Do you want to start a fashion stylist service and need to write a plan? If YES, here is a sample fashion stylist business plan template & feasibility report.
A fashion stylist is an individual or a business that develops the image of certain people, from models to celebrities, for print, television and movies. Many stylists graduate from colleges with associate’s or bachelor’s degrees in fashion design, fashion styling or a related major, but there are plenty of fashion stylists without formal training.
If you’ve got the gumption to work on your own and the skills to make someone look good, this is the job for you. But, first you have to determine the kind of styling you will focus on. You can work on wardrobe styling, celebrity styling, print or television styling, or all of them if you prefer.
Many fashion stylists meet their clients at the clients’ home or business, so you do not need to pay for any expensive overhead. Plenty people will want your services; the chief market is young professionals. These are up-and-coming people for whom image may be a deciding factor in both their professional and romantic aspirations.
How Much Fashion Stylists Make Monthly
How much you charge depends on your experience, the client’s needs, and your Business model. If you charge hourly rates, you will likely start out charging $20 to $50 an hour or $150 to $200 or so for a session (which may last most of a day).
With time and experience, you may consider raising your rates (it’s not unreasonable for a professional stylist to charge over $100 per hour and $1,000 or more a day), but you should also keep the local economy in mind: you don’t want to price yourself out of business.
It can be very hard determining how much profit you can make, as there are unknown factors such as how many clients you will have and what you will be charging them.
Someone charging $50 per hour who manages to work thirty hours per week, for instance, can easily make $78,000, and the lack of significant overhead means that the majority of this is profit. You can also supplement your business by advertising services such as personal shopping and even creating a blog about your experience in which things like referral links help drive your profits.
A Sample Fashion Stylist Business Plan Template
1. Industry Overview
Within the research period, 2019 – 2022, businesses in the fashion industry have witnessed store downsizings and lesser retail growth but growth in sales due to digital market presence.
According to reports, this effect has fuelled changes in the approach of the market players and this will continue, although with more emphasis on the growth of e- commerce, mobile shopping and meeting ever rising expectations of personalization among customers.
Physical stores all over the world are getting a face-lift to promote specific brands. The manufacturing sector are expected to see more technological upgrades with factors like labour cost, arrival of new industry players in the market posing more challenges in production and distribution.
The global fashion market is expected to cross the magical figure of $850 billion in 2023 based on the performance of businesses in the global fashion market.
The compound growth rate of this huge market is expected to be around 4 per cent in coming years, which is also attributed to increase in number of potential consumers and increase in working population globally. Asia Pacific is providing an impetus to this global growth by higher consumption.
On a global scale, the major factors affecting the global fashion market can be categorized into individual nation’s policies, consumer trends, environment, inclination of consumers towards online purchase, introduction of better technology equipped with Artificial Intelligence (AI) etc.
From 2019-2022, experts predict that online platforms, like Amazon, will experience at least 5 times more revenue compared to the previous period.
While consumers frequent websites to compare prices and products, global online platforms are expected to expand their fashion brand partnerships and develop additional engagement methods to stay competitive in the cut-throat digital shopping space.
Now the challenge is to collaborate with online platforms and boost fashion brands with strong online presence to attract more consumers.
Even with the challenges posed by excess product stock and slow growth in retail, the global fashion industry is poised to perform better in the next coming years. Emerging markets are set to overtake the west in a $2.5 trillion fashion industry, where nearly 50 per cent of fashion sales will originate from continents out of Europe and North America.
Asian markets are expected to perform better as consumers owing to larger working populations using newer trends in fashion, and lifestyle. Also, the Chinese fashion market will see 25 per cent increase in fashion sales in 2023 as compared to only 3-4 per cent increase in the US fashion market.
The fashion market in South America is expected to touch the mark of whopping $172 billion by 2022. The size of fashion market in the US alone is expected to reach $285 billion by 2025, as per the CAGR report.
While the global business in fashion market is expected to reach 600 billion in 2023 based on the growth factor indicators. At present, the US fashion market occupies 19 per cent of the global share, whereas the other developed countries account to 15 per cent after Chinese share of 24 per cent.
2. Executive Summary
Fairy Touch is an upscale casual women’s clothing boutique that will open this year in Silicon Valley, California. Fairy Touch’s clothing selections and exclusive personal style services, which include a detailed Style Assessment, will ensure that all customers are well dressed.
We will offer a significantly easier, more convenient, and customized shopping experience than can be found in high-end stores.
Our goal will be to always strive to achieve 100 percent customer satisfaction and create close ties with clients to ensure repeat business, encourage customer feedback to enhance further customized service, and promote word-of-mouth marketing.
For a low charge, allow people to obtain fashion and custom items with minimal interruption into their day and life. Our plan is to grow Fairy Touch into a large franchise with a reputation for getting the desired item at a reasonable cost.
Our shopping and personal fitting service will allow customers to purchase female fashion and necessities of life with little inconvenience to their schedule and workday.
We will do this with the aid of stylists to provide each customer with quality solutions to their shopping concerns at reasonable prices. Fairy Touch owner, Sydney Jones, has had years of experience in the retail market and is aware of trends in the shopping environment. In time, this service will evolve to incorporate a larger market.
We acknowledge that loyalty is hard to win and the fashion customer is very fickle. To overcome this, we will not compromise any part of our business. We will remain consistent and true to our vision and our mission. Fairy Touch will avoid excessive advertising that may lower the perception of our brand.
We will thoroughly cater to the needs and wants of our current client base and build trust with our clientele. We believe that word of mouth and inspiring imagination are the purest way to build the reputation of a fashion house. It’s very important to state that Fairy Touch will be completely financed by equity capital provided by Sydney Jones. We will pass our break-even point within the first year.
Conservative projections based on sales over the next three years yield annual revenue of $341,000 by Year 3. The company expects its cash account to remain healthy. We have made plans to employ diligent workers after one year of opening and we plan to train them to align well with our business vision and ethics.
3. Our Products and Services
Fairy Touch will offer upscale casual women’s clothing boutique for the people of Silicon Valley, California. Our clothing selections and exclusive personal style services, which include a detailed Style Assessment, will ensure that all customers are well dressed.
We will also specialize in personal gifts for people who desire the latest fashion and/or gift solutions for individuals who are hard to shop for. This service will provide insight, research, purchases, and delivery in custom packaging. Our focus is entirely the needs of our client. It is the job of our employees to translate those needs into low-cost solutions.
4. Our Mission and Vision Statement
- Our vision at Fairy Touch is to develop a profitable/sustainable fashion boutique that will reach the utmost level and maintain a benchmark for excellent services and customer satisfaction.
- Our mission at Fairy Touch is to attract and satisfy customers who will want our unique services.
- We hope to create a fashion styling company whose primary goal is to exceed customer’s expectations.
Our Business Structure
Fairy Touch is founded and operated by Sydney Jones. Sydney Jones is well known as an expert in the fashion industry. She has worked with Old Navy for three years. According to Sydney, within the time she worked at Old Navy, she discovered and loved the art of fashion styling, statement and expression.
Along the line she realized she needed to develop her own business, specifically a fashion styling boutique design. Sydney Jones within the one year will wear many different hats. She will be stylist and boutique attendant at Fairy Touch.
She will also handle all ordering of the inventories and sales of the apparels. From the beginning of the business’s second year, Fairy Touch will employ a solid workforce to helps achieve the business vision of becoming the number one fashion stylist in all of Silicon Valley.
5. Job Roles and Responsibilities
We at Fairy Touch plan to hire workers that are very qualified, innovative, customer centric, have good communication skills and are open to help us build a business that can compete in the industry. From our second year in business, we plan to hire qualified and competent hands to occupy the following offices;
- Chief Executive Officer
- Managing Director
- Admin and HR manager
- Fashion Stylists
- Marketing and Sales Manager
- Information director
- Company accountants
- Boutique attendants
- Deliverers
- Cleaners
- Security guard
Chief Executive Officer (Sydney Jones)
- She will be tasked with providing work direction for the business
- Tasked with building, communicating, and implementing the vision, mission, and direction of the business – which also includes leading the achievement and implementation of the all the business strategy.
