Starting A Clothing Brand Using Wholesale Blanks ($50-$1000+)

if you're starting a clothing brand but are on a budget in this video we're going to show you how to launch and grow using something called wholesale blanks and the signature product strategy now with wholesale blanks you can get custom looking products without the need to spend thousands of dollars to manufacture your own in order to launch and if you don't believe that you can launch a Brand This Way well in the previous video that we linked up in the cards right here we show you how we took a $50 wholesale jacket customize it and then demanded prices up to $1,000 so if I got your attention right now you may be wondering what is the signature prodct prodct strategy well some of the most iconic Street World brands that we know today started with a simple t-shirt and use what's called a signature product strategy in order to leverage that T-shirt design and maximize the Brand's recognition and profit margins to put it simply guys a signature product is a product that the brand is well known for it's one individual product with one individual design that could then be split up to many different colors and variants allowing them to grow their profit margins a clear example of this is the street wear brand supreme Supreme was founded in 19 1994 by James jebbia in the capital of streetwear New York City the foundation of the brand success is based on the Brand's famous box logo Supreme's logo became one of the most recognizable logos in the world in the span of just a few years all thanks to the signature product strategy today Supreme has developed products that have grown Beyond just a wholesale blank but they got their start and they were able to scale the brand by selling a box logo te that was available in a variety of colors and variants the genius behind this marketing is that every time Supreme sold a box logo te the customer became a walking billboard for the brand by simply wearing it because if you saw somebody wearing a supreme t-shirt while you're walking around New York City you could easily identify the word Supreme inside of a red box which helped the brand gain a recognition and ultimately develop the identity that they're known for today Supreme is a prime example of a brand that was able to leverage the signature product strategy to become an easily identifiable name in the fashion industry and then smoothly transition into the brand that we know it as today without box ing itself in to just another t-shirt brand hence why it's called a signature product strategy it's simple marketing guys but in order to be successful with this is not just going to be branding and marketing alone it's also going to require the quality t-shirt in the blank that you select because in order to build a cult following you need repeat loyal customers and how does a brand obtain loyal customers that's right it begins with quality so what can you learn from this as a brand owner you should be finding the blanks that are going to help you stand out in a crowded Market blanks that can represent your brand and allow you to raise your selling price but keep customers coming back and in this video we're showing you different types of wholesale blanks that you could choose from and also give you some ideas into how you can customize them to help your brand Stand Out joining me today are some very special guests from as color a company that actually invited us out to their headquarters in New Zealand this company does premium quality wholesale blanks and what I witnessed and experienced in that country was something that I needed to share with you guys because for the very first time I was actually able to see how a company operates on a global scale scale the attention to detail the right product offering and the team is what gets you there and I was able to witness it firsthand so if you missed our previous video where we show you how they do this I link it in the cards right up above and I encourage you to watch that take some notes because this is the level that you want to get on but right now I want to start with how some of the most successful Brands today are actually leveraging technology in the printing industry as well as wholesale blanks to grow an international brand joining me right now is Larry who's a founder of as color he started with very humble beginnings pouring his life savings into launching this wholesale company with just one t-shirt at the time he had to personally sell those products to make sure that the business was going to survive and over the years he's now been able to sell to thousands if not hundreds of thousands of different brand owners around the world as color has been an incredible resource to so many brand owners and over the years the technology has changed and the innovation has really come to this industry and Larry's actually going to be talking about how you can leverage the technology as well as a wholesale blank to expand your brand globally at at the push of a button you're going to want to listen in on this so get ready to take some notes yeah so if you look at the rise of say DTG there's lots of DTG printers now that print globally they might have print shops in each country so they can supply close to Market to reduce freas Freight and everyone's worried about you know their Global footprint of freight and shipping so by having warehouses in each of like you know Europe we've got a you got two warehouses in the US we've got warehouse in New Zealand and Australia you can have the product quick