How to Start your Own Online Clothing Store in Cameroon – Online Clothing Store Business Plan

Looking for a good business idea to make money online in Cameroon, if yes then this post was specifically written for you. In this article, I’m going to propose a good business idea that can fetch you lots of money in Cameroon, this 2021. Mind you, this is not a get rich quick scheme i.e. to reap the aforementioned reward, you will need to work hard but the good news is, your hard work will eventually pay off… and you may even make enough money to hire the university graduates to work for you while you lie on your bed like a boss.

By now, you must be wondering what type of online business could this be????

In this post, I’m going to introduce you to online clothing store business.

For those of you who don’t know, an online clothing store business, is the act of selling clothes on the internet (often via the social media platforms).You can also call it an online boutique business.

Unlike the offline method of selling clothes, which requires that you rent a space in the market, rent a store along the street or walk from place like the cloth hawkers, in order to sell your clothes, with the online selling method, you don’t need to spend money in renting a business premise or need to carry clothes around. All you need, to start an online clothing store business in Cameroon is a laptop, good camera smartphone, photo editing software, internet connection and 250,000 frs as your starting capital.

One of the greatest advantages of selling products selling clothes online in Cameroon, is the fact that you will be able to market your items to millions of Cameroonians in all parts of the country.

Cameroon has over 2 million active internet users, majority of whom have mobile money accounts; which makes issuing of payment for items very easy. This makes the internet a fertile ground to launch almost any kind of business.

Requirements For Starting an Online Clothing Store Business in Cameroon

Like i mentioned earlier, you will need the following items in order to start an online clothing store in Cameroon.

1) 24/7 Internet Connection; If you wish to start an online business in Cameroon, i strongly recommend you get a Nexttel Sim card for internet connection (if you don’t already have one). For those of you who don’t know, Nexttel Cameroon offers the fastest internet connection with extremely cheap internet bundles. It may surprise you to know that with just 4000 you can subscribe to 1 month internet connection (unlimited) with Nexttel.

Their night surf internet data bundles is awesome i.e. as from 11PM to 7AM, you can subscribe to Nexttel night internet bundle and receive Gigabytes of internet data with just 150frs.

2) You need capital (250,000frs); 150,000frs will be used to pay someone to create your online clothing store (you need to hire a web designer, buy a domain name and pay for web hosting service).

When looking for an online clothing store web designer, make sure you choose a web designer that can create you a fully functional online clothing store using the WordPress Application. The WordPress platform is user friendly and will enable you to easily upload items on your online clothing storefront. With WordPress, you don’t need a special training to be able to manage your online clothing store.

With 150,000frs, i can create you a fully functional WordPress powered online clothing store within 24 hours. You can view a sample of an online store which i recently created using WordPress via this link. If you are interested, WhatsApp me.

In addition to the 150,0000 (set aside for your online clothing store project), you will also need 100,000 to buy clothes to sell on your online clothing store. So (in total) you will need 250,000frs to start an online clothing store.

3) Smartphone (equipped with a good camera)

To effectively run an online clothing store business, you will need a smartphone. Not just any kind of smartphone, but a smartphone equipped with a good camera that can take sharp pictures (except you plan to buy a special camera for taking photos of your stock items).

4) Laptop; to run an online clothing store smoothly, you will need a laptop. Any laptop equipped with 4 GB RAM and 2.20 GHZ processor will be enough for the task. You can get a laptop with the aforementioned spec, for 80,000.

5) Photo and Video editing software

As an online clothing store owner, taking photos of your inventories and uploading pics on your online clothing storefront, will constitute majority of your functions hence you will need photo editing softwires to edit, crop or resize your product images (to make them look professional) before uploading them on your online storefront. Apart from taking photos of your stock items, you will also be expected to shoot marketing videos to effectively showcase the items on your online clothing store, in order to grab attention, arouse interest, evoke desire and ultimately get prospects to buy your items. Nowadays people consume videos more than any type of content on the social media hence by using videos to showcase your items, you will be able to expand your reach on the social media.

