How to start a clothing brand in Pakistan

A clothing brand is a promise about fabric, fit and stitching that holds every time someone orders. Everything below is about keeping that promise at a cost that leaves you money. If you prefer Urdu, our older guides on starting a clothing brand and the online clothes business cover the basics. This one goes further into sourcing, costing and the first launch.

Pick one niche

“Women’s clothing” is not a niche. A niche is a buyer you can picture and a product you can make again and again. Common starting points in Pakistan:

• Unstitched lawn and cotton suits. Big demand in summer, no sizing, but the most crowded shelf in the country. You need a print or a price that stands out.
• Women’s pret. Ready-to-wear kurtas and co-ord sets. Higher price per piece, but sizes, fit and stitching quality all become your problem.
• Kids’ clothes. Parents reorder as children grow. Sizes run by age, so the chart matters even more.
• Modest wear. Abayas, hijabs and loose cuts. Buyers stay loyal to a brand that gets the length and fabric right.
• Men’s kurta and shalwar kameez. Fewer brands chase it online, demand jumps before both Eids, and a plain white kurta never goes out of season.

Pick the one where you already know the buyer. If you have spent years buying pret for yourself, you know what goes wrong with it. That knowledge is your head start.

Unstitched or ready to wear

This decision changes the whole business, so make it early.

• Unstitched: the buyer takes the fabric to their own tailor. No sizes to stock, fewer returns for fit, less money tied up. Your work is the fabric, print, dupatta and photos.
• Ready to wear: you stock every design in several sizes, so the same number of designs needs more pieces and more money. Fit becomes the top reason for exchanges. In return, buyers pay for the convenience.

Starting with unstitched and adding a small pret line once you know your buyers is the lower-risk path.

Buy ready stock or make your own

There are two ways to get product, and most brands start with the first and move to the second.

Ready stock from wholesale markets.

• Lahore: Azam Cloth Market, which the Walled City of Lahore Authority describes as the central hub for wholesale cloth for six decades, with fabric from khaddar to silk and ready-to-wear to bridal.
• Faisalabad: the centre of Pakistan’s textile industry, often called the Manchester of Pakistan. The place to look for mills and printers if you want fabric in volume.
• Karachi: the cloth markets on M.A. Jinnah Road for fabric and clothing.

Buying ready stock is fast and needs no design work. The catch is that the same suit may be on ten other pages next week. Remove the supplier’s labels only if your deal allows it, and never sell a copy as an original brand. Our guide to wholesale suppliers in Pakistan covers vetting a supplier and paying safely.

Your own designs with a stitching unit.

You buy the fabric, decide the cut, and pay a tailor or stitching unit per piece. This is what makes a brand rather than a reseller. Start with a tailor or small unit close enough to visit. You will be there more than you expect, checking cutting and finishing. Larger factories give a lower rate per piece but ask for bigger quantities.

Minimum order quantities are set by each supplier, for each fabric and design, and they tighten in the weeks before Eid. There is no standard number. Ask every supplier the same questions, on WhatsApp so it is in writing:

• Minimum per design, and per colour within a design.
• Rate per piece at that minimum, and at double it.
• What the rate includes: thread, buttons, lining, pressing, packing.
• How long a sample takes, and how long the bulk order takes.
• How much advance they want, and when the rest is due.

Sample before the bulk order

Never order a batch from a description. Get one finished piece of every design first, and test it the way a buyer will:

1. Wash it. Check if the colour bleeds and if the fabric shrinks.
2. Wear it for a day. Check seams, neckline, and how it sits after sitting down.
3. Measure it against your size chart, at chest, waist, hip, length and sleeve.
4. Photograph it in daylight. Some fabrics look cheap on camera, and the camera is where you sell.

Keep the approved sample with a tag on it. When the bulk order arrives, compare pieces against it, not against memory. If a third of the batch is cut short, you want to know before it ships to buyers.

Cost every piece

Write a cost sheet for each design before you set a price. Rates differ by city, fabric and season, so use the written rates from your own suppliers, not numbers from a blog. One line each:

• Fabric per piece, including the dupatta, plus a little for wastage in cutting.
• Stitching or making charge per piece.
• Trims: buttons, lace, zips, lining, embroidery.
• Your label and size tag.
• Packaging: polybag, flyer or box, thank you card.
• The photo shoot, divided by the pieces in the drop.
• Travel and transport to bring the stock home.

That gives you the cost of the piece on your shelf. It is not your full cost yet. Courier charges, returned parcels, ads and tax come on top of every delivered order, which is the next step. The profit margin calculator helps once you have the numbers.

Name, label and trademark

Pick a name that is short, easy to say on a phone call, and not close to an existing clothing brand. Check the Instagram handle is free. The free shop name generator gives you a starting list, and our online store name ideas for Pakistan show the patterns and checks a name should pass.

Put the name on a sewn-in label with the size and washing instructions. A label is a small cost that makes a suit look like a brand, not something picked up from the market.

Then protect the name. In the trademark classes IPO Pakistan uses, class 25 covers clothing, footwear and headwear, so that is where a clothing brand files first. Our guide on how to register a brand name walks through the online filing, the fee and how long it takes.

Photos and the size chart

Online, the photo is the fabric. Buyers cannot touch it, so the photos must show what they would have checked in a shop:

• The full outfit, front and back, worn by a person.
• A close-up of the print, embroidery and neckline.
• The dupatta laid out on its own.
• The colour in daylight, with no filter.
• The model’s height and the size she or he is wearing, written under the photos.

