Is the apparel industry a good one for leveraging credit cards for start-up capital?
Yes, if you don’t have capital. You can find a vendor who will accept credit cards for almost everything other than the clothes themselves. I would typically save my cash for payroll and production costs. I would make sure I negotiated the best possible terms from my vendors—30 to 60 days. That way, I could pay the vendors after we had shipped the clothes and were paid by our clients. I financed all the other expenses, such as hangers and shipping boxes, on the credit cards. Why did you select the credit cards you did, and what were their APRs and credit limits? The APRs ranged from 1.9 percent, for a one-year introductory rate, to 18.99 percent. The credit limits eventually ranged from $7,000 to $15,000. In the beginning, I would transfer money from card to card, juggling them to get the best possible rates. However, there came a point where I was just thankful when the charge went through! Heaven for me was when I got an American Express Gold Card, a business charge card. I applied f
