Ultimate Guide to Success: How to Start a Swimwear Line

Swimwear industry has grown by leaps in the last century, and rightfully so. From full body coverage to tiny bikinis, it has always been a part of heated debate and head-turning fashion statements.

Although substantial but still growing, the swimwear industry has ample room for anyone looking for long-term success. Suppose you have been thinking about starting your swimwear lineup but are confused about the step-by-step procedure of being a profitable business. In that case, you should stop worrying because you are at the right place. 

From defining niche to product formulation and marketing, this article covers every aspect of the swimwear business. So stay till last to have comprehensible knowledge about branding and selling strategies for your to-be swimwear brand!

Finding Audience

Planning before experimentations and experimentations before actualization is the universally proven way to build something long-lasting and impactful. Sure, you want to start your custom made swimsuits business but why do you want to do so? What benefits can you provide this already booming industry of USD 21.22 billion? Who will want to buy from you? 

These are some foundation-laying questions you must ask yourself before investing in this journey.

“Niche,” a word you might have often heard from business people and enthusiasts, means a specialized market segment you intend to target. 

For instance, let’s say you are selling high performance custom made swimsuits to Olympic swimmers then selling to “professionals” is your niche. 

Similarly, when you venture into any market type and want to sell anything, first and foremost, you have to find your niche. Then your intended product should provide the problem-solving statement to that specific group. Suppose you are not sure about your niche. In that case, you can ask yourself the following questions to find your selling opportunity:

• What truly excites you about Swimwear?

(Style, Fabric and Layout)

• Are there any gaps and unmet needs you experienced in the swimwear industry?

(Certain functionality or lack of comfort and experience)

• Who do you envision being interested in your Swimwear?

(Sports person, Mother or Fashion seeking person)

• What are the needs and pain points when it comes to Swimwear?

(Limited sizing options, lack of support, textile material, allergy issue)

Brand Edificing

Envisioning the core essence of a brand is the ultimate factor in which you should invest your time. Imagine if you design your product first and then begin to define your brand later on. Then, your brand would have to be based on your product rather than your ideals.

Brand Structure: To build a long lasting and sustainable brand, you must first analyze what problem solving solution you are providing to others? And what will be the core ethics and practices of your brand? Is your brand going to be an affordable swimwear provider, or will it sell to those who care more about durability than the actual price? 

When you answer these questions, you will design a layout for your brand. This layout will dictate your way of working, from selecting the proper manufacturer to developing marketing and selling strategies.

Brand Naming: After discovering your unique selling proposition, the next step is to find the most suitable name for your business. For instance, “All Day I Dream About Sports” or Adidas is a unique name representing their entire product lineup and core values focusing on sports and fashion. 

Your brand’s name doesn’t have to be a set of abbreviated words. Instead, it must be something easy and catchy for people to understand. In easier wording, Your brand’s name should resonate with your vision for starting the brand!

Logo Formation: The last step in branding is the creation of a suitable Logo, now where you can make a bit of a compromise with the brand’s name, as when you have both name and logo representing your company, you can stray away from the mission a little. For example, you can have a bit of an esoteric name in exchange for a logo that describes what you do well. 

However, before logo formation, a thorough discussion with professionals is recommended, as logos are more than just little snippets of digital art. Their entire meaning can change even just from a little coloring defect. Just imagine McDonald’s bright yellow and red on Hermès; it would defeat the purpose of elegance and luxury Hermès is trying to achieve.

Design your Swimwear Line

There are various swimwear design categories in the market, such as Luxury designs, Ready-to-wear designs and Eco-designs. Depending on the type of people you want to serve, you can go along the above-mentioned categories. 

For instance, if you want to make a budget-friendly clothing lineup that can be worn anywhere, then your design category would have to be Ready to Wear.

Now, the next plausible step should be searching in this category of designs, such as what is already available in the market and what your competitors are doing. After you have a somewhat vague idea about your swimwear lineup, you can begin designing your customize Swimwear. 

Note: This is a time taking process and should only be proceeded when you have available time!