6) Blogging or Vlogging skill

To effectively market your online clothing store and items on the social media, you will need to a little blogging and vlogging skill. For you to succeed faster in this business, you need to able to write sales copy i.e. write posts about your items, that will convince people to buy your clothes.

Just like a hawker in the street, bargains and uses persuasive words to convince a prospect to buy his/her clothes, you will also be expected to employ the same strategy online by writing convincing posts to draw attention to your products and convert prospects in to customers. Posting pictures of your clothing items on the social media (with no description attached) will not be enough to intrigue people to visit your online clothing store (expect the clothing items are super attractive).

If don’t know how to write engaging posts, you can make videos of yourself describing your products and calling on Cameroonians to shop on your online store. Nowadays people consume videos more than text content hence will be very easy for your demo/marketting videos to go viral.

7) Patience and Hard work.
Like i told you earlier, this is not not a get rich quick scheme. Just like any other business venture, you will need to be patient and work hard in order to make an online clothing store successful.

Bear in mind that it may take you about 6 months of hard work for you to start making hundreds of thousand from your online clothing store. But if you work work smart and are lucky, you might succeed earlier.

6 months is the maximum timeframe that you need to start scratching your head/wig, if you haven’t started making a reasonable amount of money from your online clothing store.

OK those are the 7 things you need in order to run an online clothing store effectively.

Where to buy clothes to sell on your online store.

Another very relevant attribute which you will need in order to effectively run an online clothing store (which i almost forgot) is a good fashion sense i.e. you need to able to hand pick quality items to list on your online clothing storefront. I mean clothes that you can easily sell online. These type of clothes are available everywhere.

You just need a good fashion sense to be able to identify them.

For instance, in the month of December, 2020, i saw a clothes hawker in Limbe, hawking a flannel long sleeve shirt with an attractive red and black pattern. I bought the Men’s Flannel Long Sleeve Shirt for 4000frs (from the hawker) and sold it to a customer online for 10000 frs. Yes!, that is how profitable the online clothing business is (with less stress as compared to hawking clothes offline).

NOTE: When sourcing products to list on your online clothing store, don’t only focus on the stylishness or attractiveness of clothing items but also pay attention to the quality of the fabric. Most Cameroonians are concerned about the durability of clothes. Don’t buy the type that will shrink or fade out after several times of washing and drying. So you must be able to identify quality clothing.

You can easily find top quality stylish clothing at the boutiques in your city and in the market. However If you live in an area; where there are few boutique or places to source quality clothes for your online clothing store, you can go to Douala to source quality products. In Douala, you will be able to find lots of top quality clothes at very affordable prices; which you can easily sell online and make huge profit.

If you are in Limbe, you can easily find top quality clothing at Romis; the largest fashion shop in Limbe.

Romis has a section for second hand cloths called Paradise; where you can find top quality used clothing (in good condition).

Most of the clothing at the Romis Paradise (Okrika section) are sold at very affordable prices. With 300frs you can buy a top quality stylish clothing at the Romis Paradise section.

Its noteworthy that most of the clothing in Romis were imported from Germany, Belgium & other European countries hence its one of the best places in Cameroon to source top quality clothing to list on your online clothing shop.

How to receive Payment on your online Clothing store.

One of the reasons why an online clothing store business plan is now feasible in Cameroon, is due to the availability of Mobile Money; which has made it very easy for Cameroonians to issue payment for products and services. In addition to that, its very easy integrate Mobile Money to a WordPress Powered online clothing store by simply installing a MOMO plugin…and this will enable your store visitors to issue payment automatically on the site without you sending your Momo number to your customers each time they wish to issue payment (manually).

However it will cost you about 50,000frs to buy the MTN Cameroon Mobile Money plugin for wordpress.

