Are you thinking about starting or improving your clothing store on Shopify? If so, it’s a good idea to study and draw inspiration from the best stores out there.
That way, instead of figuring things out yourself and learning only through trial and error, you can manage your business with greater clarity and have less room for amateurish mistakes.
To help you out, I reviewed a ton of stores and put together a list of successful clothing brands on Shopify. As well as the simple and impressive principles we can steal from them.
But before we talk about these stores and the lessons they hold, I’ll first answer the question on every fulfillment beginner’s mind. Should you use Shopify to build your clothing store?
Let’s dive in!
Should I Choose Shopify To Build My Clothing Store?
Shopify is one of the best ecommerce platforms available. It’s easy to set up, there are tons of customizable themes, and you don’t need any technical knowledge to manage your store. Plus, they provide great 24/7 customer support.
Shopify also offers over a hundred store templates compatible with devices like smartphones, tablets, desktops, etc. But, if you want to build your store from scratch, Shopify also allows you to design with programming languages like Javascript, CSS or HTML, and more.
Thanks to its simple interface, advanced features, and the useful drag-and-drop store-building support, building your ecommerce store with Shopify is now easier than ever. So, yes. You can build your clothing store with Shopify.
12 Inspiring Shopify Clothing Stores To Learn From
As a beginner looking to grow your online clothing store, you can learn different actionable design and marketing tips from these 12 successful fashion ecommerce brands.
1. Taylor Stitch
Taylor Stitch is a men’s classic fashion brand that sells limited edition and eco-friendly vintage clothing. Its Shopify store has an uncluttered black and white page layout, with model photos covering most of the screen and an impossible-to-miss navigation bar. Overall, their homepage is visually appealing and easy to navigate.
A solid aspect of the Taylor Stitch brand is its resounding call to social and environmental responsibility. In the product descriptions, it states where it produces each item and the materials it uses.
The company also does a good job of marketing their limited edition items by informing shoppers of the environmental costs of mass production, creating an urgency to buy while highlighting the environmental benefits of buying their items.
2. Hiut Denim
Hiut Denim is a popular clothing brand that sells men’s and women’s luxury denim items.
A key lesson to borrow from this jean company is the importance of a customer-first approach. Its Shopify store is minimalistic and easy to navigate, with a white navigation panel and only three buttons at the top, as well as large and contrasting gray product photos and backgrounds.
On all its product pages, Hiut Denim depicts items in full-width images, exposing their fine details and enabling shoppers to make better-informed choices. It also offers an easy-to-use measuring guide and size converter for buyers to ensure they get the right fit.
Like Hiut Denim, you want to put your products front and center. From the customer’s perspective, you seem professional enough to not mind revealing the full nature of your goods.
With useful features like measurement guides, clear product images and helpful tips for maintaining purchases, it hardly seems like a bad idea to shop with Hiut Denim. Like them, you can make customer satisfaction an important aspect of your Shopify store design.
3. Faherty
Founded by twin brothers Alex and Mike Faherty, Faherty is a beach lifestyle and clothing brand that sells men’s, women’s, and kid’s casual clothes.
When you click on an item, it redirects to another page with a full product presentation, including information about size, fabric, design, etc. Despite being comprehensive, the product pages remain clean and uncluttered, ensuring they don’t overwhelm the buyer with information.
The website also features a lot of simple and natural photography that complements the casual theme of its products and visuals.
Like Faherty, your store should be both informative and organized, giving shoppers relevant details about a product. But not in an unbearable manner that affects a smooth experience.
4. Under 5’10
As you guessed, Under 5’10 is a fashion brand that sells clothing for people under 5’10. Men under 5’10 to be precise. Founded in 2017, the clothing company markets itself as the hub of stylish apparel for short men.
On its homepage, set apart by the large model photos, is a simple navigation bar with a search button, links to its product collection, sizing guide, a returns and exchanges section, its blog, and the user’s cart and account options, This simple interface makes it possible for any user to comprehend and move through their website with ease.
Under 5’10 also does a great job of catering to its well-defined audience (short men). When shopping for pants, for example, they provide a tutorial video for shoppers to measure their inseam (inner legs). But, if that’s difficult, they also provide a sizing chart that offers recommendations based on height and body type.
