Hi, i'm looking at a niche market - retro vintage clothing online store. Cos i can actually get a regular supply of vintage clothes (from 60s, 70s) ... One of a kind, one piece only sort... thinking of targetting a market with higher purchasing power.. clothes will be around US$100-US$200.. What do you guys think? Some suggestions on how i should approach this? Competitive analysis? Should i do on website/blog or ebay? The only problem with ebay is that i think i'd be paying for endless listing fees without getting any returns.. Every product seem to be able to be termed as retro or vintage these days... tough to find a truely vintage outfit.. From a consumer's perspective, i would google for online stores rather than ebay. But ebay would provide good traffic...
I think the clothing niches are tough to crack, but the retro/vintage segment is one that could be penetrated through use of social networking sites like MySpace. A blog should be used to promote the website, and you can turn out some web 2.0 content on Hubpages and Squidoo with ease. Vintage clothing from the US is a big market overseas, and eBay could help boost international sales and help with branding at first. With the huge variety of clothing possible, a well-organized website is a must. Good luck!
This is best addressed with a brand based approach and you definitely want a proper e-commerce solution to do it right. First choice Magento http://www.magentocommerce.com/ 2nd choice http://www.prestashop.com/ http://www.magentocommerce.com/blog/category/magento-spotting/ here are some examples of how powerful and cool that stuff is. You will find some clothing related sites in there as well. hope that helps, Nigel