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If you’re considering starting a lingerie business but don’t know how to begin, don’t worry – you’re not alone. When you first thought about turning your small business idea into a real, scalable venture, you probably had no idea where to start. Like many others, you might have turned to search engines for help with questions like “How to start a lingerie business?”
While there are a lot of articles about selling sex toys online, there are a few about how to start selling lingerie online. The few that existed either discouraged people from trying or were too generic. That’s why we’re providing a detailed guide on how to get started, how much money you’ll need to invest, and how much money you can expect to make.
Now that said, let’s get started.
Why Start a Lingerie Business?
According to Imarc, the lingerie market has grown significantly, reaching US$84.2 billion in 2022. Experts predict that the market will reach US$149.9 billion by 2028, with a growth rate (CAGR) of 6.42 % expected from 2023 to 2028.
The market for seamless corsets, stockings, and basque sets is growing due to men’s rising preference for lingerie products. Lingerie manufacturers collaborating with supermarkets and distributors to improve their product offerings are also contributing to market growth.
Apart from the relatively high market trend, there are multiple reasons why starting a lingerie business can be a good idea.
Low startup costs: Starting a lingerie business requires a lower initial investment than a physical store. This makes it a viable option for aspiring entrepreneurs with limited funds.
Adaptable and convenient: Having an online business means you can sell products anytime and anywhere, providing both you and your customers with flexibility and convenience.
Extensive reach: Running a business online can broaden your reach to customers globally, expanding your market and boosting your sales potential.
Easy to manage and scale: Managing and scaling your lingerie business is much easier compared to traditional ones, allowing for quick and efficient growth for your clothing business.
As you have now seen why starting a lingerie business is profitable, let’s move on to the main point – how to start a lingerie business.
Things to Know Before Starting a Lingerie Business:
1. Value You Bring In – Before starting a business, you should be clear about the value you are going to bring to your customers. You may think of this as the USP of your business. Customers will buy your products only if they see the value in your products.
2. Sort your target audience – You should clearly understand your target audience, including their age, income, purchasing habits, and purchasing power. Without knowing your audience, you can’t launch a marketing campaign to bring leads to your website.
3. Initial Investment – To start any business, you need to have an idea of the amount of investment you have to make to start the business and ensure that you can fund the business for at least 6 months before you start earning profit.
4. Resources You Need – Your lingerie business will need many operations in the backend. A single individual can’t run a business; you need manpower to connect all the dots of your scattered business. Skilled resources can help your business run smoothly.
5. Business Registration – You must comply with the law of the land and do all the necessary legal formalities a lingerie business owner must do. Registering your business is the first step, as you don’t want to face any legal issues later.
How to Start a Lingerie Business?
Starting a lingerie business is a fulfilling experience but can also be challenging and complicated. To assist you in navigating the process, we have created a simple guide that outlines the ten most crucial steps.
1. Find Your Niche
You must clearly understand your target market to effectively design, produce, or dropship lingerie. This involves conducting research to gain insights into their buying habits, preferences, and needs.
By doing so, you can identify market gaps and opportunities and create products that appeal to your target audience. To increase the likelihood of success for your lingerie business, it’s beneficial to conduct market research prior to designing and producing your products. This will allow you to make more informed decisions.
To find your right niche, you start by….
Determining your target audience
To effectively market your clothing, first identify your target audience based on factors such as age, gender, location, interests, or income level.
Conduct surveys and interviews with potential customers to gather information about their clothing preferences and purchasing habits. Online surveys, in-person interviews, and focus groups are all useful methods for gathering this information.
Examining the market trends
Stay up-to-date with industry trends and developments by using tools like Exploding Topics and Semrush.
This can help you identify market opportunities and challenges and ultimately create products that align with current consumer demands.
Keeping an eye on your competitors
To stand out from competitors and avoid common mistakes, it’s important to closely monitor their products, pricing, marketing, and distribution strategies. Monitor what they’re doing and use it to differentiate your own products.
Lingerie Niche Examples: Maternity lingerie, sports bras, shapewear, and plus-size lingerie. Depending on the market size and target audience, you can select any one type for launching a lingerie business.
