business plan online store pdf

How to Make an Ecommerce Business Plan for Your Startup

Darren DeMatas

February 28, 2024

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So you’ve decided that you want to quit your day job and start your very own ecommerce empire. That’s great!

But before you become the next Jeff Bezos  (and definitely before you quit your job!), it’s worth spending some time thinking about a business plan. In this article, we’ll dive into the key elements of an ecommerce business plan, which is very different than writing traditional business plans.

Why You Should Create a Business Plan

We know that starting an ecommerce business is exciting, and it can be tempting to jump right in without constructing a business plan. READ: PLEASE DON’T DO THIS.

If you haven’t put your ideas, questions and concerns on paper, then you haven’t given your business model enough thought .

Taking the time to write a business plan might seem like a lot of work, but it can save you a lot of time and money in the long run by better preparing you for potential challenges and opportunities that you’ll face as a first-time entrepreneur. Think of it as a roadmap for your new business venture.

It’s exciting to start your own ecommerce business. However, you want to be well prepared and not jump into anything without having a solid, foolproof ecommerce business plan in place.

After all, you wouldn’t jump out of a plane without a parachute, so why start a business without a safety device in place? That safety device is your business plan.

The business plan is the brainstorming process that ensures your concept and goals are realistic.

This is more than just mental notes. True business plans take your ideas , questions, and concerns and put those in writing.

As you start creating your business plan, you’ll soon understand that it’s more than a single piece of paper with handwritten details on it. It’s a clearly constructed format of how your business will be created, how it will operate, and what you hope the future holds in terms of a successful ecommerce business.

When you write your business plan, be sure to have a target audience in mind. Are you going to look for investors or put a Kickstarter campaign into motion and use this as your descriptive platform? If so, make sure that your business plan contains everything the audience would want to know about your business (and more!). Many traditional funding solutions require a business plan in order to give you capital. However, there are alternative solutions, such as  Payability  that specialize in ecommerce and don’t require credit checks, a business plan, or any complicated paperwork. They can also get you approved in as little as 24 hours.

When your business plan is completed, you should have achieved the following goals:

• Knowledge:  A greater sense of knowledge of the business aspects.
• Resources:  The resources you’re going to need to make your business successful, such as partners, money, employees, etc.
• Road Map: Have clear set goals to take you from the very beginning of your business and onward.
• Viability: In other words, is your business possible? Will you have enough profit margins to keep the doors open long-term?

Now that you know why you should create a business plan, it’s time to move on to how you can create your business plan and get started putting your ecommerce business into motion.

How to Start an Ecommerce Business Plan

At the very beginning of the planning stages, it’s a good idea to develop a framework for your business model. This business model will continue to evolve as you create each section of your ecommerce business plan, so don’t strive for a perfect completed plan on the first try. You will be making tweaks to the plan of certain steps along the way.

There are many ways to sell products online and different business models  to pursue. Research and learn from successful ecommerce business examples in the market. The exact business model you follow will be one that makes the most sense with your resources, skills, and interests.

In order to create the best online business plan with your product in mind, you need to figure out the following things:

What are you selling?

The first step to creating an online business is to learn the absolute basics of what you can sell.

• Physical products: Clothing , shoes, home goods
• Digital products: Software as a Service products, ecourses, ebooks
• Services: Consulting services, home cleaning

Who are you selling to?

• Business-to-Business (B2B): You are selling to organizations, corporations, and non-profits rather than individual customers
• Business to Consumer (B2C): This means you are selling to individual consumers rather than businesses
• Marketplace: You are acting as a middleman by bringing businesses and (B2B or B2C) customers to one website.

How are you sourcing your product?

• Manufacture in-house: You make your product or service in-house
• Third-party manufacturer: You outsource the manufacturing of your product or service to a third-party manufacturer
• Dropship: You partner with a dropship manufacturer. Basically, this means that they make your product, package it and ship it directly to your customer while your company handles the entire customer relationship.
• Wholesale : You buy goods or services from other companies in bulk and re-sell those products on your online store

Additional References

• Entrepreneurship: Business & Marketing Plans
• Small Business and Entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurship Resources
• Business Plan Resources

Executive Summary

The executive summary will be written according to your goals, and it’s recommended that this is done at the very end of your business plan completion. This will ensure that you include all of the important factors about your business and present your ideas in a concise and complete way.

Some of the features you’ll include in the executive summary include information showing that you’ve done your research, you have concrete sales forecasts, and the main details about your brand.

Business Model

When you’re figuring out your business model, you have to consider four different areas:

• Monetization strategy
• Product/industry
• Target market
• Sales channel

Monetization Strategy

The monetization strategy delves into the methods you are going to use to sell your products.

This strategy will look at different product monetization methods, including white label, private label , affiliate marketing, wholesale, dropshipping, and even selling ads.

Product/Industry

The product industry section is where you summarize your main niche.

For example, “Vegan Skincare Products.”

Target Market

In the target market section, you will write a sentence or so on who your target market, or ideal customer, is in the community.

If you’re selling vegan skincare products, your target customers might be women who embrace the vegan lifestyle and use natural skincare products in their daily beauty regimen.

Sales Channel

The sales channel refers to where you’re going to sell your products.

For example, you might be selling your products on your own website, and this should be entered in this section.

Business Overview

This next section covers your company overview.

This section of your business plan will cover various features of your company, including the following:

• Company type
• Domain name
• Value proposition
• Brand traits

The brand name section lists your business name or brand name.

This is an extremely important aspect of your business plan as it’s what will set the tone for everything that follows.

Pick a brand name that’s simple yet unique and is something that can be used in a wordplay manner, if desired, but not pun-worthy.

Company Type

The company is how your business operates. For example, you might label your business as an LLC , S-corporation, sole proprietor, or some other type of business organization.

The best way to determine how you should categorize your company is to speak to your accountant. There are various tax and legal aspects to forming your business in a certain way.

Speak with the professionals in the company and corporation formation field to determine how to label your company and which company type best benefits your business in a variety of ways.

Domain Name

This section is where you list your domain name.

Choose a domain name that is memorable and embraces the overall traits and features of your business.

And, when choosing a domain name, be sure to think of SEO aspects when doing so. You’ll find out just how much all of these things tie together and ensure a frequently-visited website is the end result.

Keep in mind that with ecommerce, the domain name is just as important as the brand name. Maybe even more so!

Value Proposition

A value proposition is a short, crisp statement that will gauge how clear your idea is. Write this section as if you had one minute to explain your business to a potential investor or customer and then practice it over and over again.

The value proposition can be used on your ecommerce store as your company description.

Here’s a good example: Say you’re looking to start a hiking company called Atlas Hiking Co. which sells premium performance hiking shirts. A possible company description could be the following:

Atlas Hiking Co. is a lifestyle hiking company that produces high-performance hiking shirts for outdoor lovers. Our proprietary SPF40 fabric is one of the lightest fabrics on the market, providing mountain lovers with maximum comfort, both from a breathability and sun-protection standpoint. Our product is made in the U.S.A. and a portion of our profits are donated to preserve national parks around the country.

Pay special attention to all the sensory words !

The mission statement in your business plan is the “why” of it all.

For example, why you started the business, why you are selling the products you are selling, etc., can all be added to this section of your business plan.

You can make this portion as simple or detailed as you like. Just make sure to properly and clearly explain your business mission.

The vision part of the business plan is your “how” in the grand scheme of things. It is the dream you have for your company and the path you’re going to take to realize that dream.

When you write the vision portion of the business plan, think long-term. What are you hoping to achieve, not just in the near future but for the long haul of the life of your business?

Look into the future and plan out where you see your business in 5, 10, even 20 years from now.

This will help you construct the rest of your business plan if you know where you want your business to head, now and in the future.

Brand Traits

The brand traits section is a short section in your company overview.

Basically, in the brand traits section you’re going to want to list three to five words that describe your brand.

Think of your brand personality and describe it using a few separate powerful words.

The personnel section lists all individuals, including yourself, who will be involved in the daily operations of your business. You can create a separate section for a full operations plan or add that later.

Some business owners choose to handle all duties on their own or with a partner, while others will hire individuals to fill the following roles:

• CEO (usually the business owner)
• Management team
• Customer service/logistics
• PR/Social media specialist
• SEO manager
• Advertising manager

Competitive Market Analysis

Here’s a fact you can bank on: there has never been a successful e-commerce entrepreneur that didn’t understand his/her target market cold.

That’s why this section is one of the most important in the entire business plan. It will force you to understand the industry in which you operate, the overall industry analysis and outlook, the existing competition, and your target customer demographic.

Market Segment

The market segment portion of the business plan will help you to put your ideas down on paper, make them more focused, and get your team together.

This area will include your niche selection, target market, and competitive analysis.

Niche Selection

The niche section  provides an overview of your niche, why you selected it, whether there’s a micro niche included, and the type of niche you’ve chosen.

The purpose of this section is to crystalize the ideas that you have and make sure they are understandable and viable.

The target market section covers an overview of your target market plus describes your market segments.

Ask yourself who your  target customer  is (population size, age, geography, education, ethnicity, income level) and consider whether consumers are comfortable with buying your product category online.

When listing the target market information, make sure to mention your target audience size as this is important for ensuring that your audience will be adequately covered.

Competitive Analysis

With the competitive analysis portion of your market analysis, you want to list your market leader and direct and indirect competitors.

After you mention who these entities are, you need to list the characteristics of each one, such as domain name, business model, monthly traffic, and pricing range.

However, before you even get started in writing this section, you need to spend several hours researching your target market.

Here are some of the most efficient ways to research a particular market:

Industry reports

Google is your best friend. Look for any recent industry reports on your market of choice. This will give you a good sense of how much growth the industry is experiencing, why this growth is happening, and what are the largest customer segments. In our example of Atlas Hiking Co., we should research the outdoor apparel market.