Here are some steps you can take to conceptualize and develop your customize swimwear lineup:

• Project Briefing: In Briefs, you define what type of garment or clothing lineup you are designing, what their functionalities should be, and who they should serve. Think of Project Briefs as a blueprint for designing; having a brief makes sure you do not stray away from the original purpose and vision of the design.
• Inspiration Gathering: The next step after the briefing is inspiration gathering. Although you can get inspiration from anywhere and anyone, staying within your lane of ideas is generally recommended; in this case, it is about swimsuits lineup. 

Go online and search for different swimming suits and see what functionalities they are offering and how. After you have gathered several ideas, make a mind image of your clothing line-up and think about integrating different features with minimal or no drawbacks.

• Sketching or Mockups: The last step in designing involves the actual visualization. Take a pen or a stylus if you own a tablet and start drawing sketches or combining different parts and features of varying Swimwear into one. It is recommended to go back and forth on your sketches and even take brief breaks to ensure you design what you intend to create.

After sketching has been completed and finished, you can hire a freelancer or a dedicated digital designer to turn your sketches into mockups with precise measurements. This finalized product will be called a “Tech Pack” and will come in handy when you start sampling from manufacturers.

Learning how to design highly functional and comfortable clothing is a long-term process involving high diligency and consonant alternations based on the market’s trend and continuously improving knowledge about fabric material. However, we have accumulated some tips on designing and highly encourage you to check them out.

• Keep Up with Fashion Trend: Even if you designed your clothing line up and they look exactly how they should, it is still recommended to take a thorough look and search the internet to see what the trend is all about and what would be chic in the upcoming year? Make a notice and then improvise your designs for future-proofing.
• Know Your Customers: Try to understand your potential customers’ mindset. Are they open to new ideas? If yes, try to be contemporary with your designs to ensure brand loyalty. If not, then lean more towards traditional designs and layout structures.
• Find Your Signature Look: Everyone has one thing they are best at, and this stands true even for businesses all around the world. So try to find your signature look, a snippet of design personalized to your brand’s essence so that people can tell it’s you just by one glance.

If you follow all of these above-mentioned tips by heart, then the only thing that would stop your business from near success will be the time.

Best Swimming Suits for Body Types

Suppose you are looking to design Swimwear for specific body types. In that case, you should know this: Not everybody is suited for every type of swimming suit, and each person’s preferences vary depending on their body shape and weight. You can tally the table below for further understanding!

Remember, these are just guidelines to find the best swimming suits for body types. However the actual best swimsuit is the one that makes you feel amazing! Don’t be afraid to experiment with different styles and find what you love.

Choose the Best Textile Material

After your design has been finalized, the next step is to search for the right fabric material. Think about this: You want to design sets of custom “Onesies” but if you opt for high-weight cotton, what do you think will be the result? Cotton, a natural fabric material, is very prone to water absorption and a see-through look when wet; it would be a disaster on the beach. 

This is why designing alone is not the most critical aspect of clothing manufacturing; rather, it heavily depends on the material types and what functionality the material confers to clothes.

Although any garment type can be forged from any material, generally, there are some guidelines for choosing the right fabric material when manufacturing clothes. Swimwear, in general, requires such material that is durable and offers good fitting. 

Polyester and nylon are the most popular choices when it comes to swimsuit making, and an even better option is to use blended fabric; blended fabric means combining the goods of two fabric materials without offering any downsides from either of the materials. Sometimes, Chiffon and cotton are used to make luxurious or lightweight swimsuits.

You can see the table below to see which Textile material best suits your Swimwear!

Finding the Right Manufacturers

It is perhaps the most daunting task for anyone looking to start their private labelled swimsuit-selling business, and the question “How much does it cost to start a swimwear line​” only comes to mind after people hear about high manufacturing costs in the USA.

You can have your business registered and designed professionally under just 2000$ budget, however, costs start increasing when it comes to manufacturing, and it is often where most business aspirants give up. 