If, like Under 5 ’10, you have a very specific customer base – for example. plus size people or pregnant mothers, you want your store to cater to their troubles as much as possible. In Under 5’10’s case, they provide user-friendly features like a measurement guide and a size recommendation chart to solve the problem of short men not finding the right fit.
5. Kerrits
Kerrits is a clothing brand that sells women’s and children’s horse riding apparel. Their lovely designs are popular among equestrians (horse-riders) for blending style and functionality in riding-themed everyday clothing.
Its navigation bar is bright and easy to see, and its Shopify store is well-organized, with a minimalistic overall design and large model photos that display items in action.
Kerrits was first a wholesaler, but after seeing an opportunity in direct-to-consumer fashion ecommerce, they diversified their business structure to serve both businesses and consumers.
So, to cater to both customer types, Kerrits’ website has a button at the bottom of the page for customers to switch between the separate business sections.
Like Kerrits, you can optimize the process of browsing your website to make it less of a chore and more of a pleasant experience. You can even take catering to your customer types a step further (as we’ll see with #12), by placing the switch button at the top of your page, so interested shoppers can find your transition between business types with zero effort.
6. Big Bud Press
Big Bud Press is an online clothing brand that sells size-inclusive unisex clothes. The brand is popular for its bright and unique visuals, as well as its large model photos that come off as natural and all-inclusive.
After visiting its homepage, you’re welcomed with a large photo of four weight-inclusive models. Firstly, the non-professional, everyday-looking models convey the feeling that Big Bud Press isn’t another fashion store saturated with skinny six-foot models.
Rather, it comes off as a store that accommodates regular people who want to feel fashionable in their own skin.
Like other Shopify stores on this list, Big Bud Press’s Shopify store is also built with easy navigation in mind. The pages have a simple white and blue color layout, with the white navigation bar clear and easy to see.
Kudos to Big Bud Press for nailing their story (size-inclusiveness) with awesome product photography.
7. Negative
Negative is a clothing brand that sells minimalist women’s underwear and comfort clothing, including loungewear, sleepwear, underwear, swimsuits, and more.
The brand’s unique appeal is that it creates the most comfortable women’s underwear, without padding, lace, frills or any of the uncomfortable parts of traditional women’s underwear.
Negative also does a good job with its professional photography. Taking up the most space on their web pages are large and close-up, high-resolution photos of clear-skinned models wearing their underwear options.
And, true to its story of minimalism, its user-friendly Shopify store features a simple white and black layout, with clear navigation buttons and large product photos.
Like Negative, your Shopify clothing store can use a lot of attention-grabbing product photos. And like other great Shopify clothing stores, you can make ease of navigation a design priority.
8. Cettire
Cettire is one of the world’s most famous ecommerce and dropshipping stores, offering men’s, women’s, and children’s fashion. They source and sell items from over 500 designer brands like Versace, Palm Angels, Gucci, and Balenciaga.
Cettire’s online store uses a lot of large and clear product images that are user-friendly, as the image size and intentional lack of visual elements make it easy for shoppers to focus on items’ fine details.
The luxury fashion brand also uses an awesome buyer magnet – free worldwide delivery for orders over $250. Cettire’s offer is great because it removes the barrier to buying that shipping poses. And it’s strategically smart because most luxury fashion shoppers spend well over $250.
9. Fashion Nova
Fashion Nova is the world’s largest store for women’s clothing, lifestyle products, and luxury fashion items. It also holds the record for being the most Googled clothing brand and Shopify store in 2018.
Its well-known for supplying pop in-demand styles to people all across the globe. And, celebrities like Kylie Jenner, Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, and Blac Chyna often flaunt Fashion Nova’s pieces in music videos and partnership videos.
Since its start, Fashion Nova’s main focus was to market itself as an Instagram brand. So, its Shopify pages use a lot of Instagram-like bright colors and buttons. Today, they’re a pop cultural phenomenon, boasting over 21 million followers on Instagram alone.
Another important aspect of their store and the most striking element you notice is the big banners advertising discounts. The brand also largely markets itself as a discount hub for the finest grade of cheap fashion. So it makes sense that a lot of Fashion Nova’s marketing is channeled towards how much you can save when you shop for clothes with them.