- She’s also responsible for fixing prices and signing business deals for the business
- She’s tasked with employment
- She also pays workers salary
- She’s responsible for Signing checks and documents for and on behalf of the business
- She also Evaluates the success of the organization
Managing Director
- In charge of managing the daily activities of the company
- Makes sure the boutique is in very good shape and conducive enough for customers
- Connects with third – party providers (vendors)
- Tasked with supervising and training new staff members
- Reports to the Chief Executive Officer
- Settle all Customers complaints and enquiries
- Creates budget and reports for the boutique
- Any other duty as assigned by the CEO
Admin and HR manager
- Tasked with overseeing the running of HR and administrative tasks for the boutique
- Monitor office supplies by checking stocks; placing and expediting orders; evaluating new inventories.
- Ensures operation of equipment by completing preventive maintenance requirements; calling for repairs.
- State job positions for recruitment and managing interviewing process
- Organise staff induction for new team members
- Tasked with training, evaluation and assessment of employees
- Tasked with arranging travel, meetings and appointments
- Oversee the smooth running of the daily office activities.
Fashion Stylist
- Tasked with working through the styling process from research sketches and ideas to resolved designs for specific styles
- Will have to use hand and machine techniques to adjust samples and finished works
- Will have to use a variety of traditional and contemporary materials to interpret concepts
- Will have to use sewing machine and other equipment
- Planning the layout of specific style assessment
- Tasked with working to a particular style or pattern
- Charged with producing instructional articles on projects for fashion styling publications
- Be able to teach in higher education, fashion shows, courses and classes in fashion styling techniques.
Marketing and Sales Manager
- Oversee external research and coordinate all the internal sources of information to retain the boutique best customers and attract new ones
- Creates demographic information and analyse the volumes of transactional data generated by customer purchases
- Understand, prioritizes, and reaches out to new partners, and business opportunities et al
- Understand development opportunities; follows up on development leads and contacts
- Tasked with supervising implementation, advocate for the customer’s needs, and communicate with clients
- Keep all customer contact and information
- Represents the company in strategic meetings
- Aid to increase sales and growth for the business
Information director
- Tasked with the company website
- Takes care of the ecommerce aspect of the business
- In charge for installing and maintenance of computer software and hardware for the organization
- Take care of the logistics and supply chain software, Web servers, e-commerce software and POS (point of sale) systems
- Takes care of the organization’s CCTV
- Handles any other technological and IT related duties.
Company accountants
- Tasked with preparing financial reports, budgets, and financial statements for the company
- Updates the managements with financial analyses, development budgets, and accounting reports
- Tasked with financial forecasting and risks analysis.
- Understand cash management, general ledger accounting, and financial reporting
- Tasked with developing and managing financial systems and policies
- Tasked with administering payrolls
- Ensuring compliance with taxation legislation
- Take care of all financial transactions for the business
- Serves as internal auditor for the Company
Boutique attendant
- Quickly attends to customers in a friendly and professional manner
- Explain all available services to customers
- Takes care of any other duty as assigned by the Chief executive officer/managing director
Deliverers
- Delivers customer’s orders on time
- Delivers correspondence for the boutique
- Runs errand for the business
- Any other duty as assigned by the managing director
Cleaners
- Tasked with cleaning the boutique at all times
- Make sure the toiletries and supplies don’t run out of stock
- Handles any other duty as assigned by the manager.
Security guard
- Tasked with protecting the boutique and it’s environs
- Controls traffic and organize parking
- Give security tips when necessary
- Patrols around the building on a 24 hours basis
6. SWOT Analysis
At Fairy Touch, we have taken our time to research the industry and we acknowledge the need to be prepared and the importance of making adequate plans for our business. A SWOT analysis has been carried out to identify key challenges and propellers of Fairy Touch.
It is undeniable that while there are numerous opportunities in the fashion industry to cater to clients’ needs, there are also challenges and threats that Fairy Touch anticipates that we will face. Below is a summary of our SWOT analysis;
Strengths
- Our Business location is an economic hub
- We have no local competition within a 30-minute radius
- We have established customer service tradition
- Our vendors have high Reputation for high quality products and custom workmanship
- We can produce smaller jobs that some competitors will not accept
Weaknesses
- We are brand new in the Market
- We are small, and with limited resources.