However, finding the right vendors for your brand is not exceedingly difficult as you just have to make some time and be thorough with your background checking of shortlisted manufacturers. However, you can use these 5 steps to find the proper manufacturer for your dream swimwear line-up;

• Proven Reliability and Experience: You want such a vendor that not only has a solid track record of high-quality garments production but can also meet deadlines on time. Also make sure to ask them if they can actualize your swimwear idea or not, because in the end it doesn’t matter if your chosen manufacturer is reliable or not if they can not make what you are asking them.
• Strong Quality Assurance policies: It is of utmost importance to have your swimsuit line-up align with your brand’s standards and core values. A good manufacturer will have robust quality control protocol at every step of the manufacturing process , from initial material sourcing to final QC inspection.
• Clear and Transparent Communication: Communication is key to a smooth collaboration. Your selected manufacturer should be responsive, easy to understand and proactive in keeping you informed about the production of your Swimwear.
• Flexible MOQs and Fair Costing: Even though prices shouldn’t be the only factor when choosing a manufacturer, it is essential to find one whose pricing aligns with your budget and can offer flexibility on minimum order quantities.
• Ethical and Sustainable Practices: If being moral and sustainably responsible are your brand’s core values, then you would want to form patronage with such a manufacturer who also shares those values and can demonstrate their commitment through certifications and transparent practices.

If you have been unlucky in finding the proper manufacturer for your swimsuit production, try connecting with them for a Free quote and Low MOQs.

[https://www.privatelabelclothingmanufacturers.com/]

Marketing and Selling

If you have taken some time and read the whole article, then you should have more than a general idea on how to start a swimwear line. Still, production alone will not get you any sales, so straighten your back to begin marketing and selling strategies to make your business profitable. You need the right marketing plans to get your product lineup in front of your intended Audience.

There are many ways to promote your brand. Still, suppose you are a beginner in marketing. In that case, you might want to invest some time and effort into the 4Ps strategy, which stands for Product, Price, Place, and Promotions. 

Since you already have your products designed. Now’s an appropriate time to think about pricing, defining distribution channels, and deciding how you will promote your brand.

• Price: A thorough market research would be very beneficial in pricing for your swimwear line-up. Search about related garment types and see how others have priced them. Make a chart of the functionality, value and pricing they provide, then decide on a pricing range for your products.
• Place: Your profitability depends mainly on the place you decide to sell your Swimwear. If you opt for an online platform, initial setup fees would be cheap. You can easily reach a global audience compared to a physical store that would require rent and several permits from the government. As a new player in the industry, going online is your best bet!
• Promotions: Whether you decide to sell online or in a physical store, you will need to put effort and funds to get attention to the brand. Although there are several ways to do so, it is considered one of the best practices to start posting visual content of your products on social media platforms such as Tiktok, Instagram and Facebook. 

If posting content alone is not working, you can hire SEO specialists. They can organically push your posts in FYP or use dedicated marketing services provided by social media platforms. However, when you have garnered enough attention online, you can start distributing pamphlets in case you have gone with a strict in-person selling strategy. 

If you also think about having a website for your business, then investing in blog writing may be fruitful, as it brings overwhelming traffic to the website. 

The final step in your journey of a swimwear brand is actually selling. If you go by a physical store option, then you can deal in liquid or cold hard cash. Still, if you have opted for online platforms, then you should perform a one-time setup to ensure proper payment gateway and modalities to handle sales and enumerations.

NOTE: You can run discounts and deals on your website and social media for further reach and sales!

Conclusion

To conclude everything, Swimwear has become more than just a functional clothing piece, It is considered a fashion item and wardrobe essential with high demand across the globe and while it may seem challenging to start your own swimwear lineup, If you are equipped with proper knowledge and are educated to make it work then the only thing standing in your business and success is time.

Focus on researching your market, creating high-quality swimsuit designs, and investing in building a loyal customer base. Take your time designing trending products that genuinely convey your idea and personality to your customers, but most importantly, focus on having fun along the way, and you’ll see success in no time.

Frequently Asked Questions

1) Is starting a swimwear line profitable?

Yes, there is plenty of room to scale your brand and make tons of profit, as the swimwear industry is still relatively new.

2) How long does it take to make a swimsuit?

Depending on the experience and complexity of the designs, it should take about 3-4 hours to make a swimming suit; however, with huge quantities, time substantially increases as well.

3) How to find swimwear manufacturers?

There are multiple ways to find the right manufacturer for your brand. You can visit expos and fairs, and if that is not your style, then going up on e-commerce plans like Alibaba can definitely help you find an adequate manufacturer.