How to Start an Online Shoe Store: A Complete Guide

How to Start an Online Shoe Store: A Complete Guide

Have you ever looked at the gorgeous sneakers on Zappos and dreamt of starting your online shoe store? You can learn to sell shoes online, even if you do not have any experience. Technology has made it possible to start an online business with a limited budget.

Whether your passion lies in handmade sandals or athletic shoes - let’s find out how to start an online shoe store from scratch.

Everything You Must Have to Start Online Shoe Store ● Requirement 1 - Product ● Requirement 2 - Home for Shoe Store: Launch your Website ● What Customers Want From Your Online Shoe Business

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● How to Make Your Store Remarkable ● What to look for in a shoe design tool? ● Requirement 3 - Managing Supplies ● Requirement 4 - Market Your Shoe Store

Requirement 1 - Product It’s up to you whether you want to sell shoes, for men, or women, sneakers, boots, or any other type. A good thing to do is to do market research and understand what works and what doesn’t. Suppose you are in Europe and you want to sell in the Asian market.

Start by asking questions: which are the best-selling shoes in Asia? Which specific product do I want to focus on? How will I sustain my business?

If your goal is to sell any and every type of shoe, beware it’s not a smart move.

Of course, everybody needs shoes. But targeting everybody is a risky thing in eCommerce. We suggest starting by choosing a niche product that aims at specifying specific market needs. You might have already figured out but in case you have not, here’s what you can do -

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Instead of thinking - ‘I want to sell men’s shoes’, focus on a narrow market like leather shoes, knee-high boots, sneakers, and so on. For a small business, focusing on a niche will aid to get in front of the right audience.

Online Shoe Business Prerequisites Before starting an online shoe store, you have to get into the nitty-gritty of clearing legal requirements, and creating a strong brand identity.

Here’s a complete checklist of what you need to have before starting an online shoe store -

1. Your Store’s Name Make sure the name of your online shoe business represents your vision in just one or two words. Don’t be obscure but think of something that is memorable. Tools like Shopify’s Business Name Generator, Brand Bucket can be helpful for brainstorming.

2. Business License Starting an online shoe store doesn’t exempt you from certain legal requirements. The licenses you require depends on the type of product, and

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your business requirements. Moreover, every state and city has different requirements which you need to find out. Some licenses that an online shoe business requires include: ○ A Business Operation License which allows your eCommerce business to conduct business in your city, county, or state. ○ An ​Employer Identification Number (EIN)​ that identifies your business as a distinct tax entity.

○ A Seller's Permit (or Seller's License) to legally sell the shoes online.

3. Brand Logo A logo is one of the most recognizable things about your business. A well-crafted logo can send the right message to your target audience. Use simple icons and fun colors to communicate who you are and what you do.

Tools like Logomaker, Adobe Illustrator will make your task easy.

4. Product Pricing A product with a high price might see fewer sales. While lower rates are not always ideal. As a store owner, the best you should do is balance. After considering factors like product and business cost, competitor’s price, and revenue goals, choose the right pricing strategy for online shoe business.

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Here are some strategies that will aid your decision ● Use the MSRP - the price your manufacturer recommends. ● Keystone pricing where you double the wholesale cost of your product to determine the retail price. ● Competitive pricing where you consider competitor pricing data as a benchmark and consciously price your product below theirs.

A good thing is to do your homework and make an informed decision.

Requirement 2 - Home for Shoe Store: Launch your Website Your products need an eCommerce website. There are two major eCommerce solutions (a) SaaS eCommerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, best suited if you do not want to deal with technical complications. The provider builds, hosts, and manages the software. This limits your ability to customize.

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(b) open-source like WooCommerce, Prestashop where you can view, change, or distribute the source code as per your purpose. They give you complete control to personalize your source.

There are loads of eCommerce builders. Some are reliable, some require technical expertise, some are expensive, while some are budget-friendly. Here are some eCommerce platforms that you should consider when starting an online shoe store-

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1. Shopify Start selling from ​$29.99 a month

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2. BigCommerce Start selling from ​$29.95 a month

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3. WooCommerce Starting at just $6.95

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4. Magento

5. Weebly Starting at ​$12 monthly

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Following are the features you should look for when selecting an eCommerce platform â—? SEO-friendly - When shoppers look for shoes in the search engine, it should be easy for them to find your brand. If you are a new online store, you would want to ensure that your shop ranks high in the search results. Look for an eCommerce platform that is SEO friendly which allows you to add your blog, use your domain name, and collect customer reviews. These are crucial to driving organic traffic.

