Nursing uniforms originated in the 20th century and were designed to improve hygiene. Today the clothes are widely worn in hospitals, medical clinics, pet clinics, dental clinics, and healthcare centers as nursing uniforms. In recent years, due to the coronavirus pandemic in the world, nursing uniforms have become more and more popular. Compare to medical and healthcare facilities need professional skills, many newbies want to join and start nursing uniform and create their own brands because less cost. It comes in mind How to Run Nursing Uniform Business. I will briefly discuss my views on scrub business from the following aspects.
1. The history and origin of nursing uniforms
Before the advent of the medical nursing gown, doctors performed operations with their everyday casual clothes, plus an apron to keep their clothes clean.
Nursing uniforms originated from nuns’ clothing. Before the 19th century, nuns cared for the sick, so the earliest paramedics dressed very much like the nuns.
The first formal nursing uniform was designed by Miss VanRensselae, a medical practices student of Florence Nightingale.
Before 1940, there were many subtle changes in nursing uniforms. Although all of the clothes were blue coats, each hospital freely designed nurse uniforms, and even nurse caps had many different shapes.
In 1948, the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom designed a uniform for nurses to be used nationwide. In the 1960s, crew neck designs is popular. In the 1970s, single-use paper nursing caps replaced cotton nursing caps. In the 1980s, aprons made of plastic replaced traditional aprons. In the 1990s, medical professionals in the United States began to use surgical gowns to replace nursing uniforms, Some NHS also began to use surgical gowns.
2. What is the profit and market prospect of nurse clothing?
Today a typical nursing uniform consists of a top, a pair of trousers, an apron and a nursing hat. The style now simplified a lot, easy to wear, clean and wash, and more practical, also many fabric available to stay comfortable. The nursing uniform design usually have large top pockets, chest pockets, pencil pockets, stethoscope holders, etc. This greatly increase the usability and reduce the risk of virus transmission. Especially in the past few years, the coronavirus and other viruses have spread all over the world, and the demand for nursing uniforms and other medical scrubs has increased a lot.
With the improvement of human living standards, we are paying more attention to hygiene in healthcare center and also personal.
Nursing uniforms has great prospects now and in future. Google trends search results show that from the search volume of the keyword “scrub”, we can clearly find that the demand for scrub has continued to increase since 2011. In 2020, due to the covid virus, the demand for medical clothing is growing rapidly. After 3 years now in 2022, we are still facing the covid virus, This tells us that there is a large market space for medical clothing.
3. Choose your business model
Choose business structure of scrub business you want to do, handmade scrubs, wholesale scrubs, retail scrubs. Online store, small boutique, chain store, individual retailers? Manage business plan according to trends, many customers buy online now, they don not want to find retail store if far away.
4. Determine the brand name
Understand the prospect of nursing uniform business, so how should we correctly develop our own brand? How can you get your target market more quickly?
* An easy-to-remember name is very important.
If potential consumers can remember the brand at a glance, they will think of the brand when they need it, which will greatly reduce the memory cost and improve the efficiency of brand communication. This brand name can be plants, animals, fruits, objects, etc, that are common in life. For example Apple, even if the brand is just born, it is very easy to remember.
*Easy to read and recognized
Brand names should be short and easy to read. In order to facilitate memory and expression, reduce the number of characters as much as possible, in line with the principle of as few as possible, can use abbreviations in short. Long brand names are hard to pronounce and easy to forget. Such as some international brands, LV, CK.
* Unique pattern symbols
The brand icon is as important as the brand name. The meaning and characteristics of the brand are shown in symbols, so that consumers can tell which brand it is at a glance with the icon. For example, the icon of Jordan is the classic action of Jordan jumping with a basketball in his hand. Consumers will know that this is Jordan at a glance.
5. Choose the right competitor
* Correct market positioning
In the initial stage of creating a brand, it is not enough to rely on yourself. Taking full advantage of well-done brands can lead to faster success. Before customizing various nursing uniforms, fully understand your target market. Knowing well about your competitors fabrics, styles, price ranges, marketing plan and marketing tools, etc., and find appropriate market positioning according to competitors. Market positioning determines the competitors, market capacity, consumer groups and sales prices of medical clothing.
Compared to other fast fashion clothing, the differentiation of scrub business is relatively small, and it is difficult to make uniforms that make consumers shine. Finding market segments has become an inevitable way to break the market. Find the market segment, find their special requirements. You can find custom embroiderer to offer embroidery services, add cultural elements to the brand.
*Fabric
The fabric is very important. Mostly the nursing uniforms fabric are polyester/cotton/spandex, polyester/cotton or polyester/spandex and cotton.
Polyester/spandex has 2 way and 4 way stretches, soft and comfortable, relatively cheap, and quick-drying. Many nursing uniforms use this fabric, mostly the market selling this type, the disadvantage is not resistant to tearing, not durable as other fabrics.
*Shape
For nursing uniforms, the style is just slightly different, we can make small improvements according to the place of use and functional. If you are looking for supplier to customize medical clothing, we can provide medical uniforms catalog and make specific details with your requirements.
*Marketing strategy
- Drainage. We believe that drainage is very important. Products in the store can be divided into 3 categories. The first category in low price nursing uniform attracts customers at a relatively low price; the second category of nursing uniforms, which are mainly sold, has normal profits and occupies most of the products; the third most profitable products, the sales volume is relatively low but the profit is relatively rich.
- Promotion. Proper promotion is very important and an important part of selling scrubs. Such as Black Friday sales and other important holiday sales.
6. Choose the right location
*Offline sales.
The current sales model basically adopts the physical uniform store + Internet model. Only the physical store sales model or the Internet sales model has been difficult to run scrubs business.
It is very important of your location(retail and storage locations), because it will directly dealing with your sales. Choosing the right location means 30% success. Choose the best store address within your budget, that is, an address with more people walking or near a large venue.
*Online sales.
Online store do not have special requirement on location, to save costs, many people consider suburbs or cheaper location. But sales and marketing tools
7. Select a supplier that meets the requirements
The choice of suppliers is very critical. A reliable supplier is very important, which basically determines the quality, delivery time and customer complaint rate of medical uniforms. If the medical uniform suppliers provide poor quality nursing uniforms, that is a very bad headache, you will get returned and complaint from clients. Some suppliers will not response positive to complaints, even some suppliers will not reply any more.
Choose a reliable supplier, they must be able to actively cooperate, communicate smoothly, reply in time, and have enough patience to solve problems.
For a new uniform supplier, it is necessary to ask the supplier to provide a sample that meets the requirements, you can check the sample in front of your face, compare with other suppliers sample, if everything is OK, then select the one and make a trail order. Before mass production you can see the quality, delivery time, communicate smoothly, Then consider to your supplier list.
For the first cooperation, we will customize medical clothing in small batches. We have a very low MOQ for first time only 100 pieces, which can minimize the risks of both. In the production process of medical clothing, we should have a deeper understanding of suppliers, and identify whether the supplier is worth placing an order twice, whether it is reliable, and whether it is worth long-term cooperation through quality and delivery time.
8. Expand sales channels
Medical clothing is a kind of special and functional clothing. In addition to physical stores and online sales stores, you should also visit local hospitals, clinics, physiotherapy centers, healthcare center, medical associations, uniform retailers association and dealers that need nursing uniforms to expand sales channels. Whether it is physical store sales, online sales, it’s important that salesperson should have relevant knowledge.
The End
If you need customized medical uniforms, labor uniforms, industrial uniforms, reflective clothing, school uniforms and all other uniforms, please feel free to contact us.
