I can publish my blog! There are many other website development software to start on, which are easier to use and come with bundles to make everything simpler and quicker.
- Wix: https://www.wix.com/
Ahmad Apparel told us that Wix is the best option for creating your website. It is easy to use, and the price includes all that you need for your website, even the domain! From $20/month you can have a domain name for 1 year, accept online payments, have a $300 value ad voucher, and many other features! As of 2019, Wix served more than 120 million users worldwide (Djordjevic, 2020).
Wix has helped Ahmad Apparel receive payments, keep in touch with customers, and analyze their customers more effectively! Specifically, they use Wix customer management to respond to those customers filling out brand ambassador forms, which go directly to their emails. Also, it was easy to add images and organize pages as shown in the left and below. Finally, Wix also helps Ahmad Apparel to keep track of inventory and automatically lets the customer know if a product is sold out!
The downside of using Wix is that some additional features have expensive costs. For example, some booster apps have an extra cost, and if you want to add more widgets, you´ll have to pay an extra monthly fee for Ascend, which is owned by Wix. These extra costs could add up to $20/month, which is a substantial amount for any small business.
- Ecwid: www.ecwid.com/
Ecwid is the e-commerce platform that Ahmad Apparel uses. Ecwid helps to sell fast by setting up a store or using an existing online store. It can be used freely, but in order to maximize all the features, optimal plans range from $12.50/month to $82.50/month. Ahmad Apparel uses its existing Wix website to connect with Ecwid. It helps set-up shipping rates based on subtotal and weight of products and connects the website with Instagram shopping, which allows customers to easily make an order directly on Instagram.
3. Payment processing tools
Now that your website is ready to be launched, you need to know how you are getting your money! Luckily, payment processing online is secure and easy! Ahmad Apparel uses 3 tools to receive payments from customers and see those payments reflected in their bank accounts in a few days!
- Stripe: https://stripe.com/en-ca
Ahmad Apparel uses Stripe as a default, as it is connected by Wix. It costs $0.30 + 2.9% per card transaction! Stripe is secure, has no setup or monthly fees, and it is easy to transfer the money from Stripe to any bank account in a short period of time.
- PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/ca/
To expand the options given to customers, Ahmad Apparel joined PayPal for business! PayPal offers a more instant money transfer, with the same cost as Stripe, which is $0.30 + 2.9% per card transaction. PayPal has been in Canada for almost 14 years, with 6.4 million active users in 2016 (“PayPal Celebrates 10 Years in Canada, More Than Six Million Users in Country”, 2016).
- Square: https://squareup.com/ca/
In order to reduce costs when serving local customers, Ahmad Apparel uses Square. This is a physical technological tool that receives all types of payments from customers. It has cheaper transaction costs than Stripe and PayPal, as it costs $0.10 + 2.65% per credit card transaction, with a $60-$300 one-time payment for the device.
4. Social media apps for customer analytics, promotions, and keeping up with suppliers and customers
Now it is time to promote and analyze your online store! The digital era has made it easy for businesses to reach out to customers internationally, and to work with other businesses without meeting them in person. Social media use has increased rapidly since its beginnings, now reaching 3.5 billion active users daily, which is almost 45% of the population! Ahmad Apparel agrees with 73% of marketers that believe social media marketing is effective. As a result, Ahmad Apparel uses Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp for promotions, communication, and consumer analytics. Creating accounts for those is free! By using these 3 tools to their maximum advantage, Ahmad Apparel strives to be prominent on the search of the 54% of social media individuals that browse for products (Mohsin, 2019).
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/
Instagram has around 1 billion monthly active users per month, in which they all discover new products with just one search (Newberry, 2019)! Ahmad Apparel uses Instagram as their main social media platform. They post pictures of customers, creating a sense of community to all their followers! They also use direct messages for sending out offers and stories for promoting offers to customers who are wearing the apparel. As a business account, Ahmad Apparel can get insights to better understand the audience, specifically, view insights such as age/location, common interests, and impressions of the customers. It also allows Ahmad Apparel to connect its e-commerce platform, Ecwid, for customers to tap a post to shop. In addition, as a business account, there is an option to pay for posts to reach out to more customers. This option considers the daily budget of the business, starting as low as $2 per day, increasing its value depending on the amount of daily budget and for how many days the ad would be. It also lets you choose your target audience, for example, Ahmad Apparel would choose “Calgary” as a location for their main customers. A recent downside of Instagram is that hiring third parties for social media marketing is not effective anymore, as Instagram changed its algorithms lately to block any spamming activity. Additionally, it is not permitted to follow many people or like many posts in a short period of time! This is because Instagram is trying to reduce the free promotional benefits that businesses enjoyed before so that they will choose the paid ones.
As shown below, Ahmad Apparel has a valuable presence on Instagram, taking maximum advantage of what it has to offer!
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/
Facebook is the number one social media platform used worldwide, having 68% of all social media users (Mohsin, 2019). Ahmad Apparel uses Facebook in a similar way as they use Instagram. They can receive orders through messages, and they can also pay for promotional campaigns. Promotional campaigns consider any budget like Instagram, ranging from $3 to $130 per day. With $3 per day, you can reach up to 3,000 potential buyers! You can decide to promote a post, the page, or an Instagram post considering the location or potential customers.
Ahmad Apparel uses Whatsapp to communicate with the clothing suppliers, as their suppliers are in Pakistan and India. Luckily, WhatsApp is very common in those places, and they can text, call, and even send the designs through there.
5. Bonus tools
- Canada Post: https://www.canadapost.ca/cpc/en/business.page
Ahmad Apparel uses the small business account to calculate shipping costs at a discounted rate. Creating a business account there is free, and depending on the number of orders shipped per month, there can be amazing discounts!
- Google Sheets: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets
Google Sheets is a free spreadsheet program that helps Ahmad Apparel create accounting reports.
To wrap up, the digital era has helped us better understand our customers and how to do business. For the clothing industry, a physical store is not entirely necessary, unless what you are selling requires the customer to try it out for size purposes. An online store is even great for reducing costs. You can have the clothing pieces in your basement, reducing storage costs! It also reduces the possibility of theft, either by employees or thieves entering a mall. Ahmad Apparel made it clear, say bye to physical stores, and say hi to success!
References
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