Fashion is a multi-billion dollar industry all over the world. Everyone is into it; whether you’re a fashion fiend or a fashion naysayer, you still wear the clothes, whether it’s the trend or last year’s craze. It is an art form and a way for people to express themselves.
If you’re fascinated with fashion, you can start a business in this exciting industry. You don’t have to be a fashion designer, or a model, or a buyer to do this business. All you need are some organizing skills and a knack for giving tours. It’s called a fashion tour business.
It helps if you enjoy giving a tour, because you will be herding a group of people around and showing them your town, giving them information about local culture and history, including of course, the best fashion haunts and bargain places. If you think you have the skills and the confidence, then starting a local fashion tour business might just be for you.
The idea is to book groups of people into pre-arranged tours, and develop an itinerary for them that will take them to places to get the best fashion finds in stylish shops and districts in your locality. Your job is to be the tour expert, showing the group the latest trends in clothing, cosmetics, shoes, bags, and other accessories, giving them information about the fashion industry and maybe even some local fashion trend forecasts.
You can design the tour to go around the fashion district in your area, visiting boutiques, retailers, fashion shops, designer stores, department stores, selected shops, and other fashion entrepreneurs. The key is to bring them to places where they can find what they are looking for.
To give it a different dimension and make it more inspiring, you can include a sit-down with someone from the local fashion industry, maybe a home-grown designer if you’re lucky enough to know one willing to give you time, or an editor or staff of a fashion magazine published in your area.
But before you can give the fashion tour, you need to do some homework first.
Organize your tour by looking for a good route to take when showing your tour group around and bring them to shops and stores they might find hard to locate on their own. Select shops that have good quality items and are presentable to bring your clients to.
Also determine if you want to do a general tour or stick to themed tours, like going to stores and shops that offer the cheapest rates for a bargain tour, or selecting only those out-of-the-way shops that are local favorites and which your clients might not find on their own. You can also customize according to the age of the buyers, brands, or products, from garments, shoes, bags, accessories, to cosmetics, sports items, underwear, toys, or gadgets.
The way to earn is to charge each member of the group a fee for your services. You can also strike a deal beforehand with the shop or store owners to give you a certain percentage of whatever sale they get from the customers you bring to them.
Instead of just a few hours, you can extend the tour to a whole day, if all is going well and the group is eager for more shopping. You can charge more for the additional hours. And as the group will need to get some snacks or lunch, you can take them to restaurants or cafes where you have a pre-arranged deal with the owners to give you a percentage or a fee for the business you give to them.
It is obvious that you need transportation to bring your tour group to and from the pre-determined destinations. You can hire a minibus that will ferry your tour group around. If you have had enough success with this business, you can buy or lease a vehicle for this purpose.
Have some variation up your sleeves; offer to give other kinds of tours that people will find interesting, even if they’re not related to fashion. Tours showcasing the unique character of the place can be a good option.
For instance, you can create a tour that will take your clients to the best places to eat in your locality. You can even integrate this in your fashion tour, if it is for the whole day and if your tour group is willing to do it. Anything that you think will keep your tour group happy will have a bigger chance of success.
Most towns and cities appreciate fashion tour businesses because it brings in a lot of tourists which is very good for local business. It also showcases and enhances the local fashion industry and puts the place in the fashion map of the region or even the country as well. Surely the boutiques, shops and stores are happy with the customers you give them, not to mention the restaurants and cafes that serve your guests.
Like all other service-oriented business, always serve your clients well, anticipating their needs and making it easy and convenient for them to fully enjoy the tour. The quality of your service can make or break you. Needless to say, a top-notch service is carried well by word-of-mouth.
Author Bio:
Pritam Nagrale is a blogger & internet marketer from Mumbai. He writes about online business, make money online tips, work that can do from home, you can read more of his articles on moneyconnexion.com He also provides career oriented classroom training from his Mumbai office. You can follow him on Google+.