Let’s say that through our research of the outdoor apparel industry, we discovered that there was a huge boom in youth hiking apparel. Perhaps parents were increasingly concerned about their kids’ exposure to UV rays while hiking, so they began to spend more money on their kids. We could use this valuable information to guide our business strategy.

There’s only so much you can read online. Go to a nearby store that sells similar products to yours and interview the store representative. The store rep has interacted with hundreds of interested customers, which can lead to thousands of valuable insights! It’s amazing how these insights can translate into a meaningful business opportunity.

Here’s an example:

If I were going into Billy’s Outdoor Store to research the outdoor apparel market, I would probably ask Billy the following:

• What are your best-selling products?
• What are your worst-selling products?
• Find products similar to yours and ask the representative his/her favorite features on products similar to yours.
• How much are customers generally willing to spend on these types of products?
• Do customers make repeat orders of any of these products?
• Do you get a lot of customers that are looking to buy last-minute hiking gear before they go on a hike?

Competition

Create an Excel spreadsheet of all of your competitors. In your spreadsheet, you should have the following columns:

• Competitor Name
• Price point
• Product Description
• Key Features (e.g., fabric, waterproof, slim fit, etc.)

What is the competition missing? Is there a gap in the offering? Where you can add some additional value?

After conducting the competitor analysis, Atlas Hiking Co. might find that the competition’s hiking shirts offer very few features at a low price point, but no one offers a luxury hiking shirt with additional features at a higher price point.

This is just an example of the types of insights one can gain from market research which can drastically alter your business model.

Keyword Research

By using Google’s keyword planner  and trends pages, you can get a good sense of how in demand your product is and whether it’s trending upward or downward. Google is great for a general idea, just don’t bank on it.

Some other keyword tools you can use for keyword research include Ahrefs, JungleScout, and Viral Launch. Check out this list  for more ideas.

Trade shows

Are there nearby trade shows that you can go to? Again, creating connections with other people in your industry is a surefire shortcut to countless hours of reading on the internet. Trade shows are also a great opportunity to talk to competitors, meet manufacturers, and better understand where things are heading in your industry.

Once you finish researching the relevant industry, you should summarize your findings by answering the following questions:

General Industry

• How big is the overall industry?
• How big is the specific sub-industry in which you intend to operate?
• Where has most of the historic growth in the market come from?
• Why is this the right time to enter this market?
• What are the sub-segments that are poised for future growth (e.g., youth apparel)?
• How crowded is the product category with competition?
• How is your competition distributing its product (online, retail, wholesale, etc.)?
• What’s missing from the competition’s product offering?

Products and Offers

So we know we want to sell hiking shirts, but how do you research specific products?

But for some of us, we’re not quite sure what we should sell. To succeed in online retail, you need a product that is trending upwards in a growing niche.

Different types of products

Some of the different types of products include the following:

• Convenience products: Frequent purchase products, little effort on buying
• Shopping products: Less frequently purchased in between purchases, little more effort and planning, shop around
• Specialty products: Strong brand preference and loyalty, will buy no matter what the price

The various types of niches include the following:

• Hobby niches
• Lifestyle niches
• Problem niches
• Weird/embarrassing niches

Existing products

Come up with detailed specifications for each product or service you intend to sell. If it’s a hiking shirt we’re selling, we would want to have:

• Detailed sketches of the shirt
• Fabric weight, materials, type
• Key features (e.g., pre-shrunk, water-proof, SPF 40)

Future product pipeline

What are other products that you have in the pipeline? Perhaps once you’ve successfully sold hiking shirts, you’re able to leverage your manufacturing relationships to provide hiking socks and shorts. Include that information in this section.

The products and services section will cover the various selling categories of items.

These product offerings will include the following:

• Core product

Each product group will have its own purpose in your sales catalog. For example, tripwire is the product that brings customers to your ecommerce store or online marketplaces  while the core product is your main seller.

Knowing what products you’ll include within each section allows you to have a firm grasp on what your main product will be and how the other types of products will work alongside your main product.

This section will also cover the search volume and Amazon pricing range.

You’ll need to calculate your true costs. You have to make sure you don’t overestimate your margins.

To tabulate your total true costs, you need to write down the costs in the following areas:

• Target price
• Supplier cost of the product
• Total cost per unit
• Net profit per unit
• Profit margin per unit

Once you complete the pricing portion, you’ll have everything on one sheet and readily accessible whenever you need it.

Marketing Plan and Operations

So, now you’ve concluded that you have a great business idea, and it’s in a growing market. That’s fantastic – but how are you going to drive traffic to your ecommerce website and get customers to buy it ? And how much can you afford to spend on your product?

Marketing  is everything. It’s important that your marketing efforts match your business model.

If you have a website and no marketing, your site won’t have any visitors. With no visitors, you will make no sales. Then how do you grow and sell your ecommerce business (if that’s your long-term goal)? Even with the best possible products, nobody will buy them if they aren’t directed to them in some way.

In order to come up with a marketing strategy, you need to first know your customer inside out. You should be able to answer such questions as:

• How old is your customer?
• Where does your customer live?
• What is the population of your customer base?
• What is their education level?
• What is their income level?
• What are your customer’s pain points?

With so many channels to reach your customer, which one is best for you?

Once we know pretty much everything there is to know about our target customer, we can shift focus to our marketing strategy. You want to choose marketing strategies that equal positive conversion rates. What channels should you use to grab the attention of your customer demographic? Some of the key marketing channels include:

Paid Marketing

• Pay-per-click – this online marketing typically involves using Google Shopping campaigns  and managing a product data feed.
• Affiliate sales networks – Allowing other blogs and websites to sell your product for a cut of the revenue. List the different affiliate sale networks that you plan to promote through.
• Facebook ads ⎯ Ads posted on Facebook to draw in buyers through social media means.
• Influencer marketing ⎯ Hiring industry influencers to get the word out about your product through their social media platforms and contacts.

Organic Marketing

• Social media (Facebook, Instagram , Pinterest, etc.): What is your strategy for social media, and where will you dedicate your attention?
• Search Engine Optimization : Create and promote awesome content so people find your product organically through search.
• Content marketing: Figure out how you’ll use content marketing in your business. Consider various article topics that will persuade your target audience to buy your products.
• Blogger networks: could be organic or paid through affiliate sale programs.
• Key bloggers: Develop a list of the key bloggers in your product category. For Atlas Hiking Co., this might be an influencer that blogs about the best hiking trails in America.

Finding the optimal mix of these advertising tools depends 100% on your customer segment as well as your product type. For example, a SaaS product targeting millennials will require an entirely different marketing strategy than an e-commerce physical product targeting baby boomers. Perhaps that should be a post on its own for another day!

How much should you spend to acquire a customer?

In order to understand this, we need first to discuss a concept known as customer lifetime value or LTV. In essence, this is a formula that helps you better understand how much an average customer will spend over time.

Here’s  a good read on how to calculate LTV.

It’s important to remember that for new businesses, you don’t have a lot of data on customer purchase habits so it’s a good idea to be more conservative with your assumptions in calculating LTV.

Let’s say, for Atlas Hiking Co., I determine that the average LTV per customer is $300. This means that over time, the average customer will spend $300. Let’s say, on average, if I receive $300 in revenue, $100 of that will translate to gross profit before I factor in my marketing costs (basically, I’m just subtracting the cost of making the shirts).

Knowing that my gross profit is $100 per shirt is a critical piece of information because it tells me that I can spend up to $100 in marketing to acquire a customer and still be profitable!

Some of the marketing options include social media marketing and content marketing.

Think about your business model and then line up your marketing budget. Your marketing budget may include the following items:

• Sales/branded content
• SEO/blog content
• Facebook/Instagram ads
• Influencer marketing
• Marketing tools
• Niche advertising

Choosing The Right Technology

With so much technology and SaaS products out there, it’s important to understand the various moving parts and diagram how they all integrate with one another.

Some of the different elements include:

• Shopping Cart Platforms  – e.g., Shopify , BigCommerce , WooCommerce , or any open-source platform
• Hosting – Nexcess , BigScoots , Kinsta , WPX
• Payment Processo r – e.g., Stripe, Paypal
• Fulfillment Center – e.g., Amazon, ShipBob
• Apps – e.g., Zipify, BuildWooFunnels, Gelato
• Accounting & Taxes  – e.g., Quicken, Xero
• Marketing Automation – e.g., Klaviyo , Mailchimp
• Marketing Tools – e.g.  Buzzstream, Ahrefs
• Customer Loyalty Programs  – e.g., Antavo, Smile

Come up with a detailed list of the different products and services you need to run your business as well as the monthly and per-transaction cost of each of them. This will be important in understanding the impact of these services on your margins.

Matching your business model to your technology is essential, too. Certain website platforms are better suited for specific sales models.

Email marketing is another type of technology that should be carefully considered and matched up correctly with your business model.

Keep in mind that it takes, on average, 6-7 interactions with a brand before someone makes a purchase, so you need to keep using technology to get them back to your website.

As you explore the technology options and find out ways to draw potential customers in and keep them happy while they’re there, here are some key points to keep in mind:

• What you say about yourself and your products with your website content
• How you respond to questions on live chat and email support
• How to make use of chatbots
• How you connect on social media
• The information you send through email marketing
• What bloggers and influencers say about your brand
• How existing customers review your company
• How you advertise
• How you establish loyalty beyond sales

After you figure out your technology methods, you have to come up with a technology budget.

The business plan must also include the operations side of things. Determine who will be your manufacturer, secondary manufacturer, and shipping and fulfillment  provider.