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● Security - The most important thing to consider while choosing a platform is security. In the future, your online store is actively going to take digital payments.

Be sure the platform you choose offers top-notch security. Choose a platform that supports HTPPS/SSL for a safe checkout. Moreover, it must be equipped with PCI-DSS compliant payment solutions such as PayPal, Stripe, Square, WorldPay, Braintree, and SecurePay for secure payment processors. ● Analytics - After you launch your online shoe business, you will want to keep track of analytics on how your shoe store is performing. Consider a platform that allows you to track sales, order amount, and more.

What Customers Want From Your Online Shoe Business ● User-friendly Store - According to 76% of consumers, the most important characteristic of a website is the ease of use. The key here is to help shoppers get what they want without unnecessary clutter. This means you need to focus on user experience by providing shopping categories, filters, and capabilities to compare product and price. ● Nice Videos & Photos - If you are thinking to post a picture and write in bullets the description then not a good idea. Shoppers want to see the product image from different angles. Let them not just zoom the picture but get a feel of the

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picture. Your shoe store needs high-resolution photos and videos that do not take too long to load. ● Mobile-friendly Experience - Mobile shopping accounts for 50% of online transactions. To give a user-friendly experience, ensure that your store is responsive, adapts to whatever device is accessing. ● Return Policy - ensure your shoe store has a clear return policy. This will help build trust with customers that your brand is there for them in case of anything.

How to Make Your Store Remarkable You will not succeed in your online shoe business if you can not attract visitors. Let’s find out how to make your shoe store remarkable and get huge traffic.

How do you think Nike generated 254 crores USD net income?

For years, the color and design of each Nike shoe were limited. When customers were more and more looking for customization, most shoes that Nike offered were either in black or white. Later, Nike introduced a game-changing platform to change the way customers buy sports shoes, and bring more innovation to the operating model of shoe manufacturing.

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Millennials make a huge portion of online shopping. 56% of millennials would swap their current brand for a brand that customizes to them. Product customization is an excellent way to win over millennials.

You can provide similar value to your customers by integrating a product designer tool.

It is a Web-to-Print software with diverse features; using which, your customers can

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create customized designs. They can browse from a huge library of images, texts, clipart, and ready templates to create personalized designs on any and every device.

Check Free Demo

What to look for in a shoe design tool?

1. Multi-Database Support - The database of the designer tool allows you to access business logic related databases on a PHP server and the end-user related database such as fonts, clip-arts, templates, color, etc. on the MySQL server.

2. Large User Accessible Data - The designer tool has a huge library of colors, fonts, clip arts, ready-to-use design templates, and more. These templates are easy-to-use for the customers.

3. Secured, & Powerful Tool - The designer application has impeccable security support, protected by SSL encryption that makes the tool more secure for both the admin as well as end-users.

4. Superior Browser Support - Multi-browser compatibility helps end-users access the tool. Check if the shoe design tool is compatible with all major web

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browsers like Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Microsoft Edge, and Internet Explorer.

5. Multi-Device Responsive Tool - Make sure the design tool is responsive and compatible with Windows, Android devices, iPads and iPhones.

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Find more about how the shoe design tool can help your business.

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Requirement 3 - Managing Supplies

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Once you figure out the right product for your shoes, the next step is to source products for your store.

When starting an online shoe store, consider these three options ● DIY products ● Hire a manufacturer or wholesaler ● Hire a dropshipper 1. DIY products If you want to craft your own shoes then go for it. With the DIY approach, you will have a complete control over your brand. Secondly, the startup costs will be low. However, this will take up most of your time and energy. Think of will you manage your store, sell, and market along with creating the product.

If you are creating the product from scratch, here’s what you will need to do● Source materials ● Look for a renting space to store the inventory ● Either hire a shipping service or run to the courier service yourself 2. Manufacturer or Wholesaler

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If you are not ready for a DIY product then hire someone to make the product for you.

