Top 11 reasons why franchisees fail in Apparel Business

While checking my feeds on Facebook, I came across one post with a question about the biggest risk in life someone had ever taken. Though I had many instances in my life, the experience of being a franchise owner was the special one. I replied with a few words about the loss faced in this venture. Someone in the reply asked me about my learning in this business. Below are some of the points I shared in the same chain. I believe my experience will help people interested in the apparel retail franchise business.

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Top Reasons of My Failure in Franchise Business

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1. Always do proper research before investing in any business even if you have good product knowledge. Many people start different businesses with the motivation of their product expertise but forget about basic and important business requirements at the start.
2. For a franchise business, your location, customer footfall, and product category according to the market segment are very important and that was where I did the miscalculation.
3. Always get advice from experts in the same business that I didn’t do and started a business on my own.
4. Your business is yours so if you can’t give proper time to your business and will rely solely on salesmen then you will most probably see failure, customer relations are important in all businesses and that is something you as a business owner can do better at the start of your business. I started this as a side business and couldn’t give proper time.
5. In Apparel retail franchise business, You have no control over the online sales of your brand because this will be monitored by the online sales team separately through the channels devised by the brand owner. Due to this reason, I couldn’t generate any sales through online mediums.
6. Keep the equal amount as a reserve against what you will invest otherwise you may need to borrow money to run the business in case of loss.
7. Do everything in writing with your partner or franchise owner.
8. Keep the fixed cost as much low as possible.
9. Start your business almost one or two months before your peak season.
10. Remember your immediate family would be your biggest support so always take them in full confidence before taking any risk.
11. I was not familiar with social media marketing as well as online graphic design platforms like canva otherwise I could promote my franchise to the target audience in a better way.