In the first blog episode in this series “business in fashion”, I expanded a lot about the diverse opportunities in the fashion industry without actually focusing my attention to tailoring. Because tailoring is just one aspect in the industry. This automatically explains why a real fashion designer must not know how to sew, nor must they know how to make or assemble shoes or bags. The fashion industry, like any other industry in the world, provides opportunity for so many business ideas in Nigeria and in Africa as a whole.
If you decide to focus on fashion designing, then your major skill set as a fashion designer is to be able to create an aesthetics that is appealing to your target market. To create products that your target customers are likely to purchase. Mastering how to create your own signature aesthetics that will eventually build your brand is inevitable. To learn more about other fashion business ideas in Nigeria that you can start with, please subscribe to my weekly newsletter to know when we release new series under this topic. You can also read the first episode to see my 30+ list on fashion careers available.
In the first blog episode in this series “business in fashion”, I expanded a lot about the diverse opportunities in the fashion industry without actually focusing my attention to tailoring. Because tailoring is just one aspect in the industry. This automatically explains why a real fashion designer must not know how to sew, nor must they know how to make or assemble shoes or bags. The fashion industry, like any other industry in the world, provides opportunity for so many business ideas in Nigeria and in Africa as a whole.
If you decide to focus on fashion designing, then your major skill set as a fashion designer is to be able to create an aesthetics that is appealing to your target market. To create products that your target customers are likely to purchase. Mastering how to create your own signature aesthetics that will eventually build your brand is inevitable. To learn more about other fashion business ideas in Nigeria that you can start with, please subscribe to my weekly newsletter to know when we release new series under this topic. You can also read the first episode to see my 30+ list on fashion careers available.
Fashion industry business idea in Nigeria – tailoring.
I am actually excited writing this topic because I can finally pour out so much market intelligence we have gathered over the years building Joadre fashion. When you look for business ideas in Nigeria, you can become easily diverted to a specific sector because you have seen one or two people you know become very successful doing this. Fact is that only those that become the master of a specific trade or skill succeed fast. So let’s say you can sew very well or you actually love sewing, tailoring is your passion. You can read about how to find business ideas by following your passion in a previous blog. What business ideas in Nigeria can you build within the fashion industry?
Let us start with tailoring in this blog.
There are many paths you can take to build and expand. As a tailor, what is your goal? You can decide to sew clothes for private clients which is a business-to-customer business idea. You can opt in for soley corporate clients like fashion designers which is then referred to as a business-to-business idea, because the fashion designers will sell the clothes to the end customer. Can you go for both? Well depends on your ability, team, skill and time. My advice is no, do not go for both! I often advise to start with one, because it is easier to have a focus and to build that one in depth.
After ripping almost all benefits from that approach you can add the other service to expand. So choose! If you decide to stretch yourself to start with both, you are taking a great risk, you will be slow in growing your business and you will not be able to target your customers properly as they need very diverse approach! If you feel lost here and now you are worried because that was how you carried on with your business, then make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel to get weekly adivice on how to build your business.
Now, let us continue to build your business idea.
You can decide to integrate an all-round service, where you provide the client with the opportunity to source fabrics and raw materials directly from you, even for business clients like fashion designer. If they know you have one of the best threads stocked, they will opt in for it and you make some profit selling it for their production. Meaning you have added retailing to your business. You might now wonder how to get these materials cheap and in great quality. Check Alibaba or Aliexpress for import deals, make deals with your local market suppliers .
When you know who your client is, you can develop more services to make their life easier. By doing this, you are solving a problem for them and therefore your reward is new income stream.
5 more business ideas to boost your shop location.
- Now, some more business ideas would be that you add pattern making to your service for fashion designers. If you know how to make patterns very well, there are simple ways to digitise them and also sell them to other tailors, especially new tailors whose hands are not strong when it comes to pattern making. You can offer them that service and create patterns for them when they need to sew for a customer. Make sure you are paid for this as it is a very demanding task to do.
- You can also offer your shop location as a pickup place for courier services. By so doing, new and potential customers will visit your space regularly. Your goal is to increase the traffic to your shop, so think about ways to do so that would not cost you money.
- For example, if you have more space, you can add a small laundry and repair service to your shop.
- You can decide to sell jewelry that fits the kind of customers you are already serving. Selling jewelry do not take so much space in a shop.
- A very great side service is that a bag designer who cannot afford a shop can rent a shelve at your store to showcase and sell. You can charge monthly for the space.
Now be careful not to make you shop clumsy. Check Pinterest design on how to design the interior of your shop in an appealing way. So those where some added income streams that you can add to your shop to increase traffic of potential customers and at the same time leverage your fixed cost. In future blogs, we will explore low cost ways to market your business as a tailor.
Let us explore more on the fashion industry.
Like every other industry, the fashion industry has so many professional services or jobs that makes it a full industry. Here are a list of a few services within the industry: Pattern making, tailoring, shoemaking, bag making, jewellery making and all the other technical assembling of fashion products, fabric production, raw material production, sourcing, custom production, retailing, marketing, advertising, modelling, consulting, events and many more. You can visit the first blog episode to see a 30+ list of professions in the fashion industry. You will quickly notice that it takes a whole village to actually build an all-round fashion house.
Do you have to do it all?
This is what I have seen coaching Nigerain fashion business students and visiting several designers in Lagos is that many are challenged with the fact that they have to do it all. There is little or no headspace to actually master the art of designing because many have to assemble or sew the product as well as market them. This is ok, especially if you are a small or medium sized business, a startup, it is totally normal to be a jack of all trades. But the main issue here is to decide where your strength will be and then design your time to develop this aspect of your business.
Recap
The industry offers you numerous business ideas in Nigeria which you can start today. The trick here is to be very smart. Craft out services to add together to develop one business idea. We talked about identifying your niche and being specific. So for example you decide to start out with a small shop and 3 machines. You focus to make clothes for the end customer. So you have a catalogue of styles, you stock really nice fabrics and findings, you have improved your skills when it comes to finishing.
You have wisely integrated some side products such as jewelry and some side services such as courier pickup and laundry to your business. These side products and services will enable consistent traffick. Your goal is not to build on those, but to build a strong customer base. So find some side services or products you can integrate to your business.
The ideas is unlimited. You can join our lab to grow your business and get new ideas. You can also get our business 6 key workbook delivered to your door step to learn offline. Thank you so much for reading till the end and make sure to follow on instagram.
Cheers, Joana
