How to start an online clothing business in Pakistan

Clothing is where a lot of new sellers in Pakistan start, and for good reasons: everybody buys it, it photographs well on Instagram, and you can begin with one small batch instead of a warehouse. It is also one of the most crowded categories online, and one that punishes vagueness hard. A size that doesn't fit comes back, and on Cash on Delivery a returned parcel costs you the freight both ways.

This is the plan we'd follow starting today, from picking a lane to the first month of sales. It quotes no fabric or supplier prices; they move too fast to print.

Pick a lane before you buy any stock

"Women's clothing" is not a lane. It is the whole market, and on Instagram it puts you up against established brands and their advertising budgets. The sellers who get traction early usually pick something narrow enough that a stranger can tell what they are for in one scroll.

The first decision is stitched or unstitched, because it changes the whole business:

Unstitched removes most of the sizing risk, but it tends to be price-driven: a print that looks like one sold down the road leaves you competing on price alone. Stitched means more stock and more returns, and it is where a small brand can genuinely be different, in cut, fit and finishing.

Then narrow further:

• Modest wear — abayas, hijabs, and longer, looser western cuts.
• One garment, done well — office-wear cotton kurtas, or men's kurtas that actually fit.
• Kids' clothes, for parents who care about soft fabric and honest sizing by age.
• Regional craft — ajrak prints, Sindhi or Balochi embroidery, phulkari — sold with the story of who made it.
• Sizes the market ignores — plus sizes or petite cuts.

The test is one sentence: who is it for, and why would they buy from you instead of a brand they already know? If the answers are "everyone" and "it's cheaper", keep narrowing.

Sourcing: start small enough to be wrong

There are three realistic routes, and most sellers mix them.

Buying wholesale. Wholesale markets sell fabric, unstitched suits and ready-made pieces in bulk — Lahore's Azam Cloth Market is the obvious example, and Karachi and Faisalabad have their own. Anyone can buy the same piece, so your photos, sizing and service have to be the difference.

Small-batch stitching. Buy fabric and have a tailor or a small stitching unit make pieces to your measurements. Get one sample made first; wear it, wash it and measure it before ordering a run. Put the measurements for every size on a sheet and give the tailor a copy, because a batch drifts when the spec lives in someone's head.

Your own designs. Your own prints or embroidery give you something nobody else has, which is the most durable protection from price competition. It is the slowest route, and printers and embroidery units often have minimum quantities, so start with one or two designs.

Whichever route you take:

• Keep the first batch small. A few designs in a few sizes is enough to learn what sells, and your sales will show you your real size spread.
• Wash-test a sample for colour bleeding and shrinkage before you write the care instructions.
• Check every piece before it ships. Loose threads and uneven hems are cheap to catch at your table and expensive at the customer's door.
• Stay away from replicas. You can't build a brand on someone else's name, and ad platforms and payment providers generally prohibit counterfeit goods.

Sizing done properly

This is the part that decides your return rate. Small, Medium and Large mean nothing consistent across Pakistani brands, and buyers know it, which is why "size chart?" turns up under so many clothing posts.

Publish garment measurements in inches, for every size, on every product. Not body measurements, and not a chart copied from another store: the measurements of the actual garment, taken from your actual stock. Cuts differ, so one chart for the whole store will be wrong for some designs. Measure each piece laid flat:

Then add three things that turn a chart into a decision:

• Say they are garment measurements, and tell buyers to compare them with a kurta or shirt they own that fits. It's the most reliable sizing advice you can give.
• Give the model's height and size: "Model is 5 ft 5 in and wearing Small."
• Describe the fit honestly — relaxed, fitted, or runs small, in which case tell buyers to size up.

Label the chart with the words people use with their darzi, too: length (lambai), chest (chaati), waist (kamar), sleeve (bazu), trouser hem (paincha). And if hand-stitched batches vary a little, say so. Buyers forgive a difference they were told about; they return one they weren't. The rest of the listing is covered in how to write product descriptions that sell.

Photos that show fit and true colour

Clothing photos have two jobs a phone-case photo doesn't: show how the piece falls on a body, and show the colour exactly. Get the colour wrong and the parcel comes back. There are four ways to show a garment:

Shoot in daylight by a window and add close-ups of the fabric, the embroidery, the neckline and the back. For an unstitched suit, photograph every piece, or "is the dupatta included?" becomes a question you answer all day. The full method is in product photos without a photographer.

