Website Closers® presents an eCommerce clothing and apparel producer functioning as an independent manufacturer for 11 brands. The company is an online-only brand builder with over ten years of experience launching and scaling digital brands globally.
The portfolio is diverse, and the business model is designed to be replicated for new or acquired brands. Anything in the apparel sector can be manufactured, and the facility is capable of launching new product lines within 14 days. All products are sold under the company’s brand names, and printed hoodies, sweatshirts, sweatpants, t-shirts, and swim shorts account for 90% of all printed sales. The athleisure segment of the business has enormous scale potential, with winning items that have remained top sellers for years.
The inventory model is two-fold. 150,000 pieces are kept in stock, while others are made to order. Due to the variety of SKUs and brands, the business experiences little seasonality in sales. T-shirts and swim shorts encounter a peak from June through August, while hoodies, sweatshirts, sweatpants, and leggings negate revenue swings. That revenue is primarily driven by D2C customers in Europe, with additional markets in the US, Canada, and Australia. Management has recently begun focusing on marketplaces and wholesale as another area for proliferation. Those two channels now account for 25% of overall sales.
The archetypal customer is, of course, diverse, given the multitude of brands. Those brands typically target women aged 25 to 34 and men between 18 and 34. Generally, they are heavy internet and social media users, have extrovert personalities, like to stand out, and express their style. They also have an average or above-average financial standing. This has allowed the leadership to simplify analytics and marketing. The company has a special office for data analysis, brand creation, and management for optimal return.
Astutely, the business has acquired three competitors to consolidate and take market share. They have witnessed excellent returns directly and indirectly. Each brand has a different target and strategy, closely observed by the marketing team.
The company built its own software for manufacturing and warehousing and uses an in-house eCommerce platform that has been developed and refined over the past seven years. The platform would cost a competitor nearly $2 million to replicate. It is built of modules that can be mixed, matched, and adapted to the requirements and types of products sold by any brand. It also ensures workflow optimization with a well-functioning admin panel and has numerous integration possibilities, such as logistics providers, payment operators, or marketplace connections. The admin panel provides tools to manage customer data, product life cycle, and data such as photos, videos, and prices. It is used to build the top layer of the eCommerce store and to configure mechanisms affecting the quality of the potential customer’s purchasing process, as well as the instruments influencing sales conversions. The admin panel may also be used for report generation and employee permissions management. The dashboard provides a summary of sales and an analytical tool that allows the creation of future marketing campaigns based on historical data. It’s a unique platform adapted to the requirements and type of products a given brand sells with a vast array of well-designed functionalities.
The owner has systemized the company incredibly efficiently and now works only two to three hours daily in a supervisory role. 150 production, marketing, and other department employees are spread across several entities.
Lead generation is achieved through the implementation of various strategies. Performance marketing on Facebook and Google and influencer marketing generate a return on advertising spend of between 200% and 2,000%. Regular newsletters are sent to the email database of 250,000+ subscribers, and SEO has continuously been refined for optimal conversion, which includes a blog on the websites.
No particular skills are required by a buyer, as the owner has tried to hire and develop talent internally wherever possible. He is highly motivated to put the company he has grown for 11 years into good hands and assist wherever necessary for a seamless transition and continued success.
Scale opportunities are rife. International expansion into foreign markets would be a shrewd move and escalating successful influencer marketing across all brands is low-hanging fruit.
Cross-selling among the current brands has also been identified as a straightforward method to increase sales and conversion rates, and the growing wholesale channel is proving lucrative. An owner could scale the in-house eCommerce platform as an Independent SaaS and rent out idle manufacturing capacity to other merchandisers. Licensing agreements and expanding onto Amazon and other eCommerce platforms provide additional room for augmentation.