10. Zanerobe
Zanerobe is a men’s streetwear clothing brand that offers a wide range of men’s urban fashion items. In its store, you can find all sorts of men’s clothes like shirts, jackets, pants, shorts, tees, joggers, hoodies, accessories, and more.
Its Shopify store pages are neatly organized, with a simple black and white layout. And, the brand makes good use of large professional photos that display striking models dressed in their iconic outfits, that offer a great first impression for its target market.
Zanerobe sets a good example for clothing businesses looking to go beyond just selling products.
It operates a blog section that offers fashion, photography, and music content relevant to its style and target audience – adult men aged 18-35. That aside, it runs an interesting gallery section titled “Those Who Wear,” showcasing black and white photos of high-profile personalities rocking Zanerobe merchandise, from basketballers like Russell Westbrook to musicians and record producers like Kendrick Lamar, Macklemore, Diplo, The Game, Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, and more.
Zanerobe’s “Those Who Wear ” section (which works great as social proof) and lifestyle blog are excellent marketing vehicles, given that young adults trying to keep up with the newest street-fashion and art trends make up their main customer base.
11. Goodfair
Goodfair is a thrifting-based clothing brand with a huge focus on eco-friendliness. Founded by Topper Luciani, its mission is to promote conscious consumerism and kill fast fashion faster than fast fashion kills the earth.
Just as you would expect from a brand with such strong values, its story and mission are prominent features on almost every store page. In product descriptions, Goodfair clearly states their sourcing, manufacturing, and delivery processes. Goodfair also sells most of its items in bundles, encouraging customers to cut costs and reduce the environmental toll of shipping.
In addition to mission-themed product page content, Goodfair has an educational blog that covers various sustainability topics, furthering the idea of a true commitment to eco-friendliness. After scrolling to the bottom of the home page, you also see their “environmental counter,” a huge green banner of text that displays how much money, carbon, water, and clothing pieces it has saved through its efforts.
Goodfair is a good example of a Shopify store that embodies a message (sustainability) and communicates it perfectly. This works great because social responsibility is a useful marketing tool for encouraging people to choose you over another store.
12. PinkBlush
PinkBlush is an maternity and women’s clothing brand trying to prove that pregnant women too can be fashionable. Although it’s famous as a maternity brand, PinkBlush also offers plus-size and non-pregnant women’s clothing like jeans, swimsuits, and dresses.
So, to accommodate its different customer groups, shoppers can instantly switch between the maternity and women’s sections, removing the need to comb through mismatched products.
PinkBlush also does a good job of marketing with social proof. Along with product announcements, it shares hashtags and encourages customers to tag them and send photos of themselves rocking PinkBlush merchandise to stand a chance at winning an image spot on their website.
Conclusion
There you have it – the top 12 Shopify clothing stores to draw inspiration from. As you’ve seen, each clothing brand we’ve discussed has its unique design tactics and marketing strategies.
From Taylor Stitch’s focus on sustainability and social responsibility, to Big Bud Press’s inclusive and approachable branding and Zanerobe’s lifestyle marketing to its streetwear audience, there are valuable lessons we can all take from these Shopify stores.
Remember to focus on what these ecommerce clothing stores have in common. Qualities like a unique brand identity, great product descriptions, high-quality photography, social proof tactics, user-generated content like customer photos and reviews, and, most importantly, a user-friendly interface.
If your online clothing business can get these basics right, you can improve your online presence, gain your audience’s trust, and ultimately drive sales and grow your business.
Shopify Clothing Store FAQs
Can I Make Money Selling Clothes on Shopify?
Yes, of course. The fashion e-commerce industry is worth nearly $900 billion, in 2023, according to Statista. So, the market’s big enough for anyone looking to start an online clothing business.
Besides, clothes are always in demand, meaning business opportunities in the fashion ecommerce industry will forever remain open to newcomers. At least, until the day humans no longer need clothes.
However, success isn’t cheap. You’ll need to do a lot of work to market yourself, attract customers, grow your brand, and establish customer loyalty. But, yes. When done right, you can make money selling clothes on Shopify.
Can I Make and Sell Clothes Directly on Shopify?