to Market so a lot of the DTG you know suppliers are using us on a Global a global scale and also like band is a big big customer group for us like so a band can tour you know in England that can tour in you know North America can tour in austral Asia and they can get access to the same t-shirt which is a great thing for them so as a brand owner or as a musician or as any company that's selling you know what to expect cuz every product is being made the same right yeah and it's it's exact coming from the same source and you can get the same thing and you you know what you like and you like what we do so you've just got that consistency you're not even to try and find five different suppliers across five different locations designing marketing and selling are crucial elements of your brand success but Logistics is also what makes or breaks a business being able to manage your supply chain which links all of your creative efforts will actually allow your brand to grow or stagnant traditionally when we talk about wholesale t-shirts come to mind but it's not just t-shirts anymore because today you could find almost Any Garment that you need to build and expand a collection so how do you as a brand owner choose what's going to work best for your brand let's head on over to Amy who is a designer with as color to find out options you should consider to build out a collection especially when you're on a budget and she's going to be sharing how to build out your merchandise and your collections by choosing different products you're going to want to take some notes on this I've pulled it together in like quite a nice little color palette for a start um and then I mean you're going to start with a t-shirt right so um I've pulled out a really new style for us it's um the men's faded heavy tea um it's a garment dyed tea and it's coming in about seven different colors so it's got that um quite that cool Street Wear vibe with the drop shoulders and it's a little bit more boxy and like oversized um so that would be like a brilliant starting point um from there you can layer it up with your got some relax shorts here um another another new these are very relax yeah they're very relaxed yeah yeah again they're kind of like I picked pieces here that are along that boxy Vibe so oversized streety Vibe so these yeah these are these are quite quite a wide leg um and then you can Team it up with you know in a matching color or we have a good selection of colors um the men's relaxed Hood so if somebody doesn't know how to dress themselves or really merchandise their brand the idea is if you go for a relaxed look go for the relaxed product line that's right go for the street wear look go for the street wear products right right you like the classic look go for the classic go for the classic look yeah and then you get the T-shirt the long sleeve you know it's all in that's fabric weight and especially for the men's the cut is it's a similar through through that line product yeah so then over here on this side is the idea for the products that you chose here these can all work together yeah just to add some accessories in on the ends so we've got quite a you know we've got an EXT extensive range of uh caps and hat beanies um and then our bags as well so I pulled out um It's a cotton canvas Stuffle bag um again you can embellish that up get your branding on there yeah just really like fles out your your range lanks are going to be a tool that you use to help you get from your idea to reality but in order for you to stand out you need to be able to create designs that people actually want to pay money for this means that you should be using wholesale blanks like a canvas and choosing the best pieces to build out your collection in a related video that we Link in the cards up above we actually dive into a detailed video to help you do this because once you flush out those Concepts the next thing you need to do is get to printing but there are a variety of printing methods available so let's check out the most popular options you have and actually discuss some of the limitations you may encounter with graphic designs when using blanks joining us is Isaac who's a customer experience manager for as color Isaac is in charge of making sure that every product before it gets into production is ready for print production meaning you as a customer aren't going to have any issues pressing printing embroidering or doing any type of embellishment work on it his job really dives into the R&D and working with print shops to ensure they bring the best products to Market so there's a thing or two that you're going to be able to get to learn from him so make sure you're ready to take some notes um I think one of the real important things is to make sure that when you do come up with your designs you're working with like a good trusted brander that will know and be able to collaborate work through you know where's the best option to put your design cuz you're not necessarily always going to get say that design on like a sleeve pocket or um on a sleeve or anything like that so um yeah working with a a good brand is key there this is kind of like a go-to for majority of things we pretty much everything um so yeah obviously they got some nice access um at the bottom botom of the Garment so you can kind of get in there um we got an embroidery kind of left chest which is obviously um it's a good fabric to embroid cuz it's nice and heavy um once you kind of get into the thinner Fabrics you do kind of get a little bit of puckering when you are