A FAB Event: How To Sell Your Fashion Line to Retailers and Buyers

The beautiful Downtown LA boutique brigade was the setting for this fashion meets business seminar How to Sell Your Fashion Line to Retailers and Buyers. The lovely guest panelist included a plethora of knowledge from different ends of the buying world including:
Vanessa Lee, Sales Executive at Studio A
Kuo Yang, Owner of Brigade boutique
Alicia Allen, Merchandising Director for Mens at HauteLook

The perspectives of corporate versus boutique, design versus finance, and how they all interacted created a “big picture” view of the industry and overall buying process. A wealth of information was shared, but some of the stand out points for me were:

• Know your market. Who are you selling to? What is your direct competition? What is your markets price point? Because if you do not who exactly who is your target market, it will be an immensely harder process finding the right store for your product, and what is RELEVANT for you.

• Knowing finance and margins is just as important, if not more than the design of your products. Finding out how you are making a profit and selling the store on how they make a profit, can make or break a deal pretty easily. Fashion is business.

• People do business with who they like. It is important to build those relationships and ties by following up, being courteous, and just an all around good person in general.:)
• Fill the void. Take what you are offering and find the place where your brand and styles fits in perfectly. There is obviously a gap because your cloths are not already on the market, find that niche that fits you and stay with it.
• Build great collateral in everything you do. Keep up with people, have amazing look books/line sheets. If you fall, do whatever humanly possible to build that back up and redeem yourself, as soon as possible.

The most important and clear point of the evening was from the owner of brigade himself. A buyer will go with whatever is clever and convenient. “We are not mean people, we are busy people”.

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