How to Build a Subscription-Based Fashion Business from Scratch

We don’t want to brag, but this is one of our best episodes yet on The Ecom Show!

This week our new friend Matt Bird from the UK dishes out some helpful secrets while telling us his story and how it helped him develop his formula for success in the fashion industry!

From moderately successful ecommerce menswear brand to a massively successful subscription-based fashion company, you can listen in and learn about Matt Bird and the success of his company The Shirt Society while he sits down with Budai media founder Daniel to discuss:

✔️ Building a fashion brand from scratch

✔️ The beauty of subscription-based businesses

✔️ Learning from your customers

✔️ Finding loyal customers for life

✔️ When to look for outside investors

What it Takes to Make it in Fashion

Although Matt has seven years of experience in the men’s fashion space, he says anyone can develop an idea and run with it. Sure it helps to have the experience, but in the world of ecommerce, anything is possible.

Matt never had aspirations to own a physical retail shop for men’s clothing. Ecommerce and online shopping have enabled him to become a business owner with almost nothing to start with (aside from an idea, a basic Shopify store, a logo, and a well-written organic post on Linkedin).

Subscription Models are the Future

Daniel and Matt both agree that subscriptions give you the peace of mind and stability you won’t find with regular ecommerce shops. Matt first dreamed up The Shirt Society when he realized that people were only buying shirts one or two times a year, so sales were not consistent enough.

He thinks it’s better to have 3000 customers paying 20 pounds a month for a new shirt than having 10,000 customers purchasing a shirt one time and never returning. It helps to plan for the future and scale up accordingly.

Customers are the Key

It might come as a surprise that The Shirt Society was the brainchild of Matt and his first businesses’ customers. After reaching out to people who purchased shirts from him, he realized people’s pain points in the industry. Men don’t want to shop for shirts, they don’t like figuring out where to shop, and they were the ones to suggest a subscription model!

If Matt hadn’t listened to his customers, he would have never known how to improve his services and retain his customers longer! You should never be too stubborn to listen to the people supporting your business because you would have nothing without them.

Customer Lifetime Value vs. Revenue

Everyone has their favorite metrics to serve as a barometer for their business, but Matt is a keen advocate for Customer Lifetime Value. You can have months with big revenue, but the next month you might disappear. Some brands look tremendous and fall apart in the blink of an eye because they aren’t inconsistent.

Matt’s business isn’t just about selling shirts. They seek to make their customer experience better, listen to what they have to say, and keep them engaged, so they stick around. That’s the real product!

Finding Investors that are a Good Fit

Once you have proof of concept and you organically grow your business, you might attract investors. Matt says that after a twenty-minute meeting, he secured an agreement to inject capital into his business and help with connections and expertise. Having passion, enthusiasm, and a multi-year vision for where you want to go is essential if you dream of bringing in investors.

It is also important to note that you shouldn’t do this lightly and sell too much equity right off the bat to raise funds. You are better growing slowly and taking your time!

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Follow Matt:

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