doing embroidery um on those lighter Fabrics but um and we even gave it a little test run on the back for a screen print so um big access up the back um and obviously a massive Print Service you can fit the the pla right in there you can nice and easy you got to screen print it press it possibly DTG it yeah definitely definitely something on this is obviously a little little easier than like a black garment um but you could definitely um give it a go and um DTG but majority of people with a product like this and a fabric would just probably just run a a screen print a transfer um or an embroidery um what are some common methods of ways that you've seen customers really embellish these shorts yeah I think the good thing about shorts is I think majority of um like a lot of the time people will go just top half you know it will be the t-shirts the hoods the hats Etc but um I think yeah with our wide range and having shorts as an offering um it is a really cool way to kind of customize something for your brand um or your company or whoever it may be so um we just got a few examples here of the beach short and the walk short which I know are huge shellers in pretty much every region um we've got a few transfers that we've kind of put bottom left and then one a little bit higher closer to the pocket um which kind of yeah just gives it a bit more and obviously you know it's a real kind of good additional piece that you can kind of incorporate into your range um and that's you know it's definitely not limited to just these um styles of branding um obviously you can do embroidery um screen print really well and screen print really easily um because obviously the access on the shorts are a lot easier than you know some of the products so yeah definitely like a just a different dimension that you can kind of throw in there that's awesome that's awesome and and I obviously on these examples it's a little more minimal um but like you said you got the whole back or a big part of the sleeve or you even have a transfer here on the back little sneaky one on the back side little details little details really elevate your product line though as you can see you could quickly expand your product collection using wholesale blanks but there is a downside and mainly it's the ability to choose a specific color for your blank wholesale company generally choose colors that are guaranteed to sell through at least that's the goal that any company has because you're doing business globally like as color is this means that there are millions of dollars sitting in inventory at any given time in every single warehouse and if they can't sell it they risk going out of business so as a brand owner using blanks is your upside because by working with a blank supplier you aren't tying up that large amount of cash on inventory that you're waiting to receive from a manufacturer You're simply stocking what you think is going to sell and if you oversell it you can just reorder it from the wholesale company and an interesting thing that Larry shared with me was that they aren't the manufact facture other products either but instead they work with quality suppliers globally and they're actually focused on designing and development of those products that they create here what he had to say about that and why your brand should take a similar approach there was there a reason that you guys didn't go into cutting and sewing yourself uh because of the scale of our range it allows us to do that if you look at most of the other kind of t-shirt companies they're kind of pig to one type of fabric where we can you know adapt different fa Fabrics with different factories and we've decided to spend our resources on the logistics size where they Outsource their Logistics we control and own our Logistics so we're kind of the reverse flip of what the other t-shirt companies do in the industry so you know we Outsource manufacturing but we control our distribution so we want and we've got that direct relationship with our customers giving us new ideas for new products and developing new things and that's how we've got a wider range by having that structure I makes sense makes a lot of sense so you're really about the customer versus about the little details and manufact the details manufacturing are taken care of through your design and what you guys are doing to make it high standard but you're focus on getting the best product out yeah we're based on the we're focused on the customer what they're demanding the quality and getting the C customers orders quickly and accurately to them so if a customer's order comes for New Zealand it's getting packed here yeah so if you order from the New Zealand website this order comes here if you order from ASC color.com that will go you can choose which Warehouse you want to select from and that order will go to that warehouse um we need the warehouses close to the customer so they get it within one or two days so that's key cuz our customers want everything quick they want it fast it's for a print job or you know an event or for their clothing brand so they want it quickly and accurately so all the warehouses are in their local market an order just came in Yeah so basically um as your order comes down from the website um comes into the warehouse it will send the order into the warehouse control system that runs this uh 20,000 tote um multi shutle system um and basically this is someone's order getting fcked right now the software is sequencing up your order all to perfect size so when you open the box you know