- Small with limited staff
- Cash flow for publicity is impaired
- Business hours are limited for a retail establishment (Monday through Friday 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.)
Opportunities
- Fairy Touch Business area is super wealthy region.
- We should be able to capitalize on our competitive edge if we can get the word out.
- Fairy Touch sophisticated website will attract both local and out-of-area customers.
Threats
- Still learning industry
- Competitors are more seasoned in the industry
- This is an insider’s industry.
- We are still new in the Industry.
- Industry wide technological advances that could render existing store equipment as obsolete
- A new competitor opening in the immediate area
7. MARKET ANALYSIS
- Market Trend
Fashion is undeniably cyclical, with old trends reappearing constantly in new, innovative ways — and that’s just what experts predict will happen again over the next 10 years. Many of the next decade’s biggest trends are expected to draw from styles of the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, and even the 1920s. Due to this cyclical nature of fashion, each decade’s style is connected in one way or another.
For instance, exaggerated and feminine collars, which hark back to another trend of the 1960s and 1970s, are poised to make a major comeback. The trend was on show on the runways of Spring/Summer 2022 Fashion Week this past fall, and the look is already beginning to pop up in street style looks.
Inspired by 1960s fashion trends, crochet and woven garments are set to be huge in the coming years — most notably in the spring and summer seasons. Top designers Fendi, Marni, and Gabriela Hearst all debuted crochet garments during their recent Fashion Week shows. Also, bold, out-there, and Pop Art-inspired floral prints will continue to be everywhere.
One style prediction that will dominate the next decade too is the idea of androgyny and playing with traditional ideas of what men and women “should” wear. People have long broken fashion rules. One major trend we saw a lot of in the early 2000s was a devotion to designer brands — think Von Dutch hats, Juicy Couture sweat suits, designer handbags, and more.
Today, consumers still love brand-name and designer items, and this isn’t expected to change any time soon. Although people still love designer names, consumers also want to purchase higher quality, handmade items that will last a lifetime, or even multiple lifetimes, but may not necessarily carry a designer name.
Also, experts report that billions of pounds of textiles and clothing end up in landfills each year, so it may come as no surprise that sustainability is perhaps the biggest focus of the fashion industry in the next decade. Vintage shopping is playing a major role in allowing fashion lovers to experiment with “new” styles without purchasing “fast-fashion” clothing that tends to go out of style and is generally low-quality.
8. Our Target Market
In its broadest definition, the American shopping market consists of every American who needs to buy goods and services for themselves and their families. Although it is the aim of Fairy Touch to eventually reach out to not just women, but to a wide range of shoppers, including middle income families, busy professionals, and people looking for “hard to find” items.
Although we plan to focus first on the busy executive-type shoppers. These individuals often have extremely busy schedules, including a great deal of travel time. In addition, they possess a large proportion of disposable income that allows them to afford custom services.
This service will allow them more concentration on work, while allowing them to obtain great products for personal and business life. The best way to develop the company is to make our service necessary and accessible to the public. By facilitating their needs easily, we offer a great service at little inconvenience to them in a time where convenience matters the most.
Our Competitive Advantage
Although Fairy Touch will bring high-quality clothing and value to Silicon Valley women, the most significant competitive advantage Fairy Touch will have over all competitors is dedication to providing an approachable retail atmosphere with top-notch customer service.
Our unique selling proposition is the integrated concept of personal style services: from events and bios that educate shoppers on designers, to personalized Style Assessments, on-site alterations, and the Company’s own unique Style Concierges and wardrobe accessories.
In contrast to many other boutiques, Fairy Touch will become a Corporate member of the Silicon Valley Commerce Council so that any stylist will learn from the nation’s best on image consulting.
9. SALES AND MARKETING STRATEGY
- Sources of Income
Our revenues will be generated from apparel sales and repeat clients. Our service will be established as an easy and friendly way to shop without the hassle.
We will offer low introductory costs for our services. To ensure that all purchases will be worthwhile for the client, all of our orders will have a minimal amount required to cover any expenses incurred. This will be minimal, allowing for our services to be affordable.
