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need advice – 1. growing traditional apparel business 2. Career path to startup

By Varun Miglani on 13 Comments / 2294 views

Hello Group,
I am Mechanical Engineer from DCE, with 8+ years of work exp in diversified industries as employee in IT, KPO, and as entrepreneur in Education, Real Estate.
 
At present I am assisiting my Dad business in his apparel business, wherein we are selling our private label ethnic wears for mens and boys i.e kurta pajama, pathani suit.

The modus operandi is :-
1. We are selling these products via wholesale to retail shops from our outlet in wholesale market, Gandhi Nagar, Delhi.
2. Retail shop keeper (clients) visit us and buy our products.
3. All our business comes from walkin clients only.
5. Majority of business comes from local retail shops i.e Delhi/NCR
6. Not much has been done on marketing and advertisement.
7. I am not able to get information about the major market for these products.

Pls suggest how to grow this business.

UPDATE ON FEB 3, 2015.

MY SECOND QUERY:-
I also want to startup, but don’t have any idea or focused domain.
I need to know, whether I
1. should continue working in ethnic wear business while watching out for that Idea?
2. should continue working in ethnic business and take up part time assignment(corporate/start-up/freelance/NGO) that exposes to diversified field, hence leading to that Idea?
3. should take up some freelance full time consulting(BD or something) assignment that exposes to diversified field, hence leading to that Idea?
4. should take up full time job, get back to corporate and work till that Idea is found ?
5. should take up full time job in a start-up and work till that Idea is found ?
6. should focus on particular sector OR any sector  ?Request you all to pls help me decide my path towards starting up.Rgds
Request you to pls advice.

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13 Comments

  1. Is this a business that will scale?

    Whats the differentiator?

    Sorry to ask a BLUNT question – but why are you doing this?

    (I made and sold socks and ‘bhatko’d’ in Sadar Bazaar Delhi for 8 years … so please allow my indiscretion in asking…

  2. Try selling them on all online eCommerce stores like- Amazon, flipkart, snapdeal etc ?

  3. Thanks Alok Sir for your reply. I started 2 ventures in the past and due to some reasons had to close down. Now I am assisting my Dad and trying to help in BD.

    Answer to both of your questions is NO.

    I asked this question cos you also worked in garments business. Would request you to guide in this business or shaping career path.

  4. Yes, selling online is on my radar.
    Along with this I am also trying to strengthen the B2B Space (selling to organised retail or to wholesaler in India or export ) But i am unable to get much information.

  5. Selling online will be a good decision. You can start your own eCommerce site and start selling online.

    My personal suggestion would be to go for SAAS platforms like Zepo. These platforms allow you to start your own eCommerce site from scratch and also help you with payment gateway (for online payment processing) and tie-ups with courier companies for delivery of your products. They charge an extremely nominal charge starting from as low as 1k per month. You also don’t need to spend on hiring a developer and getting your site developed.

    You can signup for FREE and start your own online store in 2 minutes by taking a free 14 days trial. 

    Link for trial: Click Here

    If you have any issue, send me a message. I would love to help !

  6. Hi Varun,

    I stay in Vivek Vihar, very close to Gandhi Nagar, the best way to grow your business are:

    1. A Custom eCommerce Store – Don’t go for FREE Store or Template based store.

    2. After your own store is up – tie-up with Amazon, Flipkart etc

    3. Keep Uniform pricing on your store and market place.

    4. Enable your store to handle B2B sale, with differential pricing for different clients.

    5. Invest in Digital Marketing like SEO / PPC / Social Media etc

    You can speak to me at 9811122212 or email me at amit.shroff@72interactive.com or visit my website https://www.72interactive.in

    Regards,

    Amit

  7. Hi Varun,

    A few questions here ;

    Is the family interested in building a brand out of the private label or just a commodity sale ?

    Is there a sales staff to cater to the retail market ? If so , how many ?

    What is the maximum capacity of production of the apparels ?

    warm regards

    Manisha

    http://www.bridginggaps.in

  8. One simple answer to your query is:-

    Step out of your comfort zone.

    I tell you what there exists a large large market to get your products provided you drive it at competitive rate, have adequate stocks and yes they are priced according to their true value.
    For these I give you some simple steps:-

    OFFLINE ROUTE:
    1. Find out who are your main competitors.
    2. Find out what differentiates you from your competitors.
    3. Price your products adequately. 
    4. There are many many commission agents/ brokers who sell the products on your behalf for a nominal commission. They normally have all the top wholesale/retail/chain retail clients attached to them.
    5. Set payment terms, delivery schedules with them. STAY TRUE TO YOUR WORDS.
    6. Talk to them on repeated basis and keep highlighting new products to them.

    ONLINE ROUTE:
    1. List your products for free on major B2B platforms like indiamart.com , alibaba.com, tradeindia.com etc. Since you are from an IT background this will not be difficult.
    2. Spend some cash in advertising via classified portals like JUSTDIAL, or take some packages from the before mentioned companies. 
    3. Stay focused and narrow down on the leads which are messaged to you on regular intervals.

    Selling via B2C platform like snapdeal.com, flipkart.com, amazon.com etc etc will be a daunting task if you are running your business single handedly and moreover it will not generate sufficient revenues if you do not have the quality and quantity.

    Please read this article published in thrs earlier. It will give you some insight on sales.

  9. Thanks Shravan. Will explore suggested route.

  10. Thanks Pawan sir. You have given very valuable insight esp. on B2B front.

  11. Hello Manisha,

    Answers to your questions are :-

    Yes, Family want it to grow and become something.

    At present, No sales staff in field , all the sales work is done within the outlet only.

    100-150 pcs per day. 

  12. Dear Varun,

    For scalability you would need to have a sales team in place ;

    Sales guys to cater to Offline B2B – wholeseller markets

    Sales guys to cater to Modern trade – your private label being sourced out in malls 

    Online would also seem the logical step to take forward to. Good photographs & shots would be crucial. 

    Wish you all the very best in your en devours.

    warm regards

    Manisha

  13. Hi Manisha,

    All the things you’ve mentioned works well for a primarily established group and deploying a sales team or taking out the marketing budged proves to be difficult for a bootstrapped company. 

    A company which is initially relying on about 200pcs daily will not be able to shelve out money for those purpose. Moreover before deploying a sales team he needs to have proper variety and assortment of goods which he needs to sell and more than that “a bird does not rely on the branch which it rests but relies on its wings instead” – he should first explore himself and then shoot for the team.

    Just a personal experiential story. 

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