How to uncover niches for clothing brands

Finding a niche in your market can be a massive challenge as a clothing brand.

With a number of competitors and copycat businesses taking popular trends and making them cheaper, coming up with new product lines that fill a niche and are unique can feel nearly impossible. 

Because e-commerce has brought the world closer together, it has never been harder to get your products to stand out in the crowded international market. However, by understanding your competitors and your unique selling points you can still succeed. That is why we have created the Competitive Positioning framework.       

Using our Competitive Positioning framework will help you find gaps in the marketplace so you can create a unique product line that stands out in a sea of competition.

Download the framework template here

Competition Framework

To use this framework, you need three things.

Step 1: Is to write down the top competing factors for your market. 

Competing factors are the different areas your business competes in. For example, some businesses pride themselves on having a super high-quality product, while others compete on price.

Here are ten competing factors that most clothing brands compete on: 

1. Price - How Expensive are your products?
2. Convenience - How easily and quickly can customers buy products?
3. Customer Service - What level of service do you offer to your customers?
4. Quality - How well made are the products?
5. Environmental/ Ethical - What impact does your product have on the environment and the people making it?
6. Community - How much of a community does your brand have around it? 
7. Marketing - How much money does your brand spend on marketing, and how effective is that marketing?
8. Product Presentation - How well do you present your products online and in-store?
9. Customer Loyalty - How loyal are customers to the brand
10. Speed to Market - How quickly can the brand adapt to trends or changes in the market?

Step 2: You need to get a list of the top competitors you are going up against in your market.

These are the top competitors your target audiences will judge your products by.

Step 3: Start rating yourself and your competitors against the competing factors of your market.

If you're doing the research internally, you can start by researching their websites, press releases, socials as well as any advertising they put out. You can go much deeper if you have access to tools like Ubersuggest, SEMrush, and IBIS World. Though these tools can be costly, if you want a more profound understanding, I recommend reaching out to our team to give you a hand. 

If you have a good understanding of your market, you can estimate where each of your competitors ranks and still get a good understanding of your market. 

Once completed, you can create a line chart that overlaps your competitors' ratings against each other, showing what we call a competitive positioning graph. This graph will help you see an overview of your market and find new opportunities.

Example:

For example, this is a breakdown of a competitive positioning graph we have completed for a client.

Using this, we could easily find gaps in the market, allowing them to make an informed decision about their next brand decision and new product lines. At the same time, avoiding wasted time and money on unprofitable product lines with no clear niche or message. 

:See the video below for a breakdown.