So you have a great store location in downtown Lagos, or an amazingly attractive e-commerce website catering towards shoppers in Trinidad, or an ideal spot in a New York flea market, but do you have the right wholesale brand name clothing for your customers? If you aren’t purchasing the right wholesale clothes for your customer base you will be missing out on the tremendous profit potential of the retail business. So how do you ensure that you are sourcing the best closeout fashion from your clothing suppliers? Take a look at these tips that will help you become an expert wholesale buyer in no time:
1. Take a walk around the neighborhood where your potential customers live and work. You can want to see the styles that they wear, and what fashions are currently popular. What if you have a website? You should still be visiting the places where your potential customers spend their time so that you can determine what they like to wear. You might visit the Central Business District in downtown Lagos and see that women are starting to wear more designer suits by Tahari than Nine West, which will make you aware of the need to carry more office suits by Tahari. What if you can’t visit the area where your clients are in person? There are plenty of online resources that you can use to virtually visit any location. In the example of Nigeria you can visit nairaland.com to see current pictures of people living in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, and in other Nigerian cities. You can use the same strategy whether your customers are located in the United States, the Bahamas, or Zimbabwe.
2. Stay on top of fashion trends by visiting the social media profiles of potential customers on Facebook. For example, if your target market is professional women in Jamaica, conduct a search on Facebook for women living in Jamaica and check out their public pictures. This way you will be able to see the type of dress wear that they like. If you feel more comfortable you can also look up images on Google by searching with a phrase that describes your clientele.
3. Look up fashion websites catering towards your customer base. You can find country specific fashion websites for many countries. Visit these sites, read the articles and the comments that follow them, view the images, and become an active member so that you can interact with actual potential clients. You might discover that government employees in Zambia are required to wear skirt suits as opposed to pant suits, or that men in St Lucia must wear dress shirts to their banking jobs. These are just theoretical examples, but you will be surprised at the insights that you will gain once you do your research. Once you have concrete information in your hands you will be able to make better decisions when it comes to locating and buying wholesale designer clothes and fashion.
4. Finally, ask your customers what they want! There is no better way to determine the type of overstock merchandise that you should carry than by asking your actual customers what it is that they are looking for. After all, they are the ones that are going to wear it.