2. Choose a Business Model
The first and foremost consideration when launching a lingerie business is determining the most suitable business model to adopt. You can start your own lingerie business using three types of business models.
Manufacturing lingeries
If you want to create a lingerie brand like Victoria’s Secret, you should manufacture your own lingerie business.
To begin with, there are several options for starting your own lingerie business. You could consider working with a print-on-demand company to produce your designs, collaborating with a wholesale lingerie brand, or partnering with a manufacturer to design your own line.
When it comes to producing good-quality lingerie, you need to consider two things: fabrics and performance. For lingerie to fit well, the fabric must be seamless and stretchy but able to return to its original shape. It’s important for the lingerie to be balanced and proportionate to the wearer. Additionally, fabrics should maintain their shape and color.
Source lingeries from wholesale brands
If you’re seeking a greater challenge and a higher potential for profit margins, consider directly contacting lingerie manufacturers. You may be pleasantly surprised by how inexpensive it is to produce a $25 teddy. The lingerie industry boasts some of the most lucrative profit margins available.
Every season, factories produce numerous designs that you can choose from to fill your store. The advantage of sourcing your products from a wholesaler is that you don’t have to worry about the design or manufacturing process. Instead, you can simply select the items you like and purchase them from the supplier.
Dropshipping lingeries
By using a dropshipping business model, you won’t have to store inventory or fulfill orders yourself. Instead, you team up with a manufacturer or wholesaler who has the necessary inventory and capabilities for fulfillment.
This approach is simple to establish and manage, and it offers the added benefit of being able to provide a diverse selection of products to your customers.
When a customer makes a purchase on your website, you will send the order details to the dropshipping supplier, who will then ship the item directly to the customer on your behalf.
ProTip: If you’re a new entrepreneur, dropshipping might be the least risky business model for you. You don’t need to invest in inventory or warehousing, which means you won’t lose money on unused stock. However, the profit margins are typically smaller, so there is a tradeoff to consider.
3. Make a Business Plan
Having a business plan is crucial for any enterprise, including an online fashion business. Essentially, it’s a written description of your business goals, strategies, and plans of action.
Crafting a top-notch business plan can be a game-changer! It’s your chance to showcase your vision and strategies to potential investors, partners, and customers. It also serves as a roadmap for the growth and development of your lingerie line.
Start by writing an executive summary of your lingerie business. It should include your vision and mission statement, a brief description of the products you’re going to sell, and an extensive summary of your financial projections.
Then, sketch down your marketing analysis with up-to-date information. Next, note how you are different from your competitors. Use those points as your USPs. Lastly, write down all your business’s production and distribution channels.
4. Set a Price
Setting the right prices for your lingerie products is critical to achieving business success. You must find a balance between profitability and providing competitive and appealing prices to your customers.
To determine a fair and viable price range for your business, it’s important to research your market and competitors. When considering how to start a lingerie business and how much to charge for your bras and crochets, a general guideline is to add at least 40% to the catalog price.
When determining the unit price for your product, consider the purchase price and shipping costs, if applicable. Suppose you purchase 50 bras for $1250, which means you spent $25 per bra. To make a profit, you should aim to sell each bra for $35. If the bras are of high quality, retail customers may be willing to pay $5-$10 more for a better fit and softer material.
5. Pick a Business Name
When starting a lingerie business, it’s crucial to choose a unique and memorable business name that reflects your brand’s identity.
Avoid using a name that is too narrow, such as “Mia’s Corsets,” as it may limit your ability to expand your product offerings as your brand evolves. Remember that your business name is the first thing people will see, so take the time to choose wisely.
Here are a few things you can keep in mind while choosing a name for your lingerie business:
- When choosing a name for your brand, it’s important to consider how well it reflects your identity, values, and mission. The name should also effectively communicate the unique qualities of your brand that set it apart from others in your industry.
- It’s best to steer clear of complex words or phrases that may be difficult to pronounce or recall.
- To optimize your business’s success, it is recommended to avoid utilizing frequently used words that are already prevalent among other companies in your field.