This approach will need more investment.

Somebody else is making your product that does not mean you have no say. As a brand owner, you have complete control over the quality of your product and the brand.

When choosing a manufacturer or wholesaler, there are two points to keep in mind: ● If you are looking for ready-made products to sell then you can source the products using Alibaba, or partner with an already established shoe company. ● If you want a manufacturer who makes your product, you can easily search on directories, Google, local library, referrals, etc.

Here are a few important questions to consider before choosing a manufacturer: ● What is the minimum order quantity? ● What is the sample pricing? ● What is production pricing? ● What is the turnaround time?

Before you sign up with a manufacturer make sure that meets your expectations. It is always a good idea to ask for a sample item and make the decision accordingly.

3. Dropshipping Method

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Dropshipping is a method where you can purchase from a vendor and list their products on your online store. The vendor will charge you as and when you sell the product, and ships orders on your behalf. This means you need not worry about inventory, packaging, or fulfillment.

In this approach, you will have a wide selection of products but you are likely to have more competition, as most of the products that your dropshipper offers are readily available all over the internet.

Requirement 4 - Market Your Shoe Store Once your products are up, it’s time to start driving traffic to your online shoe store. The objective is to develop a marketing strategy that puts your online shoe business on all the platforms where your followers are hanging out and then using different ways to connect with them.

Content to keep your audience updated with the latest trends in the footwear industry, the problems they're facing, and how you can help solve those problems. â—? Social media to share that content and then engage with your followers.

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● Search engine optimization (SEO) to optimize your content, so it will show up when someone is searching for the information you've written. ● Embrace paid advertising to drive paid traffic to your shoe store. ● Craft personalized Emails to follow up with your customers to ensure they continue to buy your product.

Wrapping Up That was all you need to know for starting an online shoe store. We hope with this information; you will be able to start working on your dream store today itself.

We at Brush Your Ideas have been working with businesses like yours for over 4 years.

Our tool is a fully functional product which can be integrated with any of the eCommerce platforms. With a successful track record of over 80% clients, we guide you to even market your business at every stage. To know more about how we can help you, let’s get in touch.

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Challenges while Pricing Embroidery Work

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A few concerns you may have while pricing embroidery work are as follows: ●

What if I charge too much and fail to attract customers due to high costs?

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What if I charge too much that my competitors take away my customers?

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What if I charge too low that my profit margin goes very low?

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Will I ever be able to raise the prices of embroidery products later as there is tough competition in the industry?

When you calculate how much to charge for embroidery, you must remember the few challenges you may face. The first one is the costs of embroidery works. You should understand your unique costs which may not be the same as others’. Various costs are associated with running the embroidery heads. While some costs like utility, labor, etc. are generally fixed costs, some others are variable. Even the fixed costs may vary from one business to the other depending on the size of the business. If you want to formulate smart

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pricing strategies, calculate the “Minimum Revenue Required” for your shop. In short, you must calculate how much capital you must have at any time to keep your business running.

Though not completely accurate, the basic calculation looks something like this: Minimum Revenue = (Overhead Cost + Labor Cost ) / Time This basic calculation is sufficient enough to help you get an insight into your embroidery business. And how much to charge for embroidery per hour too.

To think of it in another way, consider this. If you can sew 60 hats or caps in an hour, but fail to sell them for a minimum price of your shop’s overhead and labor costs, a contract-based embroidery business might be more suitable for you.

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The second challenge while pricing embroidery is the complexity. If you spend time creating embroidery products, you must be knowing embroidery is more complex than any other customization method.

Issues like thread breaks, sew outs, bad digitization, and several others may hamper your speed.

Besides, embroidery often uses more expensive materials than plain t-shirts. It implies that pricing embroidery work always includes that anticipation and artistry too. Even if you face an order return or rejection, you have already put in your best efforts and spent on materials. Calculating these costs to get the right price still remains a challenge.

In simple words: Embroidery often turns out to be lengthier and costlier than you expect.

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There are some designer tools with built-in support for element-based pricing that you can integrate to simplify your work.