When looking at supply chain costs and options, ShipBob  is an ecommerce fulfillment provider you can consider.

Financial Plan

When figuring out your financial plan, evaluating and pinpointing your startup costs  is essential.

The focus of the financial plan is how long it will take for you to make your money back. You also need to figure out if you need a business loan .

Traffic and conversion rates will help you determine how long it will be until you start making money back.

You’ll also want to use an income statement to detail financial information.

This section is used for financial projections, such as forecasting sales, expenses, and net income of the business. Ideally, you’ll want to create a monthly Excel balance sheet showing the following:

• Projected revenue:  First, come up with your projected number of units sold and then come up with your projected revenue (Projected Revenue = # of Units Sold * Average Sales Price).
• Fixed expenses:   these are expenses that are fixed no matter how much you sell. Typically, these relate to monthly SaaS subscriptions, employee salaries, or rent.
• Variable expenses  – these expenses change in direct proportion to how much you sell. Common examples include the cost of goods sold and credit card payment processing fees.

This helps business owners better understand what they need to achieve to hit their profit goals. In reality, projections are usually always off the mark, but it’s good to give yourself some measurable goals to strive for.

This section should aim to answer the following questions about your product offering:

• How much product do you need to sell per year to meet your income goals for the business?
• What are the margins on your product? If you sell one hiking shirt for $50, how much do you make after paying your supplier, employees, and marketing costs?
• What is the lifetime value of a customer?
• How much can you spend to acquire customers? If you conservatively project that the average customer will spend $300 over time on your shirts, then you can afford to spend an amount less than $300 to acquire that customer using the paid marketing channels described previously.
• Do you have any big capital expenditures early on that would require you to need to bring in investors?
• Can you improve gross margins by making bigger orders from your suppliers?

There are various acquisition channels that will help your traffic to convert including:

Your revenue plan will contain a 12-month revenue forecast plan to help you map out each month of earnings.

There are different business earning models you can go through to determine how much you can make with your business.

You want to calculate how much traffic costs. This all depends on the methods you use to gain traffic to your site.

As you determine what your profit might be with your ecommerce business  or ecommerce businesses, there are certain math formulas to use:

• The profit equation
• Break-even analysis
• Units needed to achieve the profit target

You should also consider how you will use fintech companies in your ecommerce business.

What are the key elements of an ecommerce business plan?

The main components of an eCommerce business plan include the executive summary, company description, market analysis, organization and management structure, product line or service, marketing and sales strategy, financial projections, and funding request, if applicable.

How do I create a budget for my ecommerce business?

Start by estimating your initial startup costs and ongoing expenses. Consider costs like website development, inventory, marketing, shipping, taxes, and any necessary licenses or permits. It’s also important to factor in a contingency plan for unexpected costs.

How do I find the right product to sell?

Research is fundamental. Look at market trends, customer needs, and competitor products. Use tools like Google Trends or social media platforms to understand what customers are currently interested in. Always consider your passion and knowledge about the product too, as this can drive your business forward.

How can I differentiate my product from competitors?

Differentiation can come from unique product features, superior customer service, better pricing, or a compelling brand story. Understand what your competitors offer and how you can do it differently or better.

Wrapping Up Your Business Plan

Careful planning is crucial to get your e-commerce business from the planning phase to the launch phase and to ensure its successful future.

Going through the exercise of writing a business plan will cement your own understanding of your business and your market. It will also position you to take advantage of lucrative opportunities while mitigating harmful threats to your business down the line.

Your turn! Have you written a business plan for your online store? Do you have anything to add? Tell us about it in the comments below!

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How to Write an Ecommerce Business Plan [Examples & Template]

Published: April 03, 2024

If you have a promising idea for an online e-commerce business , it’s important to create an e-commerce business plan to ensure your vision has enough stock to be profitable.

Having a business plan for your online store will help you define your target market, establish your monthly and quarterly sales goals, and increase the likelihood of long-term e-commerce success.

In this post, we’ll go over an online store business plan and how you can create one for your e-commerce startup. Let’s get started.

What is an e-commerce business plan?

An e-commerce business plan is a document that outlines your business and its goals, analyzes your industry and competitors, and identifies the resources needed to execute your plan. It also lists the e-commerce retailers you’ll use to distribute your products and the marketing strategies you’ll use to drive sales.

Whether a company operates as a startup or has years of operations and growth under its belt, an e-commerce business plan is essential for evaluating a business and determining areas of improvement.

An e-commerce business plan is essential, with increasing numbers of shoppers conducting business online. It's estimated this number has reached over 2 billion . An e-commerce business plan keeps you organized and is useful when seeking investors who need to understand your company.

So, let’s dive into some examples of e-commerce business plans and what goes into writing one using our free template .

Free Business Plan Template

The essential document for starting a business -- custom built for your needs.

• Outline your idea.
• Pitch to investors.
• Secure funding.
• Get to work!

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

E-commerce Business Plan Template

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4 Free Retail & Online Store Business Plans

Published December 13, 2019

Published Dec 13, 2019

WRITTEN BY: Blake Stockton

This article is part of a larger series on Starting a Business .

A retail business plan can help entrepreneurs analyze their business concept and explain why it will be successful. Many banks and investors like to see companies’ strategic plans before agreeing to provide funding. All business plans for retail and online stores should showcase their products and services, financial projections, and marketing strategies.

Before starting your retail or online store, it’s important to register it as a legal entity with the state in which it’s doing business. A legal business entity would protect the business owner’s personal finances if a lawsuit were to ever occur against the business. Rocket Lawyer is an online legal service that assists small business owners with the paperwork needed for legal entity registration. Register your business with Rocket Lawyer for $99 plus state fees.

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Retail Business Plan Templates

We’ve included four retail business plan templates below and separated them into different types, including one for retail product-based storefronts, retail service-based storefronts, retail companies with a storefront and an online store, and retailers that run their business completely online. To understand each section of the business plan template better, we recommend you read our step-by-step business plan guide . All of the templates below include the necessary sections to obtaining funding from a bank or investor.

We’ve included template copies that are in both Microsoft Word and Google Docs. To save the Word document, click on your desired template’s link below. Once it downloads, click “File” within the document, then “Save As” to save the template to your computer.

To save the Google Doc, click your desired template’s link below. Copy all of the words in the document, open a new Google Doc on your account, and paste in the template. The new template will automatically save to your Google Doc account.

Product-based Retail Storefront

Word / Google Doc

Retailers with Storefront And Online Business

Service-based Retail Storefront

Online Only Retail Store

How Retail Business Plan Templates Work

These retail and online business plan templates walk you through how to create a plan for your business. They all come with questions in each section and subsection to spark creative thinking and provide direction.

It’s important to note that some businesses will have information that fits into all of the template categories. For example, a bakery can sell products in person and online in addition to providing a service with educational classes to aspiring chefs. If your business happens to have diverse revenue sources like this, choose the template that applies to how the majority of your revenue is earned. For example, if the online store will only earn 1% of overall sales, you should choose the storefront-based business plan template.

Product-based Retail Storefront Template

This template is for a retail business with a storefront that primarily sells products rather than services to customers. Typically, these types of businesses have a local marketing focus. Additionally, inventory and sales staff are important topics to discuss in the business plan. Examples that fall into this business category include clothing boutiques, food businesses, and jewelry companies―essentially, any store that buys and resells items in small quantities, not in bulk like wholesalers.

Download the product retail storefront business plan in Google Doc or Microsoft Word format. PDF isn’t available, because the Table of Contents’ page titles and numbers won’t update after you add new information to the template.

Service-based Retail Storefront Business Plan Template

The service-based retail storefront template is right for anyone who primarily provides a service to its customers. This type of business has a local marketing focus. Additionally, hiring and managing quality staff are discussed in this business plan. Examples of service-based retail storefronts include massage therapist companies, nail salons, product repair, shops, and rental-based businesses.

Download the service-based retail storefront business plan in Google Doc or Microsoft Word . PDF isn’t available because the Table of Contents’ page titles and numbers won’t update when you add new information to the template.

Business Plan for Brick-and-Mortar Retailers With Online Stores

This template is for any retail business that has a storefront and is selling a product online as well. The business plan discusses ecommerce and online marketing strategy in depth. Examples of brick-and-mortar retailers with online stores include memorabilia or comic book stores in addition to shops that sell clothing, outdoor goods, and spices.

Download the retail storefront and online business plan template in Google Doc or Microsoft Word . A PDF version isn’t available, because the page titles and numbers within the Table of Contents won’t update when you add new information to the template.

Online Retailer Business Template

The online store business plan template is for retailers that primarily sell products online. The template emphasizes ecommerce, online marketing, and shipping. It’s best for niche businesses that cannot fund a storefront, such as stores that sell artisan soaps or custom items. Dropshipping businesses will also find the template useful.

Download the online retail business plan in Google Doc or Microsoft Word . A PDF version isn’t available because the Table of Content page titles and numbers won’t update when you add new information to the template.

What All Retail Business Plans Should Include

If you’ve looked at the above templates, you may have noticed that several sections are similar on all four business plans. That’s because no matter your type of business, when writing your business plan , bankers are looking for certain sections, including the Executive Summary, Company Summary, Market & Industry Analysis, Marketing Strategy, Financial Projections, and Appendix.

Executive Summary

This section is an overview of the business plan and is typically one to two pages in length. We recommend completing the executive summary last so that you know which sections are most important to emphasize and expand upon.

It’s important to make the executive summary as persuasive and compelling as possible. Interested investors often request the executive summary first to determine if they should spend time reading the rest of the plan.

Company Summary

The company summary highlights the company’s successes if already in business or why it will be a success if you have a new business. In this section, include information about what you need to purchase to start your business and how much it will cost. Additionally, briefly discuss the company’s ownership structure and its competitive advantage, which is the one big feature that gives your business an edge over competitors.