your black 2xls at the bottom then your extra large then your large then your medium so it's all in perfect sequence so it's pretty impressive it can sequence up to like a 500 line order and present it in your box all in perfect order so um which is pretty clever basically there's no plastic packaging in any of our supply chain we removed all plastic so as you can see in here there's the product is sitting in raw format cuz we we run our own warehouses everything's very clean very tidy um so that's we've eliminated you know millions of plastic bags required um which we're very proud of so right here this is somebody's order in this box yeah this is someone's order in the Box um so it's getting picked here and then once the order is finished it goes into this tote here and that goes down a lift down to the packing bench down there to be packed what is she doing right here why is she taking stuff out well said this is someone's order so it's saying we need one large uh black uh classic tea right now it's now saying we need um one medium black large and so basically it's just sequencing up the order and basically once the order is completed um which will be in a few minutes probably that order gets put into this tote here and this is the tote that goes to the shipping yeah that goes down for shipping yeah interesting wow dude this is crazy yeah cuz we the pickers just want to be picking and not interrupted by packing some companies you might be 2 days behind so you're in a 2-day que before the order gets processed we're getting orders out within 30 minutes uh you know from the order coming in so we're on top of the orders the whole time and working long shifts in the you know we finished at 10:00 so we've cleared all those orders that have come in while people are home on the couch ordering we're packing those orders and getting them out instantly to the customer very cool Incredible by focusing on design development and marketing of the blanks they could put the money that they would be spending on running a manufacturer into the logistics of the business and it also allows them to expand into new product categories really fast but as a brand owner working with the wholesale company definitely puts you at a risk for delayed shipments and quality control which is why I was personally Amazed by the level of detail Larry and the as color team has put into their operation this is literally something I've never seen done at a wholesale company before from the automation at every single level to the customer touch point it truly shows the commitment that they have to their product but how does this translate to you as a brand owner for one you can count on their quality standards to translate to the products that you purchase in addition to this the stock levels they have on their site are more accurate than the competition often times when you work with a wholesale company that Outsource the distribution of blanks it causes inaccurate inventory levels to be listed on sites since they're not actually the ones managing the floor it could be anyone's guess how much of a product is actually in stock and usually they don't find out until you place an order and then they end up seeing that they don't have any more in the box and then you end up getting that dreaded out of stock notification but what the system as color has invested into it accounts for every single order in real time and you guys are getting an inside look into how a global business operates and I was truly amazed by this this is only one facility of five distribution centers that they operate globally with a footprint in every Major Market they're accessible to most clothing entrepreneurs but with these blanks readily available how can you as a brand owner stand out I want you to listen in onto the founding story of Larry and how he started this business in order to give you insight into how you should think about approaching business and positioning your brand what inspired you launching your own blank I think we were talking about it offline um you were at a trade show you at some shows and you noticed that sponsored writers weren't so there was a few a few things that kind of Tri triggered the moment in my head that there was a business here in New Zealand doing blank apparel and I think you know all the professional athletes were wearing plain t-shirts we go to the trade shows and they were paid lots of money but they're all wearing just they just wanted to wear plain white t-shirts and that was a common Trend I saw um and then also you know when I first started I was a distributor for all style apparel um as color came a little bit later on in the journey you know all style power at their time was making all the t-shirts for the skate brands and all the surf Action Sports industry and so that's kind of the thing that led me into the T-shirt industry was that that progression from seeing the brands I was working for using all style apparel and then that progressed me into this this industry Now Incredible so you were seeing wait we have all these International companies and they're all using a blank as their as their like product line yeah everyone thinks they make their own t-shirt but they don't actually make their own t-shirt they're just using you know a blank of power supply like as color to to do their t-shirt for them incredible incredible so that sparked an idea and then and then the founding story did you just buy 100,000 units out the gate you said let's go or how I did lots of research like I started speaking to screen