For a Clothing importer or a Clothing retailer or Clothing brand that is looking to establish a long term relationship with overseas clothing manufacturers, There are basically 3 steps involved in this process of finding, establishing a long term relationship with clothing manufacturing company or a factory, those are:-

• Process of finding the right overseas clothing manufacturer
• Process on approaching the clothing manufacturer with your requirements
• Process of Establishing a long term partnership with that clothing company

I have written a detailed article about the 1st process on How to find clothing manufacturers. You can read this article here. I have also written a detailed article on the 2nd process explaining best way to approach a clothing manufacturer using email and what initial questions to ask them. You can read this article here. I have also written article about the information that you need to communicate effectively to the clothing manufacturers. You can read this article here.

In this blog post, we will discuss on the methods of establishing a long term partnership with an overseas clothing manufacturer factory or a company. Once you find the right clothing manufacturer for your product and have placed initial orders with them, the next step is to establish a long term partnership with the clothing company.

• First step to establishing a good partnership with the clothing manufacturer is to visit them in person. Usually our buyers, after placing their first orders, visit our offices and clothing factories to know more about each other. After a day's visit we go for dinner together.
• You can also ask your clothing manufacturer to visit your office abroad, if he is travelling to your country. After an official meeting, you can take them out for a dinner and get to know each other better. To establish a long term partnership, it is good strategy to be a good friend with the clothing manufacturer. Some of my buyers take me to their homes and introduce me to their family - this create an long lasting friendship.

These are the few possible steps involved in creating a good partnership with a clothing manufacturer.

Both Basics clothing manufacturing process and luxury fashion apparel manufacturing process has its own difficulties  and advantages. In this article, we will explore the practical difficulties and advantages faced by both basic clothing manufacturer and luxury clothing manufacturers especially in Tirupur, South India, Asia. Basics clothes can be defined as men's and women's underwear, pajamas, nightwear, sleepwear, mens and womens's plain t-shirt. Luxury fashion clothing can be defined as Embroidered, Embellished, Washed tees & dressess & hoodies for mens, women and children.

Advantages for a Basic Clothing Manufacturers:-

• The greatest advantage for a basic clothing manufacturer is that they have very less process in the manufacturing process. Once the fabric is knit & dyed, then the fabric can be Cut and sewn in to a garment. Due to this they can complete the clothing production quickly and get paid quickly.
• Once fits, colors and accessories are approved then this process need not be repeated for subsequent orders hence substantial saving of time and money.
• Basics clothing factory can set up line production, which means that due to the repetitive nature of manufacturing, they can semi-automate the manufacturing process again saving substantial amount of time and money.

Disadvantages for a Basic Clothing Manufacturer:-

• Pricing for all basic clothing will almost always be of tight profit margins, hence even if one mistake occurs in the manufacturing process, the factory will incur huge losses.
• If your clothing buyer or importer chooses to change the manufacturing to other factories, it will be very difficult for the factory to find an alternate bulk clothing buyer, hence the clothing factory can become idle.

​Advantages for Fashion Clothing Manufacturer:-

• ​Usually Value added garments comes with higher profit margin, hence a clothing factory enjoys higher profit margin for luxury fashion apparel.
• By manufacturing a luxury fashion value added clothing, that particular clothing factory becomes knowledgeable about various complicated manufacturing techniques, which might help that clothing company to covert more clothing importers and buyers.

Disadvantage for Luxury Clothing Manufacturer:-

• Quantities per color per style for a luxury fashion clothing is usually low hence resulting in less profits for the clothing factory.
• Certain value added process such as washing involves heavy wastage because of the nature of the process. If the clothing factories are not careful enough, they might incur heavy losses in the luxury fashion clothing manufacturing process.

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• How to Contact a Clothing Manufacturer in Tirupur, India:-

I have written a detailed article on How to find the best clothing manufacturers in tirupur in India, you can read my linkedin article here:- ​https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-find-clothing-manufacturers-india-karthik-shan/ - This method to find the clothing manufacturers can be applied to finding clothing manufacturer in Europe and also clothing manufacturers in USA as well as the method is very common.