Market & Industry Analysis

In the market and industry analysis section, make your case as to why your business will be a success. Market analysis is a deep dive into research that you can use to show that there are sufficient customers who need your business. You should research the need in your local area, especially if you’re not operating online, to help prove your business can be successful. Use software like ReferenceUSA to research for free at thousands of local libraries across the United States.

For industry analysis, you need to show evidence that the industry in which you’re starting a business is growing, not shrinking. You can use a paid service like IBIS World to pull industry data. IBIS World’s industry experts update industry forecasts and data around every four months.

The marketing section is where you outline the marketing strategy for your business. The information in this section will vary depending on the type of business you own. For example, some businesses may want to showcase the quality of their interior buildout while others expand into their online marketing strategy. You may even want to discuss the high-quality materials you’ll be creating to promote the business.

Regardless of the marketing strategies you mention, we recommend including as many visual examples as possible. You may want to include one or two visual marketing materials in this section. If you have more materials to showcase or large graphics―a menu or interior rendering―place them in the Appendix ( discussed below ).

Financial Projections

The financial projections are the most important part of any business plan. Unfortunately, they are also the most difficult for business owners to create. In the financial projection section, you should predict how much revenue and expenses will flow through the business during its first three years in operation.

Calculating financial projections can be time-consuming, especially if you have a physical location because you have to research specific costs such as construction, inventory, and utilities. Software can also be a big expense. For instance, payroll tools like Gusto , accounting software like Intuit QuickBooks , cloud-based point-of-sale (POS) systems like Vend , and so on.

Additionally, it can be difficult to predict how much each product or service line will sell month-by-month over the first three years in business. Use software like Biz Miner to obtain yearly startup financials for your industry.

To organize your financial projections, you can use a free Excel workbook from the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE). In the workbook, you’ll find tabs for financial statements that need to be completed, such as the Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Profit and Loss Statement.

The appendix is optional but recommended for a business plan. This is where you will put supporting documentation for your business. Include items like marketing materials, licenses, permits, leases, purchase agreements, and illustrations.

When to Use a Template Alternative

An alternative to the more traditional retail business plan templates above is a more modern business plan called the Business Model Canvas (BMC) . The BMC is a visual business plan that can be used in a team-building exercise and completed by upper management. Additionally, you should note that if you’re pressed for time, you can complete the BMC in under an hour. The downside of the BMC is that most banks and investors won’t accept it as a business plan.

Many business owners find that creating a business plan is a daunting task. Staring at a blank screen can be intimidating. If you need an alternative to using the templates above, consider using a business plan software to walk you step-by-step through the planning process. LivePlan is an affordable and easy-to-use business plan software that provides more than 500 business plan examples from which to learn. Get started with LivePlan for only $11.66 per month.

Visit LivePlan

Bottom Line

Every retail business owner needs to go through the exercise of creating a business plan. The process helps the owner understand the strengths and potential weaknesses of their business. Use our business plan templates along with the SCORE financial projections workbook to obtain necessary funding for your retail business. You may find yourself struggling with portions of the financial projections. If so, contact an accountant for assistance or use a business plan software.

If you’re on a tight budget and need legal advice about your business, you can contact an online legal service. Rocket Lawyer provides affordable expert legal advice to business owners. Get started with a 30-minute consultation from a Rocket Lawyer attorney for $59.99.

About the Author

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Blake Stockton

Blake Stockton is a staff writer at Fit Small Business focusing on how to start brick-and-mortar and online businesses. He is a frequent guest lecturer at several undergraduate business and MBA classes at University of North Florida . Prior to joining Fit Small Business, Blake consulted with over 700 small biz owners and assisted with starting and growing their businesses.

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8 Steps to Write a Successful Online Store Business Plan

Read over our steps and tips to creating a strong online store business plan.

Who Needs an Online Store Business Plan?

If you’re looking to jump into ecommerce, you need a business plan. It will prove vital to your overall success by creating an overarching guide for your new venture.

Your business plan can serve multiple purposes. It can help you secure investors or business loans. You can use it as a tool for recruiting employees and partners. Also, you’ll be able to use it as a roadmap.

Creating Your Ecommerce Business Plan

As with so many things in the world, there aren’t really many hard and fast rules when it comes to crafting an ecommerce business plan. However, the most effective business plans tend to have the following components:

• Executive summary
• Company description
• Market analysis
• Marketing plan
• Logistics and operations
• Financial plan

We’ll go through each of the steps you’ll need to take to complete these components.

Step 1: Write an Executive Summary

Your executive summary is the first thing that will be presented in your online store business plan. As the name implies, it acts as a summary for the entirety of your business plan, with high-level information laid out for readers to easily peruse.

The importance of a concise and informative executive summary cannot be understated. It’s likely any potential investors or lenders with busy schedules are going to read the executive summary before taking any time to read the more detailed parts of your business plan. You don’t want to lose them here.

Make sure your executive summary is easy to read and includes pertinent information you want to communicate. You want to give the audience an idea of who/what your company is, without trying to sell yourself too hard. The rest of your business plan will do the selling, as your executive summary should entice them to read the business plan.

Try to write no more than two pages for your executive summary, but you really should be aiming for just one page. At the end of the summary, the reader should know who you are, the problem you have identified, and your approach to solving that problem.

Beyond high-level points in the summary, you can get a bit more granular in pointing out things such as current partnerships, customers, product development, monetization strategies, and other details that will help the reader get a better idea of who you are, and what to expect when reading your full business plan.

You might want to save writing the executive summary until after you have completed the rest of your business plan, or you could write it first to help give you a guide to the bulk of the plan.

Step 2: Complete Your Company Description

Where your online store business plan executive summary should give readers and potential investors a high-level sense of your business, creating a company description is where you need to get extremely specific.

Include all identifying elements of your company, including:

• Business structure, such as:
• C-Corporation
• S-Corporation
• Sole proprietorship
• Website domain name

Now, start getting more detailed in describing who and what your company is on a grander scale. This is where your business plan should include your company’s mission statement and vision.

Your mission statement should be short and sweet. You’re essentially wrapping up your entire company in one sentence. Tell the reader and the world why your company exists as quickly as possible.

If you’re having trouble coming up with your mission statement, start with something extremely grand and general. Then try to insert your company into that grand statement.

What grand thing or problem are you attempting to solve are you doing, and for whom are you doing it? If your company sells food from organic and sustainable farms to schools maybe your mission statement is something like, “Keeping the world green and our kids’ diets clean.”

Where your mission statement tells the world who you are now, your vision statement shows where you want to be in the future. Think about the overarching goal you want to reach through your mission. “Our vision is to ensure the health of the people and planet. Through this, we will get nutritional and tasty meals to kids across the country, sourced from our curated and highly-vetted sustainable farmers and producers.”

After sharing your mission and vision statements, give the reader some more background into where you are coming from. How did you find the problem and what made you think about the solution? What experience do you have?

Then, introduce yourself formerly. List the key players involved from ownership down to staff. Though if you are already substantially big, you probably don’t need to list absolutely everybody. Be proud of who your team is and show why their contributions matter.

Step 3: Document Your Market Analysis

As with any good business, conducting market analysis plays a big role in getting off to a good start. Including your analysis in your business plan not only shows anybody reading it what is happening in the market, it also shows the that you fully understand the market yourself.

Break up your market analysis into three distinct categories:

• Audience analysis : Identify the demographics you are selling your products and services to. Use key identifying factors such as age, gender, location, and income. Show your understanding of what is important to your audience.
• Industry analysis : What is the current state of the industry? How did it get there, and where is it heading? Are there ecommerce trends that could impact your business? Back your conclusions with data where possible.
• Competitive analysis : Know and understand your competition. What are the products/services they offer? What is there pricing structure? What is their current standing with the public? Identify their strengths and weaknesses. Find learnings from your competitors’ successes and failures. Identify any gaps that you can fill. Show how you can reach higher profits, how your product is better than theirs, and you might target an untapped audience.

You can even go the extra mile and analyze yourself. Conduct a SWOT analysis to name your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This will give you huge insight into how you are already set up for success, and things that could use extra attention and work.

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Step 4: Describe Your Products & Services

Here is your chance to dive deep into your products and services with your online store business plan. Use this space to detail how your products differ from competitor products. Point out how your products helps address any problems.

Keep in mind that this probably isn’t the place to get very technical. Avoid jargon here and make things simple and easily digestible for a wide and varying audience. You also don’t have to go into every single product or service if you have a large selection. Concentrate more on categories of products rather that each single individual item.

Step 5: Put Together Your Marketing Plan

You’re sure to go far with a good plan to market your ecommerce business . Outline your marketing plan here as part of your greater website business plan.

Start by pointing out who your audience is, where you’re most likely to find them, and how best to grab their attention. Then consider how much you want to invest in marketing strategies.

Working in ecommerce gives you several tried and true online methods of marketing.

• You can help your audience find you organically by building a digital content strategy where you create and produce related content, like articles and videos.
• You can learn and establish best practices for search engine optimization (SEO) for ecommerce so that your website will rank higher in web search platforms like Google.
• You can take advantage of Google’s popular pay per click (PPC) program to get your site listed in front of a target audience.
• It’s also a good idea to build a strong social media presence where more people will be able to find you. Social platforms also offer a breadth of paid advertising tools if you want to go that route.
• With affiliate marketing , you can have external editorial websites leverage their built-in audience to highlight your product to get a cut of sales that come through their funnel.
• Many influencers will work with companies to promote products. Target influencers in your niche rather than looking for just the people with the most followers.

