Eco-Clothing 2018 James Blane
Concept C lothing Fashion Eco Friendly Wales Soy silk Silk Soy C otton Environment Environmentally friendly Eco-clothing is a clothing brand that is bringing eco-friendly clothing to the everyday lives of the average high street shopper. Although fashion and clothing isn't the first thing that comes to mind when thinking environmentally friendly, eco-friendly clothing are starting to make ground in the world. A lot of cheap clothing materials, such as nylon and polyester, release plastic microfibres when washed which end up in the oceans. Furthermore, a common alternative to these materials include cotton, of which has its own problems. Cotton is a pesticide intensive crop and uses a lot of agricultural land. Combining these points results in a cascade effect on health and the environment. There are other eco-friendly clothing brands, but these are usually either bland, expensive or out-of-touch with current fashion trends. The aim of Eco-C lothing is to bring the eco-clothing to the new standards of the fashion industry, using materials such as organic cotton, soy silk, hemp, linen and recycled materials.
Customers The market Initially, our size of the market will be small, as we will aim for early adopters and environmentally minded people. However, overtime, we will aim to have a large market size as we make eco-friendly clothing as accessible as regular clothing, meaning there's little reason to pick traditional materials over eco-friendly ones. To begin with, our target customers will include early adopters in fashion who try to find the newest and best trends in fashion. The brand can be advertised as a movement kind of trend that is easy for these early adopters to be able to jump onto and spread over social media. Another target customer will be environmentally minded people, which include a large proportion of young people. By emphasising the eco side of the brand, whilst making it more accessible and standard than other eco brands, it should be easy for young people to engage in this brand. Samantha (Student) Female, 22 years old Likes: - Makes shell-necklaces - Fashion blogger - Tweets 10 times a day Enrique (Horoscope writer for women magezines) Male, 27 years old Likes: - Militant vegan - Listens to indie music - Believes in UFOs Lucy (Café barista) Female, 18 years old Likes: - Festival fan - Likes camping - Enjoys jogging Strategy One marketing method that we can capitalise on is by making it a trend that people (especially young people) can bandwagon onto. This can be achieved by having a strong social media presence, a unique take on fashion (ecofriendly) and by having desirable designs. If these three points are achieved, then a snowball effect can occur within our early days to help facilitate our growth. However, if it struggles to catch on, it might be an idea to sell some novelty products in the range to speed this up. One idea includes pairs of socks that come in threes, so when you lose one of the socks, you still have a whole pair, and if you buy two of these, you get three pairs of socks. If becoming a trend is achieved, then making the clothing line as accessible as normal clothing will be the next focus, so the we can expand the possible target customers to anyone who is even mildly environmentally friendly, since
we'll be making it easy for them to be so.
Competitors Patagonia http://eu.patagonia.com/gb/en/home/ What they do well Using keywords like "hemp" to make it easy for people to find clothes with eco-friendly materials. P rovide a slight variation on clothes they provide, some suitable for summer and some suitable for winter What they're missing They are missing affordable prices for the general populous. They are missing interesting designs that people are going to want to buy. Also, they are missing diversity in designs, as all the clothing looks very similar so why buy more than one from them. FROCK Los Angeles http://www.frockla.com/ What they do well Nice, well designed clothes. A large variety of vibrant, eye catching pieces of wear. A few cheap options. A very distinctive design style. Very accessible organic options, as website details their focus of organic clothing multiple times around the pages. What they're missing They are missing clothing options for everyday use. Most of their options are monokinis, dresses or frocks. This fits with their target audience and business plan, but hinders their growth and doesn't provide them a large outreach. Despite the odd cheap option, most of the clothing they sell is on the expensive side. American Apparel http://www.americanapparel.com/ What they do well They are already an established, big brand that prides itself on local production (all products made in LA). Affordable clothing. Adaptable to customers interest, providing many colour options for same items of clothing. A few novelty pieces, such as baby organic one piece outfit.
Accessibility of organic options, keywords like "organic" for the search tool makes it easy to find. What they're missing They are missing diversity in organic products, as most of their few organic products are just tops (three mens tops, one woman top). They are all bland designs, all being plain tops with only having colour as their variable. P rovides little incentive to buy their organic options over slightly cheaper, non-organic options. My idea is better because... Like a few of the competitors, the products will (initially) be distributed through amazon.com, because if you're not selling on amazon, you're a competitor of histories most successful commerce company, which never ends well. How Eco-C lothing will separate itself from direct competitors, however, will be through three fundamental points. 1) The quality of standard, non-organic clothing. 2) The affordability of standard, non-organic clothing. 3) Rigorous marketing and social media presence, to press the trend of organic clothing. These three points combined should make our brand the future go-to brand for clothing, because if organic clothing becomes a trend, and the only difference between our brand and non-organic brands is the material (and not the quality or price), then customers will pick the organic clothing option the vast majority of the time.