- Before finalizing a business name, it’s important to check if it’s available for use, its trademark status, and whether the domain is available to avoid any possible legal complications.
6. Register Your Business
If you are serious about starting a lingerie business, you should register it as either a sole proprietorship or an LLC. Registering as an LLC can give your business more tax advantages and allow you to purchase lingerie at cost using your EIN instead of your SSN. Whether this new venture will be a side hustle or a full-time endeavor, registering your business is crucial.
If you’re based in the US, registering your business with the state can cost between $40 to $100. It’s important also to understand the legal requirements for small businesses in your state and ensure that everything is in compliance.
If setting up your business is too time-consuming, you can opt to pay for an LLC service to handle it for you. Investing in this service can save you time and allow you to focus on the creative aspects of your business.
7. Obtain Business License and Permits
It is crucial to obtain a business license when starting a lingerie business. This legal document allows you to operate your business within the boundaries of the law.
To operate your business legally, you may be required to obtain additional permits and licenses based on your location and business activities. This could include licenses for selling products, using specific materials or operating in certain locations.
Complying with all relevant regulations and laws, including taxes, labor, and health and safety, is important to avoid any fines, penalties, or legal complications.
8. Set up Your Online Store
Your lingerie inventory is now ready for sale, but to truly differentiate yourself from your competitors, it’s imperative that you create your own eCommerce website.
While selling on third-party platforms like Amazon and eBay may seem like an easy option, but launching your own online store is the smarter choice.
Creating a lingerie eCommerce website can be done in two ways,
- Building a website from scratch – This option allows you to code your website how you like. It is a tiring process, and if you don’t have the technical expertise, you will have to hire skilled front-end and back-end developers. Not only is this option expensive, as building a website from scratch will cost you a minimum of $30,000, but it is also time-consuming.
- Using a Turnkey Solution – An adult eCommerce website script can help you launch your own lingerie website. You can customize the script and add new features before launching the site. A good quality adult eCommerce website script service provider is all that you need for your lingerie business.
The scripts are way cheaper than building a site from scratch, and most importantly, you don’t need to exhaust yourself in this whole process. We will now discuss a script that can make your lingerie business website launch a cakewalk.
To sell your lingerie products through an online store, consider using xMarketplace by Adent.io. It’s a user-friendly e-commerce website script that requires no coding skills. Furthermore, xMarketplace lets you add more than 20,000 adult products to your online store.
With xMarketplace, you have complete control over your website design, including colors, fonts, buttons, and product images. Further, the admin dashboard makes it easy to manage every element of your website.
You can also manage your products, inventory, and shipping all in one place through the dashboard. Plus, xMarketplace includes a secure adult payment processor, CCBill, to handle all of your transactions.
Here’s the infographic on steps to start a profitable lingerie business:
That’s it! These are the important steps on how to start lingerie business. Now let’s look into the startup you require to start a lingerie business.
How Much Would It Cost to Start a Lingerie Business?
There’s nothing wrong with starting a business on a shoestring budget, lingerie is a viable option with very little money, and you can turn a profit quickly once you get your start.
So, what is the startup cost of the lingerie business? This totally depends on the scale of your business. To make progress in your business, you must consider your nature of business and your desired speed. If you’re a beginner and starting an all-batch lingerie business, you must keep in mind that to meet a minimum order quantity, you need at least $1,000 as a startup cost.
But if you want to manufacture your own lingerie business, then you need to have at least $35,000 – $40,000. Note that the prices may vary depending on your location and the amount of units you are willing to produce.
How to Sell Lingerie Online?
1. Decide your Goals
Before selling lingerie online, it is important to identify the niche and understand your sales goals. The lingerie market is oversaturated, and in order to succeed, it is crucial to have a clear understanding of your objectives.
Establishing business objectives is an absolutely vital aspect of attaining triumph, regardless of the seemingly fundamental nature of the concept.
Carefully formulated business objectives exert a considerable impact on shaping daily operations and decisions, ultimately enabling all members of the organization, from high-ranking executives to novice employees, to apprehend and prioritize the company’s goals.
