Often focusing only on their own customers, most brands forget they also need to establish strong relationships with clothing manufacturers. Your supply chain powers your business.
Fostering strong manufacturer relationships can reduce risks in sourcing, design, and development. It can improve cash flow. And will guarantee an improved clothing manufacturing experience.
In our experience, about 40% of brand owners, mostly start-ups, don’t know how to correctly build a proper business relationship with their garment factory.
There are many nuances and subtleties you need to know to build a strong relationship.
In this article, we demystify the 5 ways to establish strong relationships with clothing manufacturers.
1. Avoid Using Angry Language or Condescending Tone
We started with this one because it’s one of the most common mistakes inexperienced brand owners make.
There’s a lot of moving parts to track in clothing manufacturing. Sometimes errors happen. And you might become frustrated.
Even if you’re upset, you should never talk or write to your clothing manufacturer in a condescending tone. And never write with anger.
You might be working with a garment factory who’s not a native English speaker. But what you may not realise is most of us have years of experience working with English speakers.
We can tell when you’re talking to us like you’d speak to a child. And we don’t appreciate it.
What most brand owners don’t understand is, factories don’t have to work with them. For every apparel factory, there’s hundreds of other brands waiting to get in.
It goes without saying that you need to treat your garment factory with respect. This is why it’s critical to be professional, be honest, but don’t be condescending.
Remember the golden rule: treat others the same way you want to be treated.
2. Be Prepared & Be Picky: It Shows You’re Serious
Popular clothing manufacturers like CM Garmindo get dozens of new client enquiries and work with dozens of existing client productions every day. We don’t have time to guess at what you want.
It’s critical to be prepared with a clear vision of the clothing you want to manufacture.
Here’s a few factors to consider to establish strong relationships with clothing manufacturers:
- Read your apparel factory’s website first to avoid repetition and wasting time;
- Research about your fabrics whether it’s knit fabrics, swimwear fabrics, or woven fabrics;
- Prepare accurate design specs in an organised file format ready to share;
- Use photos with notes to get a conversation started; fashion is visual and tactile;
- Prepare lists of questions for your factory to avoid the dreaded rapid-fire one-line WhatsApp DMs.
There’s a lot of types of clothing and fabrics that have the same name but are not the same thing. You don’t want to leave anything open to interpretation.
Having said that. It’s also important to be picky about what you want the end result to be.
If a sample was made wrong, even if it is a small mistake, point it out and have your garment factory fix it.
As much as your manufacturer wants you to be happy, you should also aim to be happy with your manufacturer and not resent something that wasn’t done correctly.
Being picky about your garments is a good way to ensure you’ll be happy with your manufacturer, and as a result, have a good relationship with them.
3. Show Trust to Get Trust
Trust is earned. In both directions.
It can be difficult when you’re meeting a new manufacturer but showing trust will help establish a strong relationship.
Keeping in mind, your new manufacturer is in the same position as you. They’re also not sure if they can trust that you’re a legitimate business that’s serious about manufacturing clothing now.
Although it’s important to be involved in the manufacturing of your clothing line, your research should have already shown that the garment factory you chose has robust processes in place.
After you’ve learned how they work and what their processes are, trust that they will follow their protocols. Your manufacturer’s production team should be reporting to you regularly.
A good way to show trust is by transferring money for garment samples without mentioning how you’re risking your money. Stating how you’re risking things to work with your factory makes them uneasy and, in some cultures, is consdiered offensive.
4. Respect Financials & Pay On-time
Manufacturing costs are calculated mathematically where prices can sometimes be static and sometimes can be negotiated.
However, it’s important to respect the fact that garment manufacturers also need to make money. Especially when your factory is ethical and Fair Trade.
Sometimes the costs aren’t in your garment factory’s control. For example, if fabrics and components are being sourced from a 3rd party, they’ll also have their own MOQs and costs which can’t always be negotiated.
If you’re already getting excellent quality service, then don’t push the price down a few extra pennies. It’s especially a relationship-killer to state how other factories drop their prices for you.
Manufacturers can tell when you’re trying to pin factories against each other. This is what we call a “race to the bottom”.
And at CM Garmindo, it’s a clear sign you’re not interested in developing a long-term relationship.
5. Speak to Your Production Managers Often
The frequency of your communication will depend on the type of service they provide (design or just production), and how many approval stages there are for your specific production.
At CM Garmindo, our production team prefers to use email for lengthy conversations, WhatsApp for short bursts, and for live calls.
Although your clothing manufacturer is a supplier, they’re also real people with real lives outside of work. It’s beneficial to learn about your Designer’s or your Production Manager’s family, what they do for fun, and their life experiences.
If you are looking for a long-term relationship with your manufacturer coupled with great service, this is a must.
If your manufacturer comes from a different culture, then they’ll have different holidays.
For example, here in Bali, we celebrate Nyepi – the day of silence.
Final Thoughts
Successful brands know how to establish strong relationships with clothing manufacturers.
A solid long-term business partnership between your brand and your clothing manufacturer is a two-way street full of clear communication, respect, and trust.
Summarising from this guide:
- Avoid being the angry client who’s condescending. Treat your manufacturer and their employees the way you want to be treated.
- Be prepared to be taken seriously. Do your research about your factory’s capabilities, know what you want, prepare everything in industry format for seamless communications.
- Learn how to trust to get trust. You and your garment manufacturer are in the same situation as you start a new relationship so, it’s critical to trust in their process.
- Be financially literate but not greedy. Your manufacturer needs to know you’re a serious business so it’s important to negotiate but also pay on time.
- Have consistent scheduled calls. Regular calls are essential to track your production’s progress but also personal chats foster better relationships with your manufacturing team.
Is there anything else you’d like to add to our 5 ways to establish strong relationships with clothing manufacturers?
If you’re still looking for a premium quality clothing manufacturer who knows all about building excellent relationships with clients, then consider CM Garmindo.
Due to our superb communication and ethics standards, CM Garmindo is known as one of the top premium quality clothing manufacturers in the region.
If you’d like to ask questions, getting in touch with us is super easy. Visit our website to drop us a message in any of the contact forms.
We’d be delighted to assist you right away.