• ​How & What to Email a Clothing manufacturer company:-

Once you find the right clothing manufacturer, you need to find out their email address either using their website or B2B websites so that you can send an introduction email with the following details and in a neat email format so that the email looks professional and the clothing manufacturer replies to your query quickly.​

1. Give a brief introduction to your company and about yourself.
2. Clearly communicate about your requirements (i.e) - Designs required, Measurement specs, Quantities per color.
3. If you have tech pack ready, attached the tech pack with the email.
4. Also give details about the accessories required, extra charges thats needs to be added and whether the accessories can be locally sourced.
5. Email about your approval procedures, deliveries and also be clear about payment terms.

• What questions to ask a Clothing Apparel Manufacturer Company?

1. Ask them about their manufacturing capacity (i.e) how many pieces of garments they can manufacture per day from their clothing factory.
2. Ask them about their Social compliances (i.e) whether they have any third party social compliance audits like SA8000, Sedex or WRAP and whether these audits are upto date and valid for the current year.
3. Also check with them about their Minimum order quantities. Some clothing manufacturers will not accept low MOQ's hence if this does not match you can take a quick decision whether to proceed or not.
4. Give them a sample tech pack and ask them to cost and see if the pricing is workable.
5. Ask them to send some samples from their current production so that you can check their product quality and if it matches your expectation.

Clothing manufacturing process is one of the worst pollution making process in the world. Clothing manufacturing companies and factories emit up to 10% of human's carbon emissions through usage of coal based electricity, which emits carbon-dioxide to the environment directly resulting in Global warming & Climate change.  Clothing manufacturers also gobble up millions of litres of fresh water, ground water resources and pollutes rivers and streams.  

On this World Earth Day, as the clothing manufacturers in India, Asia, here are the pledges we can take to help mitigate Global warming & Climate Change and be a part of Sustainable and Eco-friendly clothing manufacturing process and help to build a better world for our future generations,

• We can suggest our clothing buyers & consumers to move on to Cotton based clothing from Man-made fibre clothing. Man-made fibre clothing such as polyester, nylon and acrylic is one of biggest polluter as just washing these clothing, millions of micro plastics and are sent in to the ocean, which results in heating up of ocean thus directly causing Global Warming & Climate change.
• We can also suggest our customers to opt for OEKO-tex certified Organic cotton based clothing. Organic cotton is grown from Soil without the usage of chemical fertilisers. Healthy soil can mitigate global warming and thus help in reducing the climate change.
• If available, Opt for Renewable energy such as Wind energy & Solar Energy for your clothing manufacturing process.
• Donate a part of your profits to plant more trees through non-profits near you location because Trees is one of the cheapest ways to tackle global warming as trees stores the excess carbon in the atmosphere and releases oxygen. For Example:- Eastman exports, one of the largest exporters of knitting clothing in tirupur, India, has pledged to support "Cauvery calling" initiative by donating Rs.5,00,000 per year for the next 12 years. This will help in planting 150,000 trees.
• Be a part of the Save soil movement, which is requesting the governments of the world to create policies that helps in protecting and nurturing our soil. Soil degradation & desertification is a major issue in causing Global Warming & Climate change. Healthy soil can suck back the carbon emissions from the atmosphere thus mitigating the climate change effect.

A Clothing manufacturer is an organisation, which is run by groups of skilled individuals, who come together to create an synergy in manufacturing bulk clothing combining human skills, machines and latest technologies. Clothing manufacturers can be classified according to the type of clothing they manufacture and also by the process that they are involved in the apparel manufacturing process.

Types of Fashion Clothing & Apparel, a clothing manufacturer can manufacture:-

• Silk Sarees, Cotton Sarees and Churidhar
• Knit tops, Woven tops, T-shirts & Sweatshirts using varieties of Printing & Washing techniques
• Knit tops & Woven Tops, T-shirts in 100% Viscose, 50% Cotton / 50% Viscose, 95% Viscose / 5% Spandex.
• Knit tops, Woven tops & Tee shirts in 95 / 5 Cotton Lycra and Viscose Lycra.
• Knit tops, Woven tops and T-shirts using 100% linen, 100% modal, 50% Cotton / 50% modal fabrics.
• Knit tops, Woven tops, T-shirts using 100% Bamboo, 50% Cotton / 50% Bamboo fabrics.
• Knit tops, Woven tops, & Tee shirts in 100% Organic cotton with Organic certification.
• Knit tops, Woven tops, Tee shirts & Sweatshirts in 50% Polyester / 45% Cotton / 5% Lycra.
• Knit tops, Woven tops, T-shirts & Sweatshirts using special yarn such as neppy or marl yarn.
• PK polo shirts with Yarn Dyed Auto Stripes.
• Casual fashion clothing such as Jeans, Denim shorts.
• Men’s, Ladies, Boys & Girls Sleepwear, pajamas and loungewear.
• Streetwear T-shirts in Jersey, Interlock and Rib fabric in varied GSM's
• Baby rompers, Baby bags & Baby bibs using jersey and interlock fabric. 
• Undergarments such as Brassiere, Panties and Boxershorts
• Other Tradional dress such as Japanese or African.
• Formal clothing such as Suits, Trousers and Shirts.
• Sports clothing such as yoga wear and athleisure apparel.
• Outwears such as hoodies and Jackets.
• All kinds of Menswear, Womenswear, Childrenswear and Babywear.​​

