The Fashion Business Coach

Finding a Fashion Factory; What You'll Need to Provide

Industry how toVicki WallisComment

Are you one of those people who have been contacting factories trying to get your fashion ideas produced, but you’re just not hearing back or you’re not getting a positive reply from any vendors?

If you don't have a detailed tech pack, then I'm not at all surprised. This is one of the key things that you need to provide the factory with before they can even tell you if they're able to help you. So in this video transcript, I want to tell you a little bit more about what you need before you can actually approach a factory to make your fashion designs. You can also watch the free video here.

Why Hasn’t a Manufacturer Replied?

This week we're looking at one of the common questions that I get asked which is ‘why hasn’t a factory replied to me’ and nine times out of ten it's because the person in question hasn't got a tech pack yet and they've missed this very important middle step. Unfortunately, we can't go from design idea to communicating with the factory straight away.

We have to get the tech pack done first because that includes really detailed and useful information for the factory that will first help them to determine whether they can even help us and second to determine what the pricing would look like if they can.

pexels-christian-diokno-3841338.jpg
fashion-love-people-woman-4672294.jpg

Why Do You Need a Tech Pack?

The reason that a lot of factories don't reply to new brands who don't say that they have a tech pack or don't mention it at all, is because they're inundated with so many emails from people wanting to work with them. And the thing is, quotes are really time-consuming, emailing people back with information is really time-consuming.

They're only going to spend time on people that they know that they can actually help and if they don't know the kind of construction techniques that you're using, they won't know what kind of machinery that they'll need and whether or not they have it. If they don't know the specifics of the fabric they won't know if their factories capable of working with that fabric.


What is Tech Pack?

Many factories are specialised in a particular area. So they need to know quite a lot of information to determine whether or not you could actually be a customer of theirs. We need to make sure that this tech pack is completed along with some other information such as how many items you're willing to buy from them and how long you have when you need the stock.

Those three things you need to have decided and finalised before you can start the factory outreach because otherwise, the factories aren’t in a position to give you helpful information

and many will just not bother to reply because honestly, they don't want to educate you. It's not their job and I can understand that. That's why I'm making this video so that you know. Make sure that you get that tech pack done.

flaunter-0cOH0qEVZzE-unsplash.jpg

Create Your Tech Pack for Clothing Production Process

If it's something that's totally new to you and something that you'd like a bit of help with, then just click here, this is a link to my website that explains how I can do those for you if you're interested. But even if it’s with somebody else please don't skip that step because it will not only help you in this initial phase of getting a reply from factories, but it'll also help you further down the track as well when it comes to holding the factory accountable when it comes to perfecting the fit, making sure that everything's as you expected. 

You need a tech pack basically is the moral of the story. So please don't skip that step. I have had clients in the past that didn't want to pay for it. They've skipped it and then a few months later have come back to me and said ‘I should have had a tech back shouldn't I, I’ve just

wasted a ton of money on samples that were no good because the factory just did what they wanted because I didn't give them enough information so that they could translate what was in my head into an actual product.’ So, please make sure that you do that and I hope that this has been helpful.

If you have other questions around working with a factory or making contact with a factory, please feel free to leave those below this video and it can certainly be considered for another video in the future. If you like this video, make sure that you subscribe or follow depending on which channel you're watching this on. I do have new videos out every single Tuesday. 

If you don't have a tech pack already, I'd love to share this link with you, just click here to view it! It will give you more information on what it is specifically and how I can help you with it if you're interested in outsourcing that. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you next week.