patrina22 said:
I am trying to research and find out who would be my competitors(for the purpose of writing my business plan) and it is alot harder than I thought. My shirts have a Christian theme but the designs are definitely urban and afrocentric. So it is difficult in narrowing down my competition, because i'm not sure if they're are any companies that are doing what i'm doing...
If your site is a specific combination of themes, you don't have
less competition, you have
more competition. If you define your competition as "people who are doing exactly what I'm doing" you're looking at it way too narrowly.
The more themes you add to one design, the more competition you gain, and the more customers you lose. While there is an "ideal customer" for your store, that customer might still end up buying a shirt that's plays to just one of your angles, or a small combination of them, from another store. But you're not going to pickup a customer who is excluded by one of your themes.
This is the entire point of the "lowest common denominator sells" cliche.
Now, that doesn't mean you can't succeed by being more specific and finding that group of customers who feel you make clothing that's
better suited to them - but don't forget that your competition is everything they've been buying up until now, and everything they may still buy in future. If there is no-one exactly like you, that means everybody even a little bit like you is your competition.