A Clothing manufacturing company can also be defined by the varieties of process they do in the overall manufacturing of a garment. A clothing manufacturer can be a

• Yarn mill - which only manufacturers the yarn required for clothing but does not involve in other part of the clothing manufacturing.
• Knitting mill / Weaving mill, which only does the knitting or weaving process of the fabric. This is also an clothing manufacturing company.

• Dyeing mill, which is purely involved in the dyeing process of apparel manufacturing process, is also a clothing manufacturing company.
• Embroidery & Printing Companies, who are involved in printing and embroidery application to the garment, are also apparel manufacturing companies.

• Stitching or CMT - Cut, Make & Time factories, which is the final process in the manufacturing the clothing, is also a clothing manufacturing factory, which completes the production of an apparel, packs it and ships it to the buyer.
• Buying Agents or Apparel Sourcing companies or Buying office, is that part of clothing manufacturing company, which is involved in Marketing, Merchandising and Quality control of all the apparel manufacturing process.
• All other companies such as washing mills, accessories manufacturers, which are directly or indirectly involved in the clothing manufacturing process is also an clothing manufacturing company.

A Clothing manufacturer is a person, who is either skilled or unskilled, contributes directly or indirectly to the overall clothing manufacturing process.

11 years in the making - India Australia Economic Cooperation & Trade agreement took a decade to come to a successful conclusion, where in Australia enjoys a duty free access to 85% of its manufactured products to one of the largest consumer market in the world and in turn India enjoys a duty free access to 96% of its manufactured products including fashion clothing, apparel & textiles.

Before the agreement was signed, Indian clothing exported to Australia had a duty of 5%, which was a great disadvantage for Indian clothing manufacturers because Australia is in Free trade agreement with (a) China - ChAFTA, (b) Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam called Regional comprehensive Economic partnership - RCEP. Both these Free trade agreements meant that for Clothing retailers and importers of Australia, it would be a dis-advantage to buy fashion clothing from Indian Manufacturers. Because of this disadvantage, overall clothing exports from India to Australia was 2% of its total apparel exports.

Now that IndAus ECTA or India Australia Economic cooperation and Trade agreement has been signed by both the countries, this immediately removes the 5% duty for clothing retailers, clothing importers and clothing buyers of Australia, if they choose to import men's, women's or children's clothing from India. Not only that, India is definitely an advantage for the Australian clothing importers, retailers and buyers because,

• Under the leadership of Prime minister Narendra Modi, India has a stable and law-abiding democratic government.
• Young and skilled labour force.
• Stable supply of cotton as India is the second largest producer of cotton in the world.
• Good infrastructure to manufacture all kinds of fashion clothing especially cotton knits, jerseys, pullovers
• Possibility to manufacture low minimum order quantities.

So YES, it is an ADVANTAGE for Australian clothing importers, retailers and fashion buyers, if they choose to buy clothing from India.

Sri Lanka, fondly called as Island nation, is under severe debt crisis, one of the main reason being that Covid-19 pandemic has severely reduced the flow of tourists in to the country and this has in turn has reduced in-flow of foreign currency. Tourism is one of the most important foreign exchange earner for Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is  dependent on sugar, pharmaceuticals, clothing and apparel raw materials such as fabrics, accessories and other essential products and dollar reserve is needed to procure these items.