It’s important to note that organic marketing (or unpaid) doesn’t exactly mean free. It takes labor and quite often a good chunk of money to build out and implement a good organic marketing strategy.

Step 6: Detail Out Your Logistics and Operations

Here is where you’ll point out all the things you need to keep your business running day to day. If you are selling physical products, you’ll need to consider things like:

Many small ecommerce companies rely on third parties to handle the bulk of their logistics. If you are doing so, be sure to highlight that here.

If you are selling a service, your logistics and operations will look a bit different. You’ll be more concerned about things like transportation, computer hardware and software, office upkeep, and more. Of course, that doesn’t mean that companies selling products aren’t also concerned with these operational items.

By completing this section, you should get a strong grasp of what your business needs to run well, and you’ll be able to give potential investors an idea of the costs required to operate well.

Step 8: Lay Out Your Financial Plan

There’s a ton that goes into ecommerce business planning, and one aspect does seem to loom large: financials.

While you may have touched on your finances in other parts of your business plan, here’s where you need to be much more granular and detailed. Just how into the weeds you get will depends on what you deem crucial for others to know. Investors and lenders, for example, are probably going to pay more attention to your financial plan than anyone else.

You’ll want to include these main pillars of a well thought out financial plan:

• Income statement : This will give your reader a look into your bottom line by showing your total revenue against your expenses over time. Of course, if you have yet to launch your business, you can project these numbers.
• Balance sheet : Used to calculate shareholder equity, your balance sheet reflects your total assets (everything your business owns) minus liabilities (all your reoccurring costs).
• Cash-flow statement : True to its name, this shows how your cash flows in and out. You’ll detail out when your revenue comes in and how much. You’ll also explain when you must pay out all your expenses and how much too.

Wrapping Up Your Online Store Business Plan

Coming up with an entire business plan for online businesses is no small feat. If you need a little more help, check out the many ecommerce business plan templates available online. Once you’ve tied all loose ends, don’t forget to at least give yourself a small pat on the back. As you wrap things up, keep in mind that your business plan can absolutely be a living document. It’s even a good idea to tailor it according to whomever is reading it.

For example, if you know an investor who gets excited by big ideas, you might want to put more thought into products and services. If you’re presenting it to somebody highly experienced in the industry, you might want to throw in a few more ecommerce terms than you normally would. If you have a number cruncher, you probably want to fine-tune your financial plan. If you’re just using it as a roadmap for your organization, you might be content to keep things high level.

Whatever the case, remember that you have the power to make your business plan perfect for your needs. If you need more help with your new company, take a look at some of the top ecommerce KPIs to build your business and grow revenue.

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Free PDF Business Plan Templates and Samples

By Joe Weller | September 9, 2020

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We’ve gathered the most useful collection of business plan PDF templates and samples, including options for organizations of any size and type.

On this page, you’ll find free PDF templates for a simple business plan , small business plan , startup business plan , and more.

Simple Business Plan PDF Templates

These simple business plan PDF templates are ready to use and customizable to fit the needs of any organization.

Simple Business Plan Template PDF

This template contains a traditional business plan layout to help you map out each aspect, from a company overview to sales projections and a marketing strategy. This template includes a table of contents, as well as space for financing details that startups looking for funding may need to provide. 

Download Simple Business Plan Template - PDF

Lean Business Plan Template PDF

This scannable business plan template allows you to easily identify the most important elements of your plan. Use this template to outline key details pertaining to your business and industry, product or service offerings, target customer segments (and channels to reach them), and to identify sources of revenue. There is also space to include key performance metrics and a timeline of activities. 

Download Lean Business Plan Template - PDF

Simple 30-60-90 Day Business Plan Template PDF

This template is designed to help you develop and implement a 90-day business plan by breaking it down into manageable chunks of time. Use the space provided to detail your main goals and deliverables for each timeframe, and then add the steps necessary to achieve your objectives. Assign task ownership and enter deadlines to ensure your plan stays on track every step of the way.

Download Simple 30-60-90 Day Business Plan Template

PDF | Smartsheet

One-Page Business Plan PDF Templates

The following single page business plan templates are designed to help you download your key ideas on paper, and can be used to create a pitch document to gain buy-in from partners, investors, and stakeholders.

One-Page Business Plan Template PDF

Use this one-page template to summarize each aspect of your business concept in a clear and concise manner. Define the who, what, why, and how of your idea, and use the space at the bottom to create a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) for your business. 

Download One-Page Business Plan Template

If you’re looking for a specific type of analysis, check out our collection of SWOT templates .

One-Page Lean Business Plan PDF

This one-page business plan template employs the Lean management concept, and encourages you to focus on the key assumptions of your business idea. A Lean plan is not stagnant, so update it as goals and objectives change — the visual timeline at the bottom is ideal for detailing milestones. 

Download One-Page Lean Business Plan Template - PDF

One-Page 30-60-90 Day Business Plan Template

Use this business plan template to identify main goals and outline the necessary activities to achieve those goals in 30, 60, and 90-day increments. Easily customize this template to fit your needs while you track the status of each task and goal to keep your business plan on target. 

Download One-Page 30-60-90 Day Business Plan Template

For additional single page plans, including an example of a one-page business plan , visit " One-Page Business Plan Templates with a Quick How-To Guide ."

Small Business Plan PDF Templates

These business plan templates are useful for small businesses that want to map out a way to meet organizational objectives, including how to structure, operate, and expand their business.

Simple Small Business Plan Template PDF

A small business can use this template to outline each critical component of a business plan. There is space to provide details about product or service offerings, target audience, customer reach strategy, competitive advantage, and more. Plus, there is space at the bottom of the document to include a SWOT analysis. Once complete, you can use the template as a basis to build out a more elaborate plan. 

Download Simple Small Business Plan Template

Fill-In-the-Blank Small Business Plan Template PDF

This fill-in-the-blank template walks you through each section of a business plan. Build upon the fill-in-the-blank content provided in each section to add information about your company, business idea, market analysis, implementation plan, timeline of milestones, and much more.

Download Fill-In-the-Blank Small Business Plan Template - PDF

One-Page Small Business Plan Template PDF

Use this one-page template to create a scannable business plan that highlights the most essential parts of your organization’s strategy. Provide your business overview and management team details at the top, and then outline the target market, market size, competitive offerings, key objectives and success metrics, financial plan, and more.

Download One-Page Business Plan for Small Business - PDF

Startup Business Plan PDF Templates

Startups can use these business plan templates to check the feasibility of their idea, and articulate their vision to potential investors.

Startup Business Plan Template

Use this business plan template to organize and prepare each essential component of your startup plan. Outline key details relevant to your concept and organization, including your mission and vision statement, product or services offered, pricing structure, marketing strategy, financial plan, and more.

‌Download Startup Business Plan Template

Sample 30-60-90 Day Business Plan for Startup

Startups can use this sample 30-60-90 day plan to establish main goals and deliverables spanning a 90-day period. Customize the sample goals, deliverables, and activities provided on this template according to the needs of your business. Then, assign task owners and set due dates to help ensure your 90-day plan stays on track.

‌Download Sample 30-60-90 Day Business Plan for Startup Template 

For additional resources to create your plan, visit “ Free Startup Business Plan Templates and Examples .”

Nonprofit Business Plan PDF Templates

Use these business plan PDF templates to outline your organization’s mission, your plan to make a positive impact in your community, and the steps you will take to achieve your nonprofit’s goals.

Nonprofit Business Plan Template PDF

Use this customizable PDF template to develop a plan that details your organization’s purpose, objectives, and strategy. This template features a table of contents, with room to include your nonprofit’s mission and vision, key team and board members, program offerings, a market and industry analysis, promotional plan, financial plan, and more. This template also contains a visual timeline to display historic and future milestones.

Download Nonprofit Business Plan Template - PDF

One-Page Business Plan for Nonprofit Organization PDF 

This one-page plan serves as a good starting point for established and startup nonprofit organizations to jot down their fundamental goals and objectives. This template contains all the essential aspects of a business plan in a concise and scannable format, including the organizational overview, purpose, promotional plan, key objectives and success metrics, fundraising goals, and more.

Download One-Page Business Plan for Nonprofit Organization Template - PDF

Fill-In-the-Blank Business Plan PDF Templates

Use these fill-in-the-blank templates as a foundation for creating a comprehensive roadmap that aligns your business strategy with your marketing, sales, and financial goals.

Simple Fill-In-the-Blank Business Plan PDF

The fill-in-the-blank template contains all the vital parts of a business plan, with sample content that you can customize to fit your needs. There is room to include an executive summary, business description, market analysis, marketing plan, operations plan, financial statements, and more. 

Download Simple Fill-In-the-Blank Business Plan Template - PDF

Lean Fill-In-the-Blank Business Plan PDF

This business plan is designed with a Lean approach that encourages you to clarify and communicate your business idea in a clear and concise manner. This single page fill-in-the-blank template includes space to provide details about your management team, the problem you're solving, the solution, target customers, cost structure, and revenue streams. Use the timeline at the bottom to produce a visual illustration of key milestones. 

Download Fill-In-the-Blank Lean Business Plan Template - PDF

For additional resources, take a look at " Free Fill-In-the-Blank Business Plan Templates ."

Sample Business Plan PDF Templates

These sample business plan PDF templates can help you to develop an organized, thorough, and professional business plan.

Business Plan Sample 

This business plan example demonstrates a plan for a fictional food truck company. The sample includes all of the elements in a traditional business plan, which makes it a useful starting point for developing a plan specific to your business needs.

Download Basic Business Plan Sample - PDF

Sample Business Plan Outline Template

Use this sample outline as a starting point for your business plan. Shorten or expand the outline depending on your organization’s needs, and use it to develop a table of contents for your finalized plan.