People Passion Resilience C ommunication Planning Network 10 9 8 8 4 The brand is having a positive effect on the world, by making people more environmentally friendly. If successful, then other brands will be forced to take a similar plan of action which would drive a stronger movement for eco-friendly clothing, which even further facilitates the drive for eco-friendly clothing. Furthermore, running my own business provides the a sense of self-worth, an exciting future and the potenital for great fortunes when the sky's the limit. I'm still going strong in my third year of university, which is evidence of being able to meet deadlines and deliver on difficult work. I have much experience presenting powerpoints of my interests/my work, as well as public speaking, which has given me the right skills to effectively communicate my ideas no matter the conditions. Being chair of the Bangor university zoological society, I've had much experience making plans for the events throughout the academic year. Often, plans would run into troubles outside of our control and would require intuitive thinking to save. I'm 78% compatible Although university provides a vast array of contacts in a multitude of walks of life and fields of work, few of them have expertise in the e- commerce field or the fashion industry. I do know people that can assist in getting a website started and help create a social media "buzz", but not much after that.
Contents Who Someone trained in IT will be paramount to the success of Eco-Clothing. They will have to manage the website, the products on amazon and the social media pages. If any of these have someone under-trained in the field, the company will be severely hindered. Staff will also be required for the manufacturing of the products, as well as the designing of them. With a strong core product, a small customer base can grow with the company, providing loyal customers throughout the lifespan of the company. These are the staff for the beginning of the business, but if it gets large scale, it's highly likely that warehouse workers, professional advertisers, lawyers and more would be required to run a large company. What The raw materials should be accessible and cheap, as it is mainly from the byproduct from soy beans in the production of tofu and soy milk. Therefore, contacting soy milk/tofu companies about using their waste product (soy pulp) should be cheap to attain. The equipment necessary to produce the clothing should be simple and cheap in the early days, but when the company gets bigger the production will be more larger scale. Will require sewing machines. A website to call the company home and be the face of the business is required. It should be easily accessible by being one of the first websites on Google when "organic clothing" is searched. A simplistic, geometric design is the buzz in modern design. Building on from this, a strong social media presence to increase our outreach, of which links people back to the website will help promote a snowball effect of the business, facilitating growth. Where A large office will suit the business in it's early days, being a site to maintain the website, run the business, produce the products and distribute the products from. As the business increases in size, a warehouse will likely be required and the office will have to expand to accommodate the need for more staff for customer services and professional advertising, amongst others. Additional information Many university students are well adept with IT, so someone will be keen to jump onto an early business idea. Not only is the byproduct of soy pulp useless for soy milk/tofu companies to keep, but they're usually green companies, so this business being eco-friendly would make them more likely for them to provide the soy pulp for cheaper/free. If possible, the office should be in America, so it can get a foot in the door of the strongest economy in the world (at the date of writing this).
Cash Making money With cheap materials, it's easy to produce products at a cheaper price than standard and still make a good profit. Having prices similar to non-organic competitors, yet cheaper than organic competitors, will amount to good sales and therefore great profit. Further into the life of Eco-C lothing, after becoming an established brand, it's possible a luxury clothing line can be released to further ride the roller coaster of the eco-clothing trend and further push for greater profits. C lothing will be affordable in comparison to most eco-friendly clothing. P rices approximately Shirts 7-12 T-shirts 5-10 Tops 7-12 Trousers 10-15 Dresses 12-17 Underwear (male) 4-8 Underwear (female) $6-10 Variability in prices dependent on designs. Spending money Places such as an office and a warehouse when the business takes off, but since these are expensive investments, should consider working from home to begin with. The wages of at least four staff members, including myself. Possibly the ingredients of soy pulp, and the ingredients of string and eco-friendly dye. We would buy a truck and would have to pay for the driver's wage and insurance of the truck. Possibly pay for advertising on social media sites to help promote the brand. Would have to pay for the domain name of eco-clothing.com. For the early days of the business, three members of staff will be required (manufacturer, designer, website manager). Truck and insurance, dyes, an office and a website domain name. These should cost: Three wages ~ 20,000 each Ford focus new ~ 29,184 (including vat) Decent office space ~ 350 per person per month in Manchester Natural dyes ~ 5 per 100 grams/ 150 a year? Unique website domain ranges ~ 0.99-9.99 a year P rices are variable, considering possibility of altering wages, location of office space, availability of preowned Ford focus, how much natural dye is used as an ingredient and which website domain name is used, amongst other variable factors. What is for certain is that it will be expensive to get the company rolling.
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