A phone and a window are enough. Our guide to product photography with a mobile covers light, backgrounds and editing.

For ready-to-wear, the size chart is as important as the photo. “Small, medium, large” means something different at every brand, and a buyer who guesses wrong sends the parcel back. Give measurements in inches for the garment itself: chest, length, sleeve, and for trousers waist, hip and length. The free size chart maker has layouts for kameez, shalwar, men’s kurta and kids. Put the chart on every product page and in an Instagram highlight.

Set the price

Price from the full cost of a delivered order, not the cost of the piece. On top of your cost sheet, every order carries the courier charge, a share of the parcels that come back, the ad spend it took to get the order, and the tax the courier withholds from cash on delivery. Leave any of these out and a brand can sell well and still lose money.

Our guide on how to price products for online selling has the formula and a worked example. Then check the result against the pages selling to the same buyer. If you are more expensive, the photos, fabric details and reviews have to show why.

Packaging

Fold each piece around tissue or card so it arrives without hard creases, put it in a clear polybag against damp and dust, then into a courier flyer. A box looks better but costs more and can raise the courier charge. Add a card with your Instagram handle and a line on how to exchange a size. Our guide to packaging for an online business covers flyers versus boxes, what goes inside and where to buy.

Instagram and your own store

Instagram is where most Pakistani clothing brands get seen. Reels show how fabric moves, the grid works as your catalog, and highlights answer price, size and delivery questions before anyone asks. Our guide to selling on Instagram in Pakistan covers the account, the bio, reels, DMs and confirming orders.

What Instagram does not do in Pakistan is take the order. Point the link in your bio at your own store, with a page per design showing photos, fabric, price, sizes and the size chart. The buyer picks a size, enters the address and places an order, paying by cash on delivery, JazzCash, Easypaisa or card, without waiting for your reply. During a launch, that is the difference between fifty orders in a list and fifty half-finished chats.

Launch in drops

Clothing in Pakistan sells around the calendar: summer lawn, winter khaddar and shawls, wedding season, and above all the weeks before each Eid. Plan drops around those dates instead of putting everything up the day stock arrives.

• Start early. Count back from the date buyers want the parcel. Allow for the sample, the bulk order, the shoot, and courier delays in the last rush before Eid, when tailors and couriers are both at full stretch.
• Keep the first drop small. A handful of designs, a few pieces per size. See what sells out, reorder that, drop what did not move.
• Tease before launch. Post fabric close-ups and the shoot behind the scenes for a week, then give a launch date and time.
• Set an Eid order cut-off. Tell buyers the last date you can promise delivery before Eid, and stick to it. A suit that arrives after Eid is often refused. Our guide to running an Eid sale on your online store shows how to work that date out.

Plan for COD returns

Most buyers will pay cash at the door, and some will not open it. Every refused parcel costs you the courier both ways and ties up a piece for a week or more. Clothing has its own causes:

• Wrong size. Fix with a chart in inches and a confirmation call that repeats the size back.
• Colour not as shown. Fix with daylight photos and no filters.
• Late delivery. Especially near Eid. Fix with a cut-off date.
• Impulse orders. Fix by calling or messaging every order before you book the courier.

Write an exchange policy: what you exchange, within how many days, in what condition, and who pays the courier. Most brands do not take back unstitched fabric once it is cut. Our guide to writing a return and exchange policy covers each of these, with a sample to copy. Our guide on how to reduce COD returns has a confirmation script and the signs of a fake order.

Questions sellers ask

How much money do I need to start a clothing brand in Pakistan?

There is no honest single figure. It depends on the niche, how many designs you launch, how many pieces of each, and what your fabric and stitching cost. Work it out from the bottom: get a written rate for fabric and stitching per piece, multiply by the pieces in your first drop, then add labels, packaging, the photo shoot and money for ads. Unstitched suits from wholesale stock usually need the least, because there is no stitching and no size risk.

Is a clothing business profitable in Pakistan?

It can be, but the margin is decided by your costing, not the category. Many new brands price from fabric and stitching only, then lose money on courier charges, returned parcels and ads. Price from the full cost of a delivered order and track how many parcels come back.

What is the minimum order for a stitching unit or wholesaler?

Each supplier sets its own, and it changes with the fabric, the design and how busy they are before Eid. Ask for it in writing per design and per colour, and ask whether a smaller first order is possible at a higher rate per piece. Some will do it to win a new customer.

Do I need to register my clothing brand?

You can start selling without a trademark, but registering the name stops someone else claiming it later. Clothing is class 25 in the trademark classes used by IPO Pakistan. Our guide to registering a brand name covers the online filing, fees and timeline.

Can I start a clothing brand from home?

Yes. Plenty of clothing brands start from a room at home: stock on shelves, a tailor or stitching unit nearby, a courier picking up from the door, and orders coming in online. You do not need a shop to start.

Storelala is the Shopify alternative in Pakistan: your clothing brand gets its own store at yourbrand.storelala.com, with cash on delivery, JazzCash, Easypaisa and cards at checkout and no marketplace commission. It is free to start, no card needed, and you can run it from your phone. You book PostEx, Leopards or TCS from the order screen, and when your brand is ready, the store can move to yourbrand.pk or yourbrand.com with your orders unchanged. Start your store before your first drop.