Download Sample Business Plan Outline Template - PDF

Sample Business Financial Plan Template

Use this sample template to develop the financial portion of your business plan. The template provides space to include a financial overview, key assumptions, financial indicators, and business ratios. Complete the break-even analysis and add your financial statements to help prove the viability of your organization’s business plan.

Download Business Financial Plan Template

PDF  | Smartsheet

For more free, downloadable templates for all aspects of your business, check out “ Free Business Templates for Organizations of All Sizes .”

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RETAIL EDUCATION & TRAINING SOLUTIONS

Retail Business Plan

A retail business plan is a document that gives you and your potential investors a roadmap on how your new retail business intends to get started and deliver its business goals over its initial few years (usually 5 years).

It is usually broken down into sections about the company, the industry it operates in, the competition it will face and a plan that covers marketing, financials and operations over the first few years in business.

Also check out this one-page Business Model Canvas for a retail business .

Retail Business Plan Template

You can download this free retail business plan template from the link below. You will be able to edit the word file and export it into PDF format afterwards.

In the coming sections, we will explain the different components that go into the retail business plan, which you can then apply to your own plan when completing the template.

Check out more free downloads .

Executive Summary

We recommend writing the executive summary at the end of the process, after you have filled out all the other sections in the retail business plan template.

In the executive summary you will cover the following points briefly:

• Types of products sold at the store
• Customers served by the store
• Company mission & vision
• Market share to be captured

You will also mention the total amount you will need to start this business, backed by the financial plan you prepared as part of this business plan.

The total amount that you want to borrow or have invested in your business will be the sum of pre-opening costs (initial inventory, equipment, rent,..) and the maximum negative cash flow as per your cash flow plan.

If you are writing this retail business plan for a financial institution to get a loan, mention how you expect to repay the loan, and you should have already included the loan installments in your financial plan.

If you are writing this plan for investors, mention how much equity they will receive in return for this investment and the expected return on investment, and expected cash distributions (dividends) based on your financial plan.

For example

An investment of 100,000$ in the business will result in the investor receiving 20% equity. We plan to distribute 50% of the profits every year, and based on our financial projections this will be a xx,xxx$ in the first year, xx,xxx$ in the second year, and xx,xxx$ in the third year,..etc.

Company Overview

Here you will write about your business and give a brief overview about the type of store you will be starting.

You can cover the following points:

• Store category (e.g. beauty store, toy store)
• Store location and brief description of the area
• Product categories carried
• Company legal structure

Industry Overview

Write an overview about the industry (retail/ecommerce) as a whole and the most recent trends specific to this industry.

Cover areas such as:

• Total retail sales
• Contribution of your retail category to the total sales (size of the market)
• Online vs. Brick & Mortar trends
• Recent industry trends and shifts in terms of products you are selling

You can find the most recent insights about retail in our Retail Statistics page.

Read Also: What is Retail ?

Target Market

Write about your target customers that you know will be interested in your products. Mention demographic and psychographic details in this section. This will help afterwards in drafting your marketing plan.

You can cover the following details:

• Age bracket
• Income level
• Educational level
• The specific needs that your products will fill for them

FOUNDATIONS OF MARKETING

• Learn the fundamentals of marketing
• See how they apply to buying, merchandising & pricing
• Real-life case studies and examples

Competition

List the current competition in the market that are serving your target customers. Mention your top 3 competitors in your area.

You can also include indirect competition, such as online stores or marketplace sellers, if you think this might affect your business.

Cover information about:

• No. of stores
• Size of stores
• Product categories they sell
• Pricing level
• Sales per day estimates
• Strengths & Weaknesses

You can also create a summary table like the one below

Competitive Advantage

What will make customers leave the competition and come to you? Use the weaknesses areas that you mentioned about the competition in the previous section, and mention how you will improve on them.

This could be by:

• Superior quality
• Better prices
• Convenience
• More variety
• Better shopping experience

Marketing Plan

Describe your marketing strategy for your store and which channels you are going to use.

Cover the following areas:

• Brand Positioning
• Branding Strategy (Persona, tone, language,..)
• Product Strategy (Key products and product features that will attract your customers)
• Pricing Strategy
• Promotional Strategy
• Marketing Channels

Operations Plan

Write how you will operate your store and include details about your manpower plan.

This will include the management that you will hire for the store, visual merchandisers, sales staff and cashiers.

Cover the following:

• Management structure (store manager, supervisor,..)
• Staff plan (3 sales associates, 2 cashiers, etc.)
• Brief role descriptions
• Compensation structure

Read Also: Retail Scheduling

RETAIL OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

• Managing Store Operations
• Areas of Responsibility
• Assessing & Managing Performance

Financial plan

List estimates for the capital you will need to start and financial projections for the following years.

Capital Needed

Start with how much capital you will need to start the business

This will include:

• Initial rent
• Initial product order (Inventory)
• Initial staff salary
• Store fixtures
• Store equipment

Read Also: How Much Capital You Will Need For a New Retail Store?

Financial Projections

Include a 5-year financial projection for the business based on your forecasted sales and costs.

• Monthly income statement (P&L) for the first year
• Yearly income statement for the following 4 years
• Monthly cash flow projection for the first year

Learn how to create a sales budget for a new store, and 3 years financial projections in our Retail Budgeting Course

RETAIL BUDGETING & PLANNING

• The step by step retail budgeting process
• Set monthly targets adjusted to seasonality
• Templates download & practice exercise

Break Even Point

Include a snapshot of the 5-year P&L plan here and mention the SPD (sales per day) you need to breakeven, based on your P&L numbers.

We have created a sample table with retail data in the business plan template, and you can fill it with your own numbers.

Key Assumptions

Mention the assumptions you used for creating your financial projections.

For example , you assumed that sales per day for the first year will be 1000$ and then will grow by 20% in the second year, 15% in the third year and 10% in the fourth year, etc.

Retail Business Plan Tips

Sales projections.

We recommend being very realistic about your initial sales per day projections, as your entire financial plan will be directly affected by it.

When you then forecast your growth for the coming years, you should also be realistic about how much you will grow year-on-year.

From our experience, retail stores typically see higher growth after the first year and then this starts to level off from the third year onwards.

Having said that, there might be other growth drivers that can affect your business and accelerate your growth in the following years. This could be for example that your new store is in an area that is still under development and will be fully developed by the third year.

What we want to say is, do your due diligence thoroughly and based on that set realistic expectations.

Inventory Projections

The biggest asset you will hold and the biggest part of the investment/loan you will need to start your retail business will go for inventory.

So it is important to calculate your inventory needs correctly.

This will be based on your sales forecasts and the inventory turnover rate you expect or the forward stock cover you intend to maintain.

For example, if your inventory turnover target is 2, this means you maintain a 6 months cover. If your inventory turnover is 3, you maintain 4 months stock cover,..and so on.

We recommend checking out the benchmarks we have listed for different retail categories for inventory turnover and reading our complete Open to Buy guide to get started with calculating exactly how much inventory you will need.

Good luck in your new venture!

THE PROFESSIONAL RETAIL ACADEMY (PRA) ™

• In-depth retail management courses
• Learn the best practices of the industry
• Download ready-to-use professional templates
• Get certificates of completion for each course
• One membership = Access to all courses

More Resources

Thank you for reading this article on Retail Business Plan. We recommend the below free resources as well:

• Retail Management
• Starting a Retail Business
• Buying a Retail Business

Join the academy and get all access to all our resources, which will help you manage your retail business more efficiently.

CONNECT THE DOTS

Learn how to manage a retail business end-to-end.

We’ve put together a curriculum, specifically designed for retail owners or retail professionals who want to advance into senior management roles.

Learn how to connect the dots of the business and take the basic knowledge to the next level of application . 

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Creating a Winning Business Plan for Online Thrift Store

AUG.03, 2023

1. What is an online thrift store business plan?

A well-crafte­d business plan is essential for e­stablishing and running a successful online thrift store. This plan outline­s the goals, objectives, and strate­gies that will guide the ve­nture. The online thrift store business plan pdf plan should include key considerations such as initial operational costs, marketing requirements, selling strategies, and an estimated budget. The offline thrift store business plan should also identify the target audience for the online store and the competitive landscape that the store will face. Additionally, it should provide a cle­ar timeline for when profitability is e­xpected and identify any pote­ntial risks that may arise. It is important to include a financial proje­ction in the plan. This projection should outline the­ anticipated annual revenue­ and expenses re­lated to operating the store­.

2. Why do we need an online thrift store business plan?

An online thrift store business plan sample is essential for any business looking to launch an online thrift store. Having a clear ecommerce business plan consultants is e­ssential for maintaining focus on your business objective­s and strategies. Deve­loping a plan is crucial for starting and expanding your business. It provides you with a cle­ar and comprehensive unde­rstanding of the necessary ste­ps that need to be take­n.

3. How to write an online thrift store business plan

When writing a business plan for the virtual online thrift store, start by thoroughly researching the industry and potential markets. Identify the target audience for the store and the associated competitors. Determine the sales and marketing strategy, and identify any potential operational and financial risks. Then, develop an estimated budget and timeline for profitability. Finally, include financial projections and forecasts by the e-commerce business plan consultants that include estimated revenue and expenses, as well as a general feedback loop that can be used to measure progress and success.

4. Executive summary

The Attic Shop CIC is a modern online store business plans shop where you can purchase clothing and other items at discounted rates. Efforts are made to make second-hand procurement sustainable, affordable, and accessible to all.

Similar to the e-commerce business plan sample , their mission is to provide you access to quality, gently used merchandise while being mindful of the environmental impact. Through their thrift store platform, they aim to make second-hand shopping fun, easy, and satisfying for shoppers of all clothing and budgets.