printers locally um friend of mine was in a famous New Zealand band and he was you know looking for t-shirts for his band and they couldn't really find a good quality blank for their for their band and that really spared me thinking into this like there was seem to be it was really just people fighting over the price at the bottom and it was just poor quality and I thought there's a market here if I started bringing these t-shirt from the United States to New Zealand I think there's an opportunity there and I just kept researching it and then eventually though you got to have that leap of faith and so I hired this little Warehouse it was like about 3,000 square ft the roof I could pretty much touch with my hand and um I brought I think the first you f about 20,000 t-shirts in a container so I brought a 20ft container of t-shirts in from California and you know got the little racking in and racked in and set up a little um we didn't have online there was no e-commerce back then but we had a little website and orders started to get faxed in or emailed in and we'd pack them every day we would be excited if the phone rang uh I think I can remember you know five packages going out in the first few in first few days and that was exciting you know actually someone wants to buy something from us that's awesome so yeah so that was it's exciting times when you're starting a business it's cool incredible incredible and at this at this point you're in your mid 20s or no I just turned 30 you just turned 30 wow that's a pivotal moment right yeah yeah I just turned 30 I hadn't had kids yet so that was a that would be my tip you're going to start a business you know go for it before you get kids cuz that's another commitment that you you know that's a lot of work once you got children so I was in my 30s and we just decided this was what we're going to do we're going to take a risk and go for it incredible incredible and then right now you guys have 17 19 stores in New Zealand how many we have 15 stores in New Zealand um nine in Australia and one in the UK wow so you got close to what is it 25 retail stores intern yeah incredible and obviously the brand as color like what you guys put into it is the quality the premium the the little details that are going to make it A Cut Above the Rest yeah so we're just we're not interested about making a cheap t-shirt we we're just interested interested to making a high quality pre Premium blanker Power product for our customers to use incredible so it didn't always start that way you didn't start with 17 retail stores you have to start with one right no it's a it's a long journey to get to where it's 18 years to get to that so so you know it's there's no like um switch you click and it all just happens it takes time it's hard work you know and a lot of grafting and you know slowly building and investing in new products so it's taken 18 years to get as color to the range it is now we didn't start with the range like this we could we were lucky to be able to you know pay the bills in the first the first couple of years right so how long ago did this location open uh so we built this 3 years ago and opened about 2 years ago um and then we've got just opened the new North Carolina house which is 240,000 ft and then we've got Carson California which is around 100,000 ft and then we just moved um early this year to a new UK Warehouse um that's going to really help us you know Supply the UK market and about 3 years ago we moved to about 200,000 ft in Melvin Australia as you can see there's a lot of details that go into a business like this and not everyone is cut out for it but luckily for you as a brand owner you don't have to be because one of the biggest takeaways from what I experienced here was in finding your core competency of what you could be the greatest at for Larry and the as color team it was about creating a better product offering for the wholesale market and more specifically for the streetware niche they were able to compete by bringing a higher quality product to market and making it accessible to Brands globally through a powerful logistic system what you decide to compete as as a brand owner is what's going to separate you from everyone else will it be your graphic designs your ability to Market your ability to brand or advertise whatever it may be the wholesale blank should be the product that you start with to prove out your business model and once you get flowing and those'll sales start pouring in you can take the risk in actually manufacturing larger quantities to have more control and better margins so if you enjoyed this video I encourage you to hit that subscribe button down below and turn on the post notification bells for the next video a part of this series and while you're at it check out the as Color website that we Linked In the description right down below to start ordering your blanks and if you missed our previous video where we walk you through the business model that as color has and show you that not all cotton is made the same check out that video here and I'll see you guys there

Channel: John Santos

Views: 25,057

Keywords: clothing brand, manufacturing process, factory, how to start a clothing brand, the best wholesale blanks, wholesale t shirts, wholesale apparel, screen printing t shirts, how to design t shirts, wholesale blank apparel, clothing brand startup, starting a clothing brand, wholesale, as colour t shirts, as colour

Id: r67d-tsDZVU

Length: 22min 59sec (1379 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 27 2023