On the internet, you can sell clothes however you want, whether you make them yourself or dropship them from suppliers.
Can I Sell Clothes on Shopify Without Inventory?
Yes, you can. If you choose to dropship products, you won’t need a physical inventory to manage your stock. You can order just enough products to satisfy your customers’ demands.
As a dropshipping beginner, you can find help with Globallyfulfill. Our team provides valuable support and guidance to help you navigate the unfamiliar terrains of dropshipping.
We also offer product sourcing and quality-inspection services, order fulfillment, inventory management, store branding, and shipping logistics services, taking most store management processes off of your plate.
How Do I Make the Best Shopify Clothing Store?
There isn’t a magic recipe for making a successful Shopify clothing store. As we said, it takes time, learning, dedication, and a lot of work. But you can improve your chances of success by ticking these boxes.
Brand appeal: Customers need a reason to shop with you, and not with your competitors. That’s why develop a brand for your business. One with a unique personality and set of values that set you apart from the competition. Without a brand identity, your audience has no reason to choose you and they will choose the next store.
But, know that your brand appeal doesn’t have to be majestic. It could be that you offer the best discounts. Or that you commit to sourcing only eco-friendly clothing. Or you create non-conventional clothing styles for misrepresented peoples in the fashion world like plus-size, short, or really tall people.
Great user experience: All successful Shopify stores do one thing right – they offer a great user experience. So great that their customers come back for more.
Generally, all your store pages should load quickly and be easy to navigate. And, the visual elements and color schemes you use shouldn’t be distracting or overwhelming. Rather they should work together to emphasize the relevant parts of your page like product collections, discount ads, product descriptions, etc.
Your online store should also be mobile-friendly. It’s a well-known fact that over 50% of all Google searches happen on mobile devices like tablets and smartphones. Hence, you need to optimize your store pages for mobile viewing and responsiveness.
Other than that, avoid annoying pop-ups, implement 24/7 chatbots that provide general assistance to shoppers, and make the checkout process as smooth and frictionless as possible.
Visual appeal: To stand out, your ecommerce store must also be attractive and visually organized. So, use eye-catching photos that display products in your audience’s style. The more professional your business looks, the more trustworthy you seem.
There’s no one size fits all recipe for becoming a successful online clothing business. So keep learning and be ready to adapt to changes in the ecommerce market to position your Shopify store for long-term success.
What Do Successful Shopify Clothing Stores Have In Common?
Here, we’ll look at the most common store features you can commonly find across successful Shopify stores;
- Quick load time.
- A well-designed store.
- A mobile-friendly site
- Relevant product collections.
- Amazing product descriptions
- Professional product images.
- Strong social proof and customer reviews.
When your store combines these factors, the result is a smooth and pleasant user experience. And the more satisfied customers are, the more likely they are to come back for more.
How Do I Advertise My Shopify Clothing Store?
Digital marketing offers many opportunities to spread the word about your brand and engage the customers you find. But I won’t get into the nitty gritty here. Rather, we’ll only look at the four most common advertising methods ecommerce brands use.
- Email Campaigns; Email marketing is a great and inexpensive way to advertise your brand. You can run a welcome email series for capturing and engaging first-timers at your store. And, launch a newsletter or customer loyalty program to stay connected with your growing email list of subscribers. There’s more detail to the types of email strategies, so I’ll share this guide to the types of email marketing.
- Social media; Social media platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter have a combined monthly user base of over 4 billion people. This vast audience gives you the potential to attract and engage your target market worldwide.
- Influencer Marketing; Influencer marketing is an effective method to quickly expose your products to new audiences. By partnering with influencers, who possess large social media followings, you can not only increase brand visibility but also establish trust and followership through mini-brand advocates (influencers).
- Paid Search; Paid advertising is a go1od way to get people to view your brand. Invest in ads and bid on keywords to appear in search engine results. The most common paid search platform is Google Ads. That’s because over 93% of internet searches happen on Google. Paid ads require more money but result in increased traffic, high ROI, and, sometimes, instant improvements..
From email marketing to social media to influencer marketing to paid search, there are plenty of ways to get your brand out there. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to brand marketing. There are many more ways to promote your clothing brand.
