BW International

FAQ

The questions we get before anyone has picked a factory.

Answered as we would answer them on a first call: plainly, with the numbers we can stand behind and the trade-offs left in. Where the honest answer is that we are the wrong unit for the work, it says so.

Finding a maker

How to find a clothing manufacturer in India

There is no register of good factories. What there is: three or four routes in, and a shortlisting method that tells you inside a fortnight whether a unit can do your work.

How do I find a clothing manufacturer in India?

Four routes work, roughly in this order of usefulness. Ask other brands in your category who they use and, more usefully, who they left. Walk one of the trade fairs — Bharat Tex or the India International Garment Fair in Delhi — where you can handle the sample range instead of reading a deck. Search by cluster and category rather than by the word manufacturer, because the country is regional: Tiruppur and Ludhiana for knits, Delhi and Gurgaon for woven womenswear and design-led programmes, Jaipur for hand-work, Surat for texture fabrics. Then approach the factory directly and ask for a proto rather than a quotation.

Sourcing agents and B2B marketplaces will fill your inbox fastest and teach you least. An agent is a layer between you and the floor, useful if you cannot travel and expensive in information: when bulk drifts, you hear about it a week late. Marketplace listings tell you a unit exists, not what it is good at.

Whichever route you take, the shortlist should end at two or three units and each of them should be making something for you before you commit a season to any of them.

How do I tell a good unit from one that presents well?

Give all of them the same brief and read the calendar, not the deck. Ask for a proto on your own sketch or your own reference garment, in a fabric you did not supply. A unit that develops will come back with the garment and two or three qualities you had not thought of, and it will come back in days rather than weeks. A unit that only executes will come back asking for your tech pack.

Then ask three questions that are hard to bluff. Which operations are inside the building and which go out — cutting, embroidery, printing, washing, pattern? Who makes your pattern, a pattern master here or the fabric supplier's man? And what happens to a lot that fails end-line inspection: who pays, and how long does the rework take.

The answers you want are specific and occasionally unflattering. Every unit is wrong for some work. One that cannot tell you what it is wrong for has not thought about it, or is not telling you.

What should I check before placing a first order?

Visit if you can, and look at the parts nobody puts in a presentation: the fabric store, the cutting lay, and the finishing and packing line. