DEMO — fictional range. Local brief only, NOT SENT. No personal data is collected or transmitted.
BUYING
What a quotation needs in order to be a quotation.
Most garment enquiries stall because the buyer has a design and no grade. This is the list worth completing before the first message.
- The size grade
- The measurement chart, not a sample garment
- The tolerance
- Around each point, because a garment is not exact
- The fibre
- With percentages, because they go on the label
- The finish
- Because it moves the measurements after cutting
- The care
- The treatment the garment has to survive, tested
- The quantity and the split
- By size and colour, because that is how it is cut
- The market
- Because labelling and testing differ by country
- The packing
- Fold, polybag and carton, because the shelf has a size
Why the chart comes before the sample.
Because the chart is the range and the sample is one garment. A supplier quoting from a sample is guessing at the grade, and the guess appears in the sizes nobody checked.
The most useful sentence in an enquiry.
"This is a garment-dyed range, so the shrinkage has to be measured for the finish." It tells the supplier where the tolerance comes from, and it is the sentence most enquiries leave out.
Why written beats verbal.
The expensive conversations in a programme are the ones about what was agreed. A brief that exists only in a meeting leaves every disputed detail open.