If you have very limited budget, you can collect payment manually i.e. send your MoMo number to your customers for them to issue payment. After you have made enough money from your online clothing store, you can then buy the Mobile Money plugin; which will facilitate the receiving of payment from customers.

Payment on delivery VS Payment before delivery

You can either give your customers the options to issue payment after they have received their items or to issue payment before delivery.

For customers who are located within your city, you can give them the option to pay on delivery as you can easily deliver their items in person and collect your money. But for the ones who are located out of your city, you can ask to them to issue payment before delivery.

How to Ship Items within Cameroon

You can ship items to your customers via the drivers involve in inter urban transportation. By using this method, your customers will be able to pick up their items in the motor parks or bus station in their city.

For example, if you wish to send a piece of cloth to a customer in Buea, you just need to go to the motorpark in your area and handover the piece of clothing to the commercial drivers (the trustworthy ones). You will be asked to pay a transportation fee for the item and to provide the name and ID card number of the recipient in Buea.

For security reason, you can also collect the phone number of the driver, so that if something goes wrong, you can contact the driver to verify (in the case where delivery is running late).

When commercial driver arrives Buea, he will call the recipient to come and pick up his/her item. This is the cost effective method which i have been using to deliver items to my customers located in the big cities of Cameroon.

Types of Online Clothing Store

Before launching your online clothing store, its important to note that there are two types of online clothing store which include;

• Niche Online Clothing Store and
• General Online Clothing Store

Niche Online Clothing stores are online clothing stores where clothing meant for specific type of people are sold.  For example online clothing store for plus size only, only clothing store for the teenagers only, kids only etc.

The general Clothing store, is an online clothing store where all types of clothing are sold.

Somebody may likely want to ask, which online clothing store is the best???

If you wish to start an online clothing store business in Cameroon, i strongly recommend you launch a niche online clothing store. With a niche online clothing store, you will be able to identify the needs of your target audience and source quality products that they can easily buy…rather than focusing on general audience.

How to start an online clothing store with no money in Cameroon

Do you wish to start your own online clothing store but don’t have enough money??? if yes, then you can start a drop shipping online clothing store.

What is online clothing store drop shipping???

Drop shipping online clothing store, is a type of online clothing store business which is usually set up by entrepreneurs in US, Europe and the Asian countries.

With a drop shipping online clothing store business model, you don’t need to buy clothing items (to sell) or bother about delivering items to your customers. All you need a is a smartphone or a laptop to be to launch a drop shipping online clothing store. It is the easiest of stress free method of making money online from an online clothing store.

How does online clothing store dropping shipping work??

Let’s take for example that the Romis clothing brand has an online clothing store where they sell their clothing products.

To make money via drop shipping with ROMIS, you just need to set up your own online clothing store and list the same products found on the Romis online clothing storefront but at a higher price. For instance if a clothing item was listed at the Romis online clothing store for 5000frs, you can list that same cloth for sale on your own online clothing store for 7000frs.

When a customer buys the piece of clothing on your online clothing store at 7000frs, you can then go to the Romis online clothing store and buy the piece of clothing for 5000frs using the name and address of your customer.

Romis will then ship the item to your customer and you gain 2000frs.

You can call this type of business strategy, the Parasitic business model; where you lean on other online clothing stores to make profit and don’t have to stock clothes in your house or bother about shipping items to your customers.

However this business model only works in areas where there are many online clothing stores and the online clothing store owners are reliable (and often deliver clothing on time)

In Cameroon we have very few online clothing stores and the few ones only limit their delivery service to customers located within a particular city. So as of January, 26th, 2021; a drop shipping online clothing store business plan is not feasible in Cameroon.

Ok we have come to the end of this article. If you are interested in starting an online clothing store business, WhatsApp me for your online clothing store project.

I will create a fully functional WordPress powered online clothing store and guide you on how to list items on your online clothing store.

Take action today and say bye bye to poverty in 6 months time. Be your own boss and create your own wealth.