Free Demo: Sell products without worrying about designs, printing, or inventory.

Schedule my Free Demo

Methods for Pricing Embroidery Work Cost Plus Pricing Method One of the most basic concepts of a business is that the selling price is equal to the addition of the cost price and profit margin. However, this rule implies that you must know the cost of doing business first to set a selling price. Pricing your embroidery work is not as tough as it seems. To calculate this cost, sum up all your business expenses. A few of them are rent, machine lease payments, labor costs (including workmen’s compensation, insurance contributions, etc.), raw material costs, store maintenance, phone, postage, office supplies, and other run-time miscellaneous expenses.

Remember to not include garment costs in this sum total. This is because you can markup garment costs separately and add them to the calculated selling prices.

After this, divide this total cost figure (except garments) by the number of work-hours in the time period you considered to calculate costs.

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For example, if you calculated costs on an annual basis, divide the sum total by yearly work hours.

In case you run a small startup and handle all the production by yourself, including a direct labor cost even then. Building this into your operating cost is important so as to reflect your labor expense in the selling price. As your business grows and more employees come, your labor cost will also increase. It will help add revenue to cover extra outlays while still sustaining a profitable margin in pricing embroidery work.

After all this calculation, you will get the hourly cost of doing business per hour.

Consider it with an example. if your annual operating cost is $43,680 and your working days per week are 5, your annual work-hours will be 40x52 = 2080. Dividing $43,680 by 2080 gives you $21 - your cost per hour. In the next step, translate this calculated figure into a cost per unit. For that, choose a unit of measure to represent your cost and efforts the best. As a rule of thumb, stitch count is one of the simplest and most common units. It is because stitches help measure the accurate output.

If you use a single head embroidery machine, it generally produces stitches ranging between 18000 and 30000 per hour. Which means the output is 300-500 stitches per minute? When you sew at 30,000 stitches an hour, you get units at $0.67 per hour. When your sewing output is 18,000 stitches per hour, you get units at $1.11 per hour. Considering the above cost figure, the cost per thousand stitches may range somewhere between $0.67 and $1.11 based on your unique stitching output. Hence the range $0.67 - $1.11.

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Now you would add this cost to the operating cost of $21 per hour you calculated above. The final figure is the actual cost per unit.

There is a variation to this Cost Plus Pricing Model which is as below.

Cost Plus Embroidery Business Pricing Model To calculate the amount of profit you add to the cost base, you can set an annual target amount you wish to earn first. Divide that figure by the capacity of your equipment and write off the profit over your production target.

Consider a real example. Let’s say, you set $60,000 as your target using a single head machine. Divide this amount by annual working hours (2080) first. Divide the figure you get by your machine’s average stitch capacity to get the margin per unit you should add to your selling price.

In this case, if you consider your machine’s stitching capacity to be 18000, you will get (60000/2080)/18000 = $1.60. As we know that our cost per unit at 18000 stitches per hour is $1.11, you can add $1.60 to that. In return, you will get the average price per unit of $2.70.

This can be your selling price. Some embroiderers mark up the garment too to keep the price per stitch low and gain a reasonable margin off the final product. You can mark up your garment by 25%-30% of your profit or markup on your full project based on its size.

Market Down Embroidery Pricing

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In this approach, you project your profit and how much to charge for embroidery by estimating the market price in opposition to your cost.

Customers don’t buy your thread, machine time, or any other costs involved. They buy your final product and don’t know about the efforts you put. If the buyer finds the design, color, or quality or the embroidery good, they buy it. Whether a customer makes a purchase instantly or after thinking, they don’t know how much it cost you.

In the market-down approach, you can base your pricing of embroidery work on this phenomenon. You can develop a range of beautiful and engaging designs appealing to a particular market and demand a higher price owing to their popularity. The customers always look for new, innovative, and creative designs for their products. And you can tap into their search for creativity. By producing quality work, fulfilling their orders speedily, or giving them a reason to buy from you; you can benefit your business.