Economic crisis has already increased the diesel prices, inability to import coal has lead to severe power cuts - which has a direct effect on clothing manufacturing industry in Sri Lanka. Cost of clothing manufacturing will increase sharply in the year 2022 because of this economic crisis, which in turn will increase the price per garment. Competitive advantage for clothing buyers, importers and retailers of the World to buy from Sri Lankan private label clothing manufacturers are,

• Colombo Port - Which is one the busiest and 25th largest port in the world and is located Strategically in the world map. 
• Europe has GSP+ agreement with Sri Lanka. This means that European nations can import clothing from Sri Lanka with zero percent duty.

The Current economic crisis seems to offset the competitive advantage held by Sri Lankan private label mens, women's & children's clothing manufacturers. Looking at the current situation, definitely clothing manufacturers from India have great opportunity in wooing the clothing buyers, who are manufacturing currently in Sri Lanka. In the current scenario, Main advantage for the clothing retailers to manufacture clothing in India is,

• Strong Economy and Government
• Availability of cotton, since India is the second largest producer of cotton in the world.
• Experienced clothing manufacturing cities such as Tirupur, which can manufacture clothing from knitting, dyeing to stitching and finishing.
• Direct connectivity to Europe and USA through Cochin Port, Nhava Sheva Port, Chennai Port and Mundra Port.​

There are plenty of opportunities for a White collar job seeker aspirant of any age in the tirupur clothing apparel manufacturers Industry in India. This article talks about the different job opportunities that are available in the industry and what corresponding skills one should posses to be selected for that job.
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1. Merchandiser:-

Merchandiser is one of the most important job in the apparel industry. A merchandiser's responsibility starts immediately when a purchase order is raised by by the buyer and completes until the shipment leaves the factory. A merchandiser's job includes but not limited to,

• Sourcing relevant raw materials needed to produce the apparel.
• Ensuring the raw material needed for a particular process reaches the production plant on time.
• Ensuring that each production process is completed on time so that the final delivery date is met.
• Sending lab dips, accessories and samples to buyers on time and get their approval before proceeding to different stages of production.
• Communicating with the shipping agents for shipment of the goods.
• Ensuring that the documents are checked and correct.

In order to become a merchandiser there are specific courses at the prestigious institutes such as NIFT. One must be well educated about the production process and also have good english communication skills to become a good merchandiser. A Talented merchandiser working with Large clothing manufacturing companies in Tirupur has the possibility of earning up to Rs.25 Lakhs per annum.

      2. Quality Controller:-
As the name suggests, Quality controllers or QC is a job, where the quality of the apparel is controlled. The reason why this job is so important is because manufacturing process in an apparel industry especially in smaller industries like Tirupur, where there are not many clothing manufacturing factories which are vertically integrated, most of the factories are CMT only and depend on independent dyeing, printing and embroidery works and because  of this, there is a constant shift of raw materials between the manufacturing units, hence there is a more chances of damage to the garment. Therefore a Quality controller is vital in order to check the quality of the garment at every stage of the production and ensure that quality is maintained until the end of production. One must have thorough knowledge in the apparel manufacturing process, AQL inspections to become a Talented Quality controller and this comes through experience. You can kick start this career by studying specific diplomas in organisations such as NIFT.

​      3. Marketing:-
A Job of Merchandiser and Quality controller starts only after a Marketer converts a client in to their buyer for their clothing manufacturing company. Therefore Marketing is the most important job in the clothing manufacturing industry but at the same time the most difficult and that is because of there is more supply than demand in the apparel manufacturing industry.  To those aspirants who wants to be in marketing in a clothing manufacturing industry, they must have the following skills:-

• English speaking and writing
• Travelling abroad
• Cold calling and fixing appointments
• Digital marketing skills
• Some knowledge about the Clothing manufacturing process

These are the three most important white collar jobs that is available in the Tirupur clothing manufacturing industry in India. All the best in your quest to be a part of this prestigious and growing industry!

Russia is ranked as 45th largest importer of clothing and Ukraine is ranked 110th exporter of apparel with the value of $1,33,191 and $10,623 respectively. [1]

India mainly exports clothing to United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe and the Middle East and is less dependent on the other parts of the world for its exports. As you can see from the above data, even if Russia and Ukraine stops buying clothing and apparel from India, until the war is over, it would not much affect the clothing manufacturing companies based in tirupur or other cities in India.

[1]https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/IND/Year/LTST/TradeFlow/Export/Partner/by-country/Product/50-63_TextCloth