At The Attic Shop, they source their products from consignment stores and their own internal collection. They also offe­r a platform where you can sell your own use­d items, making it convenient and satisfying to shop while­ supporting the circular economy.

5. Company analysis

The mission of The­ Attic Shop is to make affordable, high-quality used me­rchandise available to people­ across the United States. They strongly be­lieve that second-hand goods have­ the ability to reduce pove­rty, minimize waste, and provide value­ to customers in their online store­ business model .

At The Attic Shop, our vision is to be­ the preferre­d thrift store in America, providing a diverse­ range of new and used ite­ms at unparalleled prices.

6. Structure and background

The Attic Shop is a private­ly owned business that focuses on offe­ring customers throughout the United State­s with high-quality used items.

We care­fully select our products from trustworthy suppliers, prioritizing local sourcing. This e­nsures that our customers can confidently purchase­ certified second-hand ite­ms that meet safety standards. The Attic Shop aims to be­ America’s top choice for secondhand goods, with a strong focus on e­xceptional customer service­, sustainability, and supporting those in need.

7. Market (industry) analysis

The thrift store industry is growing rapidly due to the increased interest in second-hand choices for goods. The growing tre­nd of waste reduction, coupled with the­ increasing costs of new items, has be­en a contributing factor to this growth. The thrift store­ industry is projected to maintain its competitive­ness and profitability in the next five­ years, with an estimated growth rate­ of 3.7%. By 2023, the se­condhand and resale market is proje­cted to reach approximately $53 billion, as pre­dicted by thredUP, an online marke­tplace for reselling ite­ms.

The growth of online­ thrift stores is primarily fueled by the­ advancements in technology that have­ made them more use­r-friendly, convenient, and cost-e­fficient compared to traditional retail store­s.

8. Competitor analysis

• ThredUp: ThredUp is an online­ consignment and thrift company where you can find clothe­s, accessories, and shoes at gre­at discounts. They collaborate­ with various thrift stores, consignment shops, and other ve­ndors that specialize in secondhand appare­l. This partnership enables custome­rs to access a vast online sele­ction of clothing options.
• Poshmark: Poshmark is an online marke­tplace for second-hand clothing and shoes, with a focus on wome­n’s fashion. They collaborate­ with various shops, including vintage boutiques, thrift, and consignme­nt stores, as well as luxury clothing rese­llers.
• Vinted: Vinted is an online­ thrift store that specializes in se­lling used clothing and shoes. They have­ a diverse range of options available­ for women, men, and kids, including clothing and accessorie­s. Additionally, they offer virtual styling service­s to help customers create­ their desired looks. One­ popular feature on Vinted is the­ir “bargain bin,” where shoppers can find gre­at deals on various items.

9. Products and services

The online thrift store business plan template will offer the following products and services:

• An array of pre-owned items, from clothing to furniture and antiquities
• A wide selection of books
• Comprehensive customer service and support
• An efficient delivery system
• An easy-to-use online shopping experience

10. Sales and marketing plan

This business plan template for an online thrift store section outlines the strategy for growing the online thrift store.

• Promotions: In the clothing store business plan, the company will aggressively market its thrift store using traditional media, such as print and radio advertising, as well as online promotional strategies, such as search engine optimization, online display ads, and social media campaigns. They will also leverage a network of affiliates to help spread the word about the store.
• Public Relations: They will seek out public relations opportunities to bolster the store’s reputation locally, such as sponsoring events, participating in charity drives, and being involved in the local community.
• Measurement: To measure the success of their promotional efforts, they will monitor website traffic, track online sales, and analyze the results of their online ad campaigns. They will also track customer satisfaction by surveying customers and monitoring customer reviews.
• Expansion: With successful measurements, the company plans to expand its online store into more markets, working with more partners and affiliates. Their ultimate goal is to dominate the online thrift store market.

11. Operational plan

The business plan checklist operational plan for the online thrift store business will cover the management of the online store, marketing, staff, delivery, and other operational aspects of running the online store.

Management:

A team of professionals with experience in online marketing, e-commerce, web design, customer service, and inventory management will manage the online store. The team will also handle customer relations, customer service, payment, and other operational aspects of the business.

The online thrift store will use online and offline marketing to reach its target audience. Online marketing will include email blasts, search engine optimization, content marketing, and social media marketing. Offline marketing strategies will include radio, print, billboards, and direct mail.

The online store will require a small staff team to help manage the store. The staff will include customer service representatives, inventory managers, and marketing staff.

The online store will use a third-party delivery service to handle the delivery of goods purchased from the store.

12. Evaluation/assessment

The busine­ss plan includes a comprehensive­ analysis of the market, identifying targe­t customer demographics, outlining the products and se­rvices offered, asse­ssing the competitive landscape­, detailing the organizational structure, de­scribing the marketing plan and operations plan. Additionally, it provide­s financial projections and estimated startup costs.

The busine­ss plan writers provide comprehe­nsive information about different aspe­cts of the online thrift store. This include­s its market positioning, differentiation from compe­titors, as well as donation acquisition and processing strategie­s.

The plan also e­xamines various sources of reve­nue, strategies for acquiring custome­rs, and ways to enhance user e­ngagement on the platform.

13. Management team

The management team for how to write a business plan for an online thrift store includes:

• CEO: Responsible for overseeing the business operations, developing and implementing strategies, and managing all day-to-day operations.
• CFO: Responsible for managing finances, handling customer payments, bookkeeping, and analyzing financial reports.
• Marketing Manager: Responsible for developing and executing marketing strategies, identifying new target audiences, and analytic tracking of customer segmentation data.
• IT Manager: Responsible for developing and maintaining the company website, keeping the technology infrastructure up to date, and providing customer service support.
• Purchasing Manager: Responsible for sourcing products, negotiating with suppliers, and managing inventory.

14. Projection and financial planning

• Start-up costs:
• Business registration and filing fees – $1,000
• Legal and professional fees – $2,000
• Website design and development – $3,000
• Systems development and programming – $2,000
• Marketing and advertising – $3,000
• Office supplies and equipment – $3,500
• Insurance and permits – $800
• Technology infrastructure – $4,000
• Facility rental/leases – $2,000
• Labor costs – $3,500
• Miscellaneous – $1,000

Total Start-up Costs – $25,800

2. Sales Projections:

Assuming a 20% commission on sales, the projected sales and corresponding revenue and profits for the first year are:

• Sales ($10,000/month): $120,000
• Revenue ($2,000/month x 20% commission): $24,000
• Profits ($24,000 – $25,800 start-up costs): -$1,800

3. Strategic Plan:

• Establish strong relationships with vendors for regular supply of inventory.
• Develop a user-friendly and engaging online marketplace.
• Create an effective marketing and advertising plan.
• Make use of data analytics to improve customer experience and marketing efforts.
• Strengthen relationships with existing customers and increase customer loyalty.
• Incorporate sustainable logistical solutions with a short turnaround time.
• Implement strategies to reduce wastage and maximize profits.

4. Financial Plan:

The financial plan for the business continuity plan consultants comprises the following components, which will be implemented to achieve the desired financial targets:

• Establish a line of credit and secure investors for additional capital.
• Monitor cash flows, reduce costs, and reduce operational expenses.
• Leverage digital and technological solutions to reduce manual work and increase efficiency.
• Reduce inventory waste and optimize inventory turns.
• Set up clear accounting systems with bookkeeping and audit procedures in place.
• Utilize funds productively and reinvest profits wisely.
• Monitor financial performance closely and maintain up-to-date financial records.

15. Discover True Value: Welcome to OGS Capital, Your Trusted Source for a Successful Online Thrift Store

If you’re an aspiring e­ntrepreneur aiming to launch a succe­ssful online thrift store, creating a solid busine­ss plan is crucial. With over a de­cade of expertise­ in developing tailored busine­ss plans for online thrift stores, OGS Capital business plan writers has successfully supporte­d numerous entrepre­neurs in realizing their goal of owning and ope­rating thriving enterprises.

Our skilled consultants provide­ tailored business plan service­s to assist you in navigating the startup process and optimizing your investme­nt. No matter the­ size or scope of your online thrift store­, we have the se­rvices to meet your spe­cific needs and goals. Whethe­r you’re starting small and focused on a local market or planning to e­xpand nationwide, our comprehensive­ solutions are tailored for your success.

Let us assist you in translating your vision into a tangible­ plan that will serve as your roadmap throughout each ste­p of the process. OGS Capital understands that e­very client has unique goals and obje­ctives. That’s why our team of expe­rienced professionals will work close­ly with you to create a personalize­d business plan tailored specifically to your ne­eds. We’ll collaborate on de­veloping strategies that are­ solid and effective, e­nsuring your success in this competitive marke­t.

Q. Can thrift resellers make money?

Absolutely, thrift re­sellers can indee­d make money. They achie­ve this by purchasing items from thrift stores such as Goodwill, Salvation Army, or othe­r second-hand shops and then rese­lling them on platforms like eBay, Amazon, or the­ir own online stores. Some re­sellers focus on brand-name ite­ms or vintage clothing and are able to turn a profit by acquiring the­se pieces at a lowe­r cost and subsequently selling the­m for higher prices.

Q. How lucrative is the online thrift store business?

The online­ thrift store industry offers a promising opportunity for businesse­s to thrive. As more consumers se­ek affordable deals on pre­-owned items, the de­mand for online thrift stores continues to rise­. In fact, projections from Crunchbase predict that the­ global market for online thrift shopping will reach a stagge­ring $84 billion by 2025. With such potential for growth and profitability, it’s easy to see­ why this industry is becoming increasingly attractive to se­llers. Download Online Thrift Store Business Plan in PDF

OGSCapital’s team has assisted thousands of entrepreneurs with top-rate business plan development, consultancy and analysis. They’ve helped thousands of SME owners secure more than $1.5 billion in funding, and they can do the same for you.

