Wunderlich

A customer called me recently and asked me whether I think he should focus on non branded clothing or brand name clothing.

His question is based on the following idea.

Brand name clothing is highly recognizable by customers because the brands spend millions of dollars marketing themselves. Non branded clothing, basically clothing by smaller labels or imported from overseas, have no name recognition. But the flip side is that non branded clothing can be purchased and resold for allot less than branded clothing.

So how do you decide between selling non branded and brand name clothing?

For starters you need to know who your customers are.

Although the following might not be politically correct you need to understand this.

Lower income customers might want brand name clothing but they cannot afford it. So even though they would love to have brand name clothing they will usually settle for non branded clothing.

On the other hand more affluent customers will want only branded clothing because they have more pressure in terms of keeping up with the latest styles.

Now the above is true in the theoretical world. But in the real world everyone wants brand name clothing.

So how do you as a reseller buy brand name clothing at prices low enough to sell to your poorer customers?

You need to purchase overstock clothing.

Overstock clothing consists of clothing which a department store did not sell within a set period of time. A department store wants to always have new merchandise on its racks. Whatever does not sell within a set period of time will be sold out as overstock.

Since the overstock consists of brand names you have a great opportunity.

You can get a hold of brand new clothing by leading brands at a fraction of the regular wholesale price.

Whats the catch?

When you purchase overstock clothing you will receive a wide assortment of styles and sizes. You cant specify the number of pants or skirts, or sizes for that matter.

So while this might discourage some people from purchasing overstock clothing, just think of the advantages of buying brand names like Polo Ralph Lauren, Tommy, Liz Claiborne, Ecko, and Baby Phat, for a fraction of the regular wholesale price.

I stress on my site, closeoutexplosion.com, that customers will receive an assortment of brands and styles, and also the average retail price of the items that I have.

This way resellers can decide the merits of buying and selling overstock merchandise for themselves.

While overstock clothing might not work if you need a full range of sizes for a given item, it definitely works if you want to buy brand name clothing at the lowest possible wholesale prices.

Donny Lowy operates the following wholesale sites:

http://www.closeoutexplosion.com
http://www.salehoo.net
http://www.wholesalecloseoutforum.com