Perceiving the value of embroidery work is quite a debatable issue. Customers often think about whether embroiderers price garments separately or price them alongside pricing embroidery work only. Looking from the perspective of profitability, how you price the product doesn't matter much. The only thing you need is to include a suitable profit for both the garment and your embroidery. You can sell the apparel with a higher markup and not charge anything for sewing. Or you can charge a low markup price for the garment but a suitable charge for embroidery work. Both ways, your customer will pay the same final price and you can earn the same profit.

So, is there any difference? Yes, there is. And it lies in the perception of value. In simple words, embroidery enhances the value of a garment. While selling a plain blanket, you can’t go beyond a

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reasonable price you may charge. The same blanket, if embellished, can sell at double or triple the original price for the blank blanket. The reason - the addition of embroidery charges, digitizing software, and of course your creativity.

The fun part is that the cost of embellishment may be lower than that of the garment itself. Yet it sells at a price higher than that of both combined. By including the cost of digitizing and sewing in the end product, you make customers feel you are not charging for designing and digitizing. This way, your customers think that you are charging a nominal price for your final ‘embellished’ garment.

Once you have established your prices, you can use technology to streamline pricing embroidery work.

Using an embroidery pricing calculator may come in handy for the calculation of your embroidery costs in no time. And help you let your customers know the cost of the product instantly.

Related: ​Top Custom Embroidery Tips for Your Embroidery Business

General Tips to Consider while Pricing Embroidery Work Pricing embroidery work is not complex if you follow some general tips as below. ●

Build a proper price sheet to increase credibility in your pricing. A published price sheet on your website will help build trust in customers. They won’t feel that the prices are appearing on the spot and their doubts go down.

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If you have a physical store where customers visit in person, be confident about your pricing.

Maintain eye contact with your customer to assure them of the fairness in the prices you are charging.

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Set your digitizing and setup fees depending on the complexity of your project. You can categorize this work into Easy, Medium, and Hard and charge accordingly.

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Increasing prices in proportion to stitch count is recommendable.

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Don’t go for offering too many quantities and price break discounts. This is because it may lead to you failing to earn a good profit margin.

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Include Costs of Goods Sold (COGS) and raw good cost in your pricing. Mark up your garments and products suitably. It would be good to have a higher markup (>50 or above) so markup your garments and products appropriately. Use a higher markup (50% or more) than that for screen printing.

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If you are offering premium products, don’t shy away from charging premium prices. Customers will be happy to pay more if you can convince them that you are offering them something premium.

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Be competitive and keep track of prices your competitors are charging. Tracking competitors doesn’t mean you start emulating their prices. It just means evaluating their products, comparing them and their prices with yours, and reaching the best pricing for your products. To reach the best suitable pricing, consider your unique expenses, and include them in your pricing. Only with pricing embroidery work the right way, you can fare well.

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Pricing embroidery work shouldn’t solely depend on the count of stitches but also several other complexities. One of the complexities is the number of times machines stopped to cut the thread or change the color of the thread. You may also need to trim threads hanging out after finishing embroidery. In the same way, embroidery on a hat may be much more difficult on simpler garments like t-shirts, jackets, or bags, etc.

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The price for these all complexities should count while pricing embroidery work. Though there is no fixed method to calculate these complexities, you can’t afford to ignore them completely.

You should figure out a way to accommodate these costs anyhow. Or else, your products may not get the right cost!

Over to You If you consider all the situations properly, you’ll understand that embroidery pricing is not as easy as screen printing. However, if you wish to start an embroidery business, you can make pricing embroidery work easy and speedy. There are some cutting-edge embroidery pricing tools that you can integrate into your store.

Our Brush Your Ideas offers the next-gen online product design software with a built-in online embroidery pricing calculator. Hence, with customization products, this pricing calculator lets you manage element-based pricing in real-time. Read some more features you can avail of by using this product designer. ●

Text Features including Custom Font Manager, Quotes, Name and Number printing, and customizable text and messages.

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Image Features including Image Editing and Effects, Personal Image Upload, Design Watermarking, and Image Resolution Warnings.

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Clipart Manager including Free Clipart Library, Smart Search, Clipart Customization, and SVG Support.

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Object Handling including object handlers, clear objects, layer management, and object grouping and positioning.

It also has inherent design-element based pricing that calculates prices in real-time.

Live Demo

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