The sale of clothing by catalog aimed at women with sizes up to 4XL is the niche of the designer Mariuxi Vargas
40-year-old Mariuxi Vargas combines her academic preparation and experience in the area of communication and fashion design to make Salsa Magazine one of the most successful catalog sales magazines in the country.
The key was to serve a niche, that of plus size women with sizes from L to XXXXL.
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The question was, how do we compete with catalogs that have been on the market for years?
After a study, says Mariuxi, it was determined that an investment of $400,000 was required, which includes printing, selecting the models, taking the photos, preparing the base stock to respond to demand, and marketing , in other aspects.
“I was in a clothing manufacturing business administration training and I asked the Colombian instructor about making a plus size catalog magazine. She told me: 'Magnificent, there is no'. It was an unattended target, so the first editions were distributed online with a PDF through social networks as of June 2019, because we did not have the full fund to print it, which is more difficult," he says.
Sales were positive, he maintains, which is why the first physical edition was published in October 2019, just when the national strike occurred. "Same sales were higher than when we only sold online."
And so the second batch that was ready the week when the confinement was established, in March 2020, also came out.
There they were stored in the sewing workshop, started by the designer's parents. “We had 80% of the stock already prepared. In this business, the investment is made for three months to make the catalog and only then does it begin to recover ”, he explains, so in June 2020 they decided to distribute it.
Since then, they have published and distributed the magazine with the designs every 45 days with increasing sales. Being the mother of five children did not stop her. Constant preparation is one of the keys, he says. (YO)