2006
Exposure?Promotion (Free) and sales tactics (stuff you probably never thought of!)
Posted by: Fashion06 in Promotion, Starting your own line |
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This is more of an add-on to the former article about ?my first order?. We used so many grass roots way of promoting to save money-money that we didn?t have anyway. Cutting corners will get you places, but cutting too many corners will have you out of business.
When we first started we wanted to open our on store in a high traffic area (so we could build our brand name easily with an already high traffic area), but we didn?t have the necessary capital to do it at the time. So we thought of the next best thing was to rent spots and sell clothes than move to another location?.still to expensive. We went back to the old ways of getting what you want in exchange of your services which is called bartering. The exact definition of Bartering-is a system of trading goods and services for advertising time or space?.which is exactly what we did.
I would call up stores or areas that weren?t familiar with our brand (areas that weren?t exposed) and asked them if they needed more exposure for their store or a little free promoting on the back end?of course their answer was yes. Where the bartering comes in is that we would offer to promote their store on our website and print out couple hundred flyers or print outs on paper with their store address and contact on it in exchange for using a space in their store for one day while holding an event. Most of the time we would move more shirts in an event than some of our accounts would move in a month! Mainly because no one is going to push your product more than you do (hopefully). At most of our events we would just setup a simple booth or table (remember these were in the beginning stages) with a few of our shirts and flyers. We would have flyers promoting the store on one side and our brand on the other. We might offer small incentives (see examples of incentives) to get customers out to our events. The good thing about this is that u can spend little to no money (if you have your own printer) and if so you will still make ALL of your money back with no middle man (retailers) so the profit is all yours because you?re selling straight to the consumer at retail prices!(no wholesale or retailer markup)?Don?t wait try this tomorrow! Leave your comments
Fashion06
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November 16th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
Sounds like a good plan.
November 28th, 2006 at 6:08 am
i like that idea a lot. THANKS!
April 5th, 2007 at 3:40 am
I’m a little confused by this technique…
In exchange for advertisement, stores would let you set up your own mini store within theirs, not asking for a cut or anything?
If your line was really fresh, wouldn’t they feel intimidated and not want their customers’ money to go into your pockets instead of theirs?
Also, I can kind of see this working in a more-ghetto sores (real talk, not being disrespectful), but I’d imagine that the “trendier” stores, boutiques, etc., would be too concerned about their own image/brand to let another retail operation compete with them in their own space.
If you could clarify, that’d be bomb.
April 5th, 2007 at 8:10 am
Xander I would love too clarify …it can be a little confusing.
Its not a mini store its like a display …a small table that they already display brands on,but only for your brand and you offer incentives for this one time event.
First off trendy boutiques do it all the time it’s called a trunk show when they do it…(the definition is on this blog just type in search) and your not a retail operation. Your a clothing manufacturer and I have done this in atlanta, ga in which as some great sneaker and clothing boutiques. Tried and tested technique.
Basically you promote the show and in the process of promoting the show your also promoting their store. You get immediate access to their stores everyday foot traffic. Now you can give them a cut of the sales that’s up to you. Most of the stores I did this in end up ordering my clothing line, because they seen how well the consumers responded to my clothing line.
Your not their competition, look at Ecko Unltd and Sean John.Both sell in thousands of stores worldwide, but still have their flagship stores that only sell their brand….if the above was the case wouldn’t a retailer consider that competition?
Does that make sense? let me know I would be glad to clear things up some more.
April 5th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
So when you say “event” and promoting it, are you just passing out flyers that say “We will be at such and such store on xx/xx/200x” or are you talking about actually getting some sort of artist into the store with the intent of bringing ppl into the store and then trying to get the attendees to buy your product? If you’re an unknown brand, it seams somewhat unlikely that people will come to the shop just because you’ll have a display, no?
April 5th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
The idea is this..you pick a popular store or in a high foot traffic area. The store already has good foot traffic and people already come….your trying to attain their audience that they already have. Their not gong to just let you come in their for NOTHING…you understand me? So you tell them you will promote their store in exchange for taking up some space and a table on X of ‘2007 from a certain time.
You shouldn’t have to bring people into the store if it is a popular or high traffic area where people will already shop at. People will come if you choose the right location…believe me you can even give them incentives like buy one get one free…or first 10 people will receive a free certificate for the store your doing business with or give some clothes away free…not much.
May 21st, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Im gonna definitely try this,i thought i’d make a bunch of flyers and go to different cities and different malls and pass my flyers around.