Selling Clothes on Amazon

The designs are an acquired taste, and the price point seems high for amazon sales.

Obviously, just my opinion.

I think these would do better in a boutique.

I sell on Amazon as well - PLUS - Shopify, Pinterest and Instagram. The clothes are quite "loud" as you have described. Who is his target market? What age group? Sex? Is he selling just to the US or Internationally? My suggestion for you would be to check out the Brand Genesis program ($39/mo) from Amazing.com to learn more about how to market a product on Amazon correctly. What I noticed immediately from going onto his sight are the following: #1) His BSR (best sellers rank is HIGH); #2) He has no Reviews - at all; 3). His Title description starts with his company name - big no no in getting customers to find him; #4) He has no bullet points to capture why I would buy his product over someone who has better ad copy on the top half of the page; #5). His product description needs a TOTAL make over. This is just a few things at first glance. I have learned all of this and more on Brand Genesis. I currently have 112 items on Amazon, 61 items on Shopify. Getting knowledgeable about Pinterest - which they have just introduced a buy button and I am implementing that now. On Instagram I am building my list of followers and learning the ropes - but - i will say the first time I tried my hand at Instagram - I turned it on for 45 minutes and gained over 4500 followers to point back to my Shopify store. Start with Brand Genesis to get you up and going quickly for your client and once you've gone through the training videos you will be golden! Hope this helps!

You should research your market. Who buys these clothes? What do they want from them? Which kind of expensive clothes are selling well on Amazon? Why are people returning them?

Fashion is pushed by trends so using the trendiest social networks like Instagram or Snapchat would work well if the clothes are aimed at young people (17-24) or even Facebook if the buyers are on the older side.

If they are so loud as you say then your marketing should be as loud as the product.

Clothing is a tough niche in Amazon - heck, getting approved to sell clothes on Amazon is a tough process! Good luck.

Thank you all for the replies!

Yes, you're probably right that it's an "acquired taste," and just being clothing it will be challenging.
Part of my thing is, I'm basically working on commission, so if this business isn't going anywhere, I'd rather figure that out now and get out rather than invest a lot more time in it.
Boutique would probably be a better fit, but unfortunately my contract is only for Amazon. I think his Etsy sales are reasonable. He also has a Shopify site that does well. (But again, I only have rights to Amazon sales.)
Pinterest and Instagram are good ideas. Are you allowed to point Instagram ads directly to an Amazon listing? I know I've heard about issues pointing Google Adwords to an Amazon listing. Both because it's difficult to record conversion rates, and apparently it violates Amazon policy.

I've never heard him officially say who his target market is, but most of the designs are for men. My sense is many of our customer's are gay. Based on the price, I'm guessing affluent. My sense is roughly 30s to 40s age range, but I don't have numbers to back that up. Just my sense.

He is currently selling only in the US.

I will check out Brand Genesis, thanks.

We put the brand in the title because we were told that was how you're supposed to format titles in the apparel category. You mean it's bad for SEO because it's not a (significant) keyword?

The reviews are definitely an issue. In my past Amazon ventures, I'd give away some sample for free or cheap in order to get some quick reviews/sale history, but since his items are so expensive, he doesn't want to do that.

We wrote bullets for all the listings, but a lot of them aren't showing up. I've been going through and fixing them manually, but he has a lot of listings, so there're a lot where the bullet points still aren't showing up, you're right.

Any specific recommendations to make for future product descriptions? Just selling the product more? More keywords?

He is currently marketing on FaceBook fairly successfully, but all that traffic goes to the Shopify site, which doesn't help me down in the Amazon department.
Definitely interested in trying Instagram and Pinterest. (Though he may want those pointing to the website rather than Amazon, as well.)

Definitely feeling a little conflicted since, on the one hand, I've put a lot of time into getting this catalog up and running, and maybe a bit more work will let me reap the benefits, but on the other hand, it seems like an up hill battle.
In the past, my Amazon ventures have started with a demand and then tried to create or find a product to meet that demand. In this, we have a product, and we're trying to create or find some demand.
I'm worried that this isn't a good approach and putting more time into it is just a waste of opportunity cost.
We'll see.

Anyway, thanks again for all the feedback and advice!

No doubt you have a good products range. Your stuff looks decent but its too much price for these designs. You are not targeting an average income group because these rates are too much high for an average income person anywhere in US Canada or the country of your target market.
Decrease your rates at least 30 to 40 percent.

I would say its difficult to sell clothing in any ecommerce specially on amazon you will face many problems regarding selling and even returning issues too.

You have to check keywords trends for your clothes type then optimize your page accordingly. Try AMZInsight.com I have found this tool the best amazon market research tool.

Why dont you subscribe to AMZInsight and track the trend of marketplaces where your product has more demand and you can sell there then.

I hope this helps

Faisal

It looks like a high end product to sell on Amazon because only cheap affordable products have the potential to dominate the Amazon market in terms of bulk sale which is evident from their top sales stats. I think designer stuff deserves a separate well constructed website through which you could easily portray the culture of the company.

Cheers