2. Design Your Lingerie & Choose a Quality Dropshipper
It can be difficult to sell lingerie products if the quality is not good. To attract customers, it is important to pay close attention to the lingerie products you want to dropship and to do that, find reliable websites like Printful to ensure the artwork on your products is of high quality.
Additionally, when dropshipping lingerie, you need to meet quality standards, and it can be tricky to determine which lingerie is high quality. One strategy for dropshipping is to order a few samples from your suppliers to test them out. This allows you to determine if the design or material is not to your liking.
3. Market Your Business
After creating the website, you must implement an effective marketing strategy, such as social media marketing and influencer marketing. The best approach is to post content regularly on multiple social media platforms.
Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, etc., can help you start campaigning for your online lingerie business. In TikTok, you can upload tik toks of your in-house operations, promoting the work culture or showing potential customers how they get their favorite lingerie delivered to their homes. Instagram reels can also be used, but the maximum duration of a reel is 60 seconds.
Using Instagram and Twitter (now known as X), you can also post images of your lingerie collections and keep your followers updated on any trending lingerie design you are planning to launch. Including testimonials from happy customers in your business Instagram profile can help you gain the trust of potential customers.
Social media can also be used for influencer marketing. Influencers can tag your brand in a post where the models upload pictures or videos of them wearing sexy lingerie. The influencer’s followers will see your brand’s lingerie and are most likely to visit your website to buy some for themselves.
In addition to social media marketing, you need to focus on SEO to achieve better ranking in search engine result pages. By doing so, you can attract organic, quality traffic to your website from people looking to buy lingerie. Adding internal linking is a good way to make your website easy to surf and also improve the visibility of your website pages. In short, internal linking makes Google crawlers’ job easier.
Implementing metatags is crucial for SEO. They help Google understand the page’s purpose; a well-written title is often the most visible part of a search result. Last but not least, to promote your lingerie business via SEO, you need to create useful and quality content.
Quality content means the content you post on your website should answer some of your target audience’s important questions. When crafting content, it’s important to keep in mind the searcher’s intent to create content that’s not only relevant but valuable to your audience. This approach will help you appeal to your targeted audience by providing them with content tailored to their needs.
4. Build Reviews & Grow Your Brand
The last step in starting a lingerie business is growing your brand by building reviews and delivering high-quality products to your customers.
Asking customers to review the products they bought is as important as selling lingerie online. Social proof plays a significant role in this aspect, and customers want to ensure they are getting their money’s worth when buying online. Hearing from actual customers is important in making their decision.
The next step is growing your brand. Your brand is essential for your growing business. The right branding can establish your business as a trustworthy leader in your space and help you communicate effectively with your target audience. It also aligns with your marketing efforts. Note that a brand tells your story.
5. Quality Testing Of Lingerie
To build a reputation for your brand among our customers, you can make them a part of your brand-building journey. Use your customers as quality ambassadors of your brand. You can send samples of your lingerie brand to your present customers and ask them to give feedback on the quality of your lingerie items. Based on the feedback, you can make the necessary changes to your product before you launch it on your online lingerie store.
How Much You Can Make From a Lingerie Business?
To answer the question above, it is crucial to consider multiple significant factors. The frequency of orders and the use of top-notch machinery are among these factors. By optimizing these factors, it is definitely possible to produce lingerie and earn a substantial amount ranging from $80,000 to $100,000.
Let’s say you spend $200 on 100 pants and make $400 in profit. And it takes you two hours to make them. If you’re a dropshipper, you will have zero production costs. You won’t find a job that pays this much money for working only 2-4 hours a day, and if you get orders like this every day, you’ll earn $10,000/month and $100,000/ year.
Conclusion
Now that you’ve read through this article, you’ll know exactly how to start a lingerie business and create your own store using a turnkey solution like xMarketplace by Adent.io. Keep in mind that designing and selling lingerie online in this niche can be quite challenging, so be sure to use the tips we’ve shared.
If you have any questions about starting your own lingerie business or where to sell lingerie online, please let us know in the comments.
