Create your own on-line store !

This is the lesson Number 7 :
What if you created a fashion shop on the Internet ? There are many advantages to sell clothes on the Internet. Indeed, no need to move around to your shop if it is « virtual » ! Stay at home and manage it very simply. But how, will you ask me ?

You can find a good website to host you for example (you can be part of a big website which sells other brands) and then try to find advertisers to earn money in a different way from just selling your fashion clothes. It is good to be able to rely on several sources of revenue.
However, let me tell you that generally it is easier to « open » a clothes shop on the Internet if your brand is already known thanks to a « real » store. I'll take the example of a big shop like the « Galeries Lafayette », which is a very famous French one.

The "Galeries Lafayette" opened its shopping center on Internet in April 2008 :
Recently, they decided to create their own website to sell their products on the Internet. And it works...

This is their 61st shop dedicated to clothes and accessories. It is another way to earn more money and the clients who buy on the Internet have reductions and other advantages (for example they can buy some clothes early). What's more, having such a website allows the « Galeries Lafayette » to reach other segments of potential buyers like young people who like surfing the Net or on the contrary old people who can't move around anymore ; we can also think of workers who don't have time to do shopping or, who knows, even misanthropists who prefer the calmness of their home to the agitation and the crowd of big stores...At the moment, 3 000 products are available on the website, deliverable in 48h everywhere in Europe and in 3h in Paris.
About 55 brands federated around this project, amongst them Diesel, Zadig & Voltaire, Maje, Sandro, DKNY, Antik Batik, Swarovski, Mac Laren, Hugo Boss, Paul Smith, Ralph Lauren...

American and British stores already well set up on the web :
French shops begin to understand the importance of e-commerce, including in the luxury sector. galerieslafayette.com's ambition is to earn €3,5M before the end of the year, and more than €100M by 2015. The e-store would thus become the second store of the group, after the Boulevard Haussmann's one.