Sydney has enough contacts in the Silicon Valley area who have expressed interest in the service that no advertising will be needed for the first year of operation. Subsequent advertising (which may not start until year two) will depend on word-of-mouth, a website, telephone directory ads, local newspaper ads and articles, and brochures.
10. Sales Forecast
We at Fairy Touch plan that our first month will be spent setting up the boutique and building up inventory. Then our second month will be spent traveling around visiting already established clientele trying to set up distribution channels. By the third month our sales activity must have started.
Sydney Jones will be on the road usually about a week per month traveling to different shows and exhibitions. This will occur for one year. Our second year will mark the time when Fairy Touch will hire capable hands to help achieve our goals. It will also allow Sydney Jones to concentrate on style assessment and production.
In both June and July we expect a two percent growth each month. From August to November, each month should reflect a growth of five percent, since many activities occur during the summer months. November will show approximately four percent, since this is usually a time of transitions.
December will show an increase to seven percent with many people buying for the holidays. January through April will be an increase of one percent each month; since this is a slow retail period.
This will result in a growth of 68 percent after the first year. From that, sales in 2023 will see a growth of 57 percent as we develop our team of consultants. By 2022, sales will show a 78 percent growth. By the end of the third year, we will be able to cover all of Silicon Valley.
- Marketing Strategy and Sales Strategy
At Fairy Touch, we are aware that our success in reaching our target market will greatly be dependent on our ability to utilize the web as a marketing avenue. Fairy Touch will have an extremely strong presence on the Web. We seek to develop a community of fashion conscious women who express themselves through their clothing.
Individuals will be able to create accounts on our website and input their profiles. Initially, we will exclusively rely on interpersonal social networking avenues to market Fairy Touch. But we plan to position our boutique as the fashion choice of modern, independent, and edgy woman, who is in control of her destiny.
We place a high value on the uniqueness of our customers. We also strive as much as possible to personally engage potential customers in our networks. We likewise place a strong emphasis on the ability to interact directly with the customer via Social networking sites including Facebook, Myspace, Instagram, YouTube, Flicker, Twitter, Pinterest, WordPress, LinkedIn, and Vine.
Participants will be able to join the Fairy Touch networks and interact with the stylists. These methods are cost effective, yet highly interactive and interpersonal.
To further market the brand, a weekly blog featuring different aspects of current and future concepts, showing who is styled by Fairy Touch, and listing upcoming Fairy Touch events, as well as other fashion news and advice will be offered by our boutique. This will enable consumers to follow the brand as it grows in popularity.
11. Publicity and Advertising Strategy
- We at Fairy Touch plan to build a standard Web page
- We plan to mount Fairy Touch billboards in all strategic points all around the region
- We plan to create a social media profile for Fairy Touch and also keep it booming
- We have made plans to provide different payment strategies for our clients at Fairy Touch
- We hope to make use of our advertising strategies judiciously
- We at Fairy Touch have made plans to ask and reward our existing customers for referrals
12. Our Pricing Strategy
Our prices will reflect the quality of the services and apparels within them. Pricing will be done at 100 percent profit margin based on the cost to buy apparels.
Apparels will thus be sold at double the cost from our vendor. This pricing strategy takes into account the entire cost of goods sold both fixed and variable which includes the cost of the samples for each concept and will allow the company to cover operating expenses and overhead costs.
- Payment Options
It’s our goal at Fairy Touch to make our customers the baseline of our business and satisfy there needs. We plan to establish a platform that will suit our diverse clients at different times. We have also partnered with a renowned banking platform to serve our clients very well and comfortably. We hope to make available the following payment options for our clients;
- Payment by via bank transfer
- Payment via online bank transfer
- Payment through POS
- Payment through PayPal
- Payment via check
- Payment via bank draft
- Payment with cash
13. Startup Expenditure (Budget)
Having done our research, we understand that the startup cost for a business like ours is divided into three folds; the cost of putting together the boutique structure, the capital meant for inventories, and the cost of other issues like advertising and business registration.
We’ve been very careful to research and understand the basic things we need to start a business that will be the best in little or no time. The financial projection and costing of Fairy Touch is outlined as follows;
- Cost of incorporating the Business – $750.