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Clothing Store Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Clothing Store Business Plan

Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 15,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans to start and grow their clothing stores. On this page, we will first give you some background information with regards to the importance of business planning. We will then go through a clothing store business plan template step-by-step so you can create your plan today. It can be used to create a business plan for any type of clothing store- a women’s clothing boutique, men’s clothing store, family clothing store, children’s clothing store and more.

Download our Ultimate Clothing Store Business Plan Template here >

What Is a Clothing Store Business Plan?

A business plan provides a snapshot of your clothing store as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategy for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your plans.

Why You Need a Business Plan for your Clothing Store

If you’re looking to start a clothing store business or grow your existing clothing store you need a business plan. A business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your clothing store in order to improve your chances of success. Your clothing store business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes.

Funding for Clothing Store Businesses

With regards to funding, the main sources of funding for a clothing store are bank loans and angel investors. With regards to bank loans, banks will want to review your business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to confirm that your financials are reasonable. But they will want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business.

The second most common form of funding for a clothing store is angel investors. Angel investors are wealthy individuals who will write you a check. They will either take equity in return for their funding, or, like a bank, they will give you a loan.

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

If you’d like to quickly and easily complete your business plan, download Growthink’s Ultimate Clothing Store Business Plan Template and complete your plan and financial model in hours.

Your business plan should include 10 sections as follows:

Executive Summary

Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.

The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of clothing store you are operating and the status; for example, are you a startup, do you have a clothing store business that you would like to grow, or are you operating a chain of clothing stores.

Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan. For example, give a brief overview of the clothing store industry. Discuss the type of clothing store store you are operating. Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target customers. Provide a snapshot of your marketing plan. Identify the key members of your team. And offer an overview of your financial plan.

Company Analysis

In your company analysis, you will detail the type of clothing store business you are operating.

For example, you might operate a clothing store focused on:

• High-End Fashion
• Sports/Athletic Clothing
• Kids Clothing
• Wedding Dresses
• Hip Hop Clothing

In addition to explaining the type of clothing store business you operate, the Company Analysis section of your business plan needs to provide background on the business.

Include answers to question such as:

• When and why did you start the business?
• What milestones have you achieved to date? Milestones could include sales goals you’ve reached, new store openings, etc.
• Your legal structure. Are you incorporated as an S-Corp? An LLC? A sole proprietorship? Explain your legal structure here.

Industry Analysis

In your industry analysis, you need to provide an overview of the clothing store business. While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.

First, researching the clothing store industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.

Secondly, market research can improve your strategy particularly if your research identifies market trends. For example, if there was a trend towards local clothing store businesses with online counterparts, it would be helpful to ensure your plan calls for a significant online presence.

The third reason for market research is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.

The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section of your clothing store business plan:

• How big is the clothing store business (in dollars)?
• Is the market declining or increasing?
• Who are the key competitors in your local market?
• Who are the key suppliers in the market?
• What trends are affecting the industry?
• What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
• What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential market for your clothing store. You can extrapolate such a figure by assessing the size of your niche’s market in the entire country and then applying that figure to your local population.

Customer Analysis

The customer analysis section of your clothing store business plan must detail the customers you serve and/or expect to serve.

The following are examples of customer segments: college students, sports enthusiasts, soccer moms, techies, teens, baby boomers, etc.

As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of clothing store business you operate. Clearly baby boomers would want a different atmosphere, pricing and product options, and would respond to different marketing promotions than teens.

Try to break out your target customers in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, include a discussion of the ages, genders, locations and income levels of the customers you seek to serve. Because most clothing store businesses primarily serve customers living in their same city or town, such demographic information is easy to find on government websites.

Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target customers. The more you can understand and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your customers.

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your business plan?

With Growthink’s Ultimate Clothing Store Business Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!

Click here to finish your Clothing Store business plan today.

Competitive Analysis

Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.

Direct competitors are other clothing store businesses. They are most likely local businesses who sell similar items to you.

Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to purchase from you that aren’t direct competitors. You most likely will have online competitors; companies that sell the same or similar items to you, but which operate online.

For each direct competitor, provide an overview of their businesses and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as:

• What types of customers do they serve?
• What products do they offer?
• What is their pricing (premium, low, etc.)?
• What are they good at?
• What are their weaknesses?

With regards to the last two questions, think about your answers from the customers’ perspective. Look at review websites to gain this information.

The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:

• Will you provide superior products or services?
• Will you provide products that your competitors don’t?
• Will you make it easier or faster for customers to acquire your products?
• Will you provide better customer service?
• Will you offer better pricing?

Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.

Marketing Plan

Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For a clothing store business plan, your marketing plan should include the following:

Product : in the product section you should reiterate the type of clothing store you documented in your Company Analysis. Then, detail the specific products you will be offering.

Price : Document the prices you will offer and how they compare to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections of your marketing plan, you are presenting the items you offer and their prices.

Place : Place refers to the location of your clothing store business. Document your location and mention how the location will impact your success. For example, is your clothing store business located next to a heavily populated office building, or gym, etc. Discuss how your location might provide a steady stream of customers. Also, if you operate or plan to operate kiosks, detail the locations where the kiosks will be placed.

Promotions : the final part of your clothing store business marketing plan is the promotions section. Here you will document how you will drive customers to your location(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:

• Making your storefront extra appealing to attract passing customers
• Social media marketing
• Search engine optimization
• Advertising in local papers and magazines
• Reaching out to local bloggers and websites
• Local radio advertising
• Banner ads at local venues

Operations Plan

While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.

Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your clothing store business such as serving customers, procuring inventory, keeping the clothing store clean, etc.

Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to serve your 1,000th customer, or when you hope to reach $X in sales. It could also be when you expect to hire your Xth employee or launch a new location.

Management Team

To demonstrate your clothing store business’s ability to succeed as a business, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company.

Ideally you and/or your team members have direct experience in the clothing store business. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.

If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act like mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in clothing store businesses and/or successfully running clothing store and small businesses.

Financial Plan

Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statements.

Income Statement : an income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenues and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.

In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you serve 25 customers per day or 100? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.

Balance Sheets : While balance sheets include much information, to simplify them to the key items you need to know about, balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. For instance, if you spend $200,000 on building out your clothing store business, that will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a bank writes you a check for $100.000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.

Cash Flow Statement : Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and make sure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt. For example, you may need to purchase inventories now that you can’t sell (and get paid for) for several months. During those months, you could run out of money.

In developing your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in starting or growing a clothing store business:

• Location build-out including design fees, construction, etc.
• Cost of fixtures
• Cost of initial inventory
• Payroll or salaries paid to staff
• Business insurance
• Taxes and permits
• Legal expenses

Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include your clothing store’s design blueprint or location lease.

  Summary Putting together a business plan for your clothing store business is a worthwhile endeavor. If you follow the sample template above, by the time you are done, you will truly be an expert. You will really understand the clothing store business, your competition and your customers. You will have developed a marketing plan and will really understand what it takes to launch and grow a successful clothing store store.

Clothing Store Business Plan PDF

You can download our clothing store business plan PDF here. This is a business plan template you can use in PDF format.

Clothing Store Business Plan FAQs

What is the easiest way to complete my clothing store business plan.

Growthink's Ultimate Clothing Store Business Plan Template allows you to quickly and easily complete your Clothing Store Business Plan.

Where Can I Download a Free Clothing Store Business Plan PDF?

You can download our clothing store business plan PDF template here . This is a business plan template you can use in PDF format.

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your Clothing Store business plan?

  OR, Let Us Develop Your Plan For You Since 1999, Growthink has developed business plans for thousands of companies who have gone on to achieve tremendous success.

Click here to see how our professional business plan writers can create your business plan for you.   Other Helpful Business Plan Articles & Templates

Free Clothing Retail Sample Business Plan

Kateri Kosta

1 min. read

Updated February 25, 2024

If you’re writing a business plan for your clothing retail business, it can be helpful to start by looking at a sample business plan to help you get a sense of what to include in each section. You’re in luck. Download Bplans’ free clothing retail sample business plan Word doc  or PDF to help you create a business plan of your own.

Remember, finding a sample business plan that exactly matches your business isn’t necessary . The details your in your plan will be different based on whether you’re starting a high fashion boutique in a big city, or a neighborhood shop catering to weekend adventurers, for example. But either way, the bones of the plan will be the same, so you can use an example from any type of retail clothing business for inspiration.

Are you writing a business plan for your clothing shop because you’re seeking a loan? Is your primary concern building a clear roadmap for growth? Either way, you’re going to want to edit and customize it so it fits your particular company.  Take the time to create your own financial forecasts and do enough market research so you have a solid plan for success. 

• What should you include in a clothing retail business plan?

Your clothing retail business plan doesn’t need to be hundreds of pages—keep it as short and concise as possible. You’ll probably want to include each of these sections: executive summary, company summary and funding needs, products, market analysis, strategy and implementation plan, management team, financial plan, and appendix. 

Here’s an example of a clothing retail business plan outline .

Download and edit this free clothing and retail sample business plan PDF  or  Word doc  now, or visit Bplans’ gallery of more than 550 sample business plans if you’re looking for more options.

There are plenty of reasons retailers can benefit from writing a business plan —you’ll need one if you’re seeking a loan or investment. Even if you’re not seeking funding, the process of thinking through every

See why 1.2 million entrepreneurs have written their business plans with LivePlan

Kateri is a leader in innovative brand and content marketing. She’s committed to putting the best words in the right order to deliver high quality, discoverable, and useful tools and resources at scale. She enjoys exploring the intersection of tech, words, and the people to who drive small business culture.

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