Steps to Take to Start Selling Your Own Swimwear Line in 2024
Diving into entrepreneurship and fashion design, starting your own swimwear line can be an exhilarating journey filled with creativity and business acumen. As we step into 2024, the swimwear industry continues to evolve, offering exciting opportunities for those with a passion for style and a flair for business. Whether you’re a seasoned designer or a budding entrepreneur, this article will guide you through the essential steps to launch your swimwear line.
10 steps to start selling your own swimwear line
You must take just 10 steps to start selling your swimwear line.
Analyze the market and competitors
Time – 7 days
Market. Study popular swimwear brands in your country and the world. Analyze what’s special about swimwear, how social pages look online, and what messages and visual design brands use. The ideas you like, you can adapt for your own swimwear brand. Analyze the demand for the swimwear you want to sew.
Competitors. Make a list of direct and indirect competitors. Study what they produce, their features, and their marketing strategy. Based on this, choose your unique offer for customers. Analyze competitors constantly, at least once a month.
Price segment. Choose in which price segment you present your swimwear: premium, medium, mass-market. Take the niche into account when writing your marketing and communication strategies.
Create a portrait of the target audience
Time – 3 days
The main task at this stage is to understand what needs your swimwear line fulfills. Describe your target customer as if you were talking about a specific person: how old they are, where they live, what they are into, their views on life, and what they value most. Conduct quantitative (e.g., Instagram surveys) and qualitative research. One of the most effective ways is focus groups. The more information you gather, the more accurate your offer will be.
Make a business plan
Time – 10 days
Make a financial plan with income and expenses, write realistic goals, and divide them by the plan period. For example, if you want to sell 100 swimwear a month in 6 months, calculate how much sales should grow each month and what it takes to do that.
It is important to calculate the price of your products correctly. Many entrepreneurs did not consider capital investments (for example, the cost of amortization of equipment) and possible discounts. When they realize the mistake, they have to raise the price. Discounts should be built in at the stage of planning a swimwear collection. For example, you sell 70% of swimwear at full price and 30% with discounts. Then, you will clearly understand how much you will earn after the sale of the swimwear collection.
Come up with a name, logo, and positioning concept
Time – 7 days
There are more than 30 variations of names—for example, acronyms, two-word compound names, associations, and rhymes. A list of options can be easily found by searching for “brand name categories”. If you still don’t have an idea, we recommend coming up with one variant of each type. From these, choose 4 and ask the target audience to vote.
The logo can be made in Logaster, Canva, and Looka, or together with the brand book, can be ordered on freelance websites. The brand book should include a color scheme for the website, social media, and retail outlets, tags, labels, packaging, and examples of informational materials.
Develop a swimwear collection, make sketches of swimwear
Time – 7 days
You don’t have to be an artist. You can draw schematically – it turns out like a sketch. If the result is unsatisfactory, you can look for photos of similar swimwear and write detailed technical specifications to develop patterns with additions and ideas. You can also design custom swimsuits on Printify to boost the overall process.
Make an assortment matrix
Time – 1 day
Make a table listing models, colors, and sizes in the swimwear collection. Let’s say you decide to sew one model of Mayo swimwear and two models of long-sleeved swimwear in 3 colors. Each model will be in 3 sizes. In each size, you sew 5 items. This is the assortment matrix. You need to transfer it to the table.
Develop swimwear models together with the designer
Time – 3-4 weeks
Develop patterns with the designer. For example, if you are sewing a Tank swimwear, two or three weeks with all the revisions will be enough. Don`t panic if you spend dozens of meters of fabric and make and test more than 10 variants. It`s OK.
Designers can be found at the sewing shop or on special websites. Remember that the sample must be perfect.
Sew the swimwear line
Time – from 14 days
Many entrepreneurs immediately buy expensive equipment and organize the shop for one seamstress. But we recommend finding seamstresses at home or in a shop that can sew small batches. It’s cheaper, faster, and less risky. Sew 2-5 pieces in different sizes. You will assess the demand, collect customer feedback, and produce a second collection with improvements. When the production volume increases, go to large sewing shops.
Make a catalog of products and establish sales channels
Time – from 7 days
The main income can come from targeting advertising on Instagram. Next, in terms of revenue, it can be Amazon, then wholesale orders. Choose a marketplace based on your niche analysis. For example, expensive swimwear will not go on Aliexpress.
Launch an advertising campaign
Time – 2 days
Even the most beautiful and practical swimwear will not be bought without advertising. It simply won’t be recognized. Use several tools at once. In Instagram, set up targeting advertising and lead to your account or directly to the website. Now it’s still popular to set up PPC. Don’t forget about SEO.
Conclusion
As you can see, you don’t need to be a tenth-generation seamstress or a millionaire to launch a swimwear line. We have briefly described the scheme. As with anything, unforeseen situations can arise. So, we recommend looking for a community of like-minded people to share experiences and constantly learn.