- Cost for basic insurance policy covers, permits and business license – $20,000
- The cost of acquiring a suitable boutique in Santa Clara for 6 months (Re – Construction of the boutique inclusive) – $250,000
- The budget for equipping the office (computers, software applications, printers, fax machines, furniture, telephones, filing cabins, safety gadgets and electronics et al) – $15,000
- The price of purchasing of the required software applications (CRM software, Accounting and Bookkeeping software and Payroll software et al) – $12, 000
- The Cost of Launching our official Website – $600
- Our budget for paying at least three employees for 6 months plus utility bills – $36,000
- Additional Expenditure (Business cards, Signage, Adverts and Promotions et al) – $2,500
- Our Inventory fund – $1,000,000
- Miscellaneous: $1,000
From our cost analysis above, we will need $350,000 and our $1,000,000 inventory fund to start Fairy Touch
Generating Funding/Start up Capital for Fairy Touch
It’s very important to state that Fairy Touch will be completely financed by equity capital provided by Sydney Jones. We will pass our break-even point within the first year. Conservative projections based on sales over the next three years yield annual revenue of $2,341,000 by Year 3. The company expects its cash account to remain healthy.
We have made plans to employ diligent workers after one year of opening and we plan to train them to align well with our business vision and ethics. Sydney Jones will prefer to fund the business privately for now, but are likely to source for external funds as the business grows. These are the areas we intend generating startup capital for Fairy Touch:
- Raise part of the startup capital from personal savings
- Source for soft loans from family members and friends
Note: Sydney Jones has been able to raise $1,600,000 through individual savings and the sell of her stocks with Old Navy. She believes she has what it takes to fund this business completely, while also giving the best to clients.
14. Sustainability and Expansion Strategy
Fairy Touch offers apparel sales, fashion shopping advice/expertise in trends, fashions, and emerging products, along with the purchasing and delivery of such items to the customer’s residence. It is assumed that most of the items purchased will be in single or small quantities.
The key attraction of such a service is that it significantly cuts down on shopping time for busy customers who wish to utilize their time for other purposes.
With the advent of computers and the Internet, it is believed that this service can be offered at a low cost, and can be enhanced through the use of an established-customer database to track individual preferences. Indeed, this is a luxury service.
An affordable cost will be needed to maintain clients and keep their needs constant. This requires being aware of economic changes, as well as alterations in trends. Presently, there are few services like this in the Silicon Valley area.
Therefore, there is a tremendous opportunity to build and retain significant market share. Clients choose and retain services like this often through word-of-mouth, when the boutique is able to achieve a high level of customer satisfaction.
Although it is the aim of Fairy Touch to significantly lower costs of this luxury service, at this time, cost does not play a significant factor in how customers choose a shopping service. The bottom line is establishing a strong intimate relationship with customers to capture the long-term profits through repeat business and create the enthusiasm among customers that will spur on word-of-mouth marketing.
We will also concentrate on expanding in other areas that have significant growth of young business persons and executives. Our ideal customer is a busy business person who is unable to find time for purchasing custom goods. We will provide this tailored service to work around their schedules, while maintaining a low cost.
Checklist/Milestone
- Business Name Availability Check: Completed
- Business Incorporation: Completed
- Opening of Corporate Bank Accounts : Completed
- Opening Online Payment Platforms: Completed
- Application and Obtaining Tax Payer’s ID: In Progress
- Application for business license and permit: Completed
- Purchase of Insurance for the Business: Completed
- Conducting feasibility studies: Completed
- Leasing, renovating and equipping our boutique: Completed
- Generating part of the startup capital from the founder: Completed
- Applications for Loan from our Bankers: In Progress
- Writing of Business Plan: Completed
- Drafting of Employee’s Handbook: Completed
- Drafting of Contract Documents: In Progress
- Design of The Company’s Logo: Completed
- Printing of Packaging and Promotional Materials: Completed
- Recruitment of employees: In Progress
- Purchase of software applications, furniture, office equipment, electronic appliances and boutique facelift: In progress
- Creating Official Website for the Company: In Progress
- Creating Awareness for the business (Business PR): In Progress
- Health and Safety and Fire Safety Arrangement: In Progress
- Establishing business relationship with banks, financial lending institutions, vendors and key players in the industry: In Progress