If you can't get a model for every piece, AI Studio can put a front-on garment photo on a lifelike virtual model, show it as a ghost mannequin that keeps its worn shape, or turn it into a clean flat lay. Use the same model across the catalogue so it reads as one shoot, and check every result against the real garment: if the shade or the embroidery has shifted, redo it.

Price with the returns already counted

Clothing margins look generous until you count what happens after the sale: packaging, delivery, parcels that come back, exchanges you pay to ship, the payment fee, and the advertising that got the order.

Returns are the line new sellers leave out. The logic, with made-up round numbers for illustration only: if one parcel in ten comes back, the nine that stay have to pay for the tenth's delivery both ways. Use your own return rate once you have a month of data, and until then be pessimistic. How to price products online has the full method, crossed-out prices included, and how to reduce COD returns covers pushing that rate down.

One clothing-specific point: bigger sizes use more fabric, so decide knowingly whether they cost more. Variants can carry their own prices.

Set up sizes, stock and exchanges before launch

One product, with sizes and colours as variants

List each design once, with sizes and colours as variants rather than separate products. Each variant carries its own SKU, stock count and price, and a colour variant can have its own photo, so the buyer who taps Maroon sees maroon. On Storecrafto, stock is tracked per variant with low-stock alerts, so you know you have two Mediums left rather than "some" — see product variants.

Give SKUs a pattern you can read at a glance — design, colour, size, such as KRT014-MRN-M — and count stock when a batch arrives, not when the tailor says it's nearly done. Backorders can be allowed per variant, which suits a size your tailor can reliably make in a few days; keep them off for limited prints.

An exchange policy written for sizes

Most size problems should end in an exchange, not a refund, and the policy has to exist before the first wrong size arrives. Decide:

• How many days after delivery a buyer can ask for an exchange.
• What condition the piece must be in — unworn, unwashed, tags on.
• Who pays the courier each way, and whether that changes when the mistake was yours.
• What happens when the size they want has sold out: a refund, or credit towards another piece.
• What can't be exchanged — often custom-stitched and final-sale pieces — stated before purchase.

Put a one-line summary next to the size chart on every product page, not only on a policy page nobody opens. The full version is in return and refund policies.

Plan around the seasons

Clothing in Pakistan sells by season, and the season arrives whether your stock has or not. Summer lawn, the two Eids, wedding season and winter fabrics like khaddar, karandi and shawls each pull buyers at different times. Both Eids follow the lunar calendar and fall earlier each year, so plan from this year's expected dates. Work backwards from when your buyer needs the clothes:

• Unstitched buyers need time for their tailor. An unstitched Eid collection has to land well before a stitched one, because tailors are often booked solid before Eid.
• Deliveries often slow down around Eid. Set a last order date for delivery before Eid, check it with your courier, and say it clearly on the store.
• Plan the end of the season too. Decide in advance when leftovers go on sale.

Name your drops and announce them ahead, so followers have something to wait for. Don't fake scarcity with "only 2 left" when there are twenty: the buyers who notice are the ones who talk.

Launch on Instagram, and use the first month to learn

Instagram is where clothing gets discovered in Pakistan, and it's the right place to start: reels of the fabric moving, try-ons, close-ups of the embroidery, the same piece on two body types. The mistake is letting DMs become the store. Put the store link in your bio and point every post at the product page, so the size chart and the price answer the routine questions. Selling on Instagram covers the channel.

A realistic first month:

1. Week one: choose the lane, get samples made, wear-test and wash-test them, measure every size.
2. Week two: photograph everything, write listings with measurements and fit notes, publish the exchange policy.
3. Week three: sell to people who already know you — followers, WhatsApp contacts — before spending on ads.
4. Week four: see what sold by design, size and colour, read every return request for its reason, fix the listings, reorder only what sold.

Week four matters most: its size spread, return reasons and bestseller should shape the second batch. Your first 100 orders picks up from there.

The short version

• Pick a lane narrow enough that a stranger gets it in one scroll — "women's clothing" isn't one.
• Unstitched removes most sizing risk; stitched is where a small brand can be different.
• Keep the first batch small, wash-test samples and check every piece before it ships.
• Publish garment measurements in inches for every size, plus the model's height and size.
• Show fit and true colour, and check every AI-edited photo against the real garment.
• Price with returns and exchanges counted.
• List each design once, with sizes and colours as variants, and write the exchange policy before launch.
• Plan drops backwards from Eid and the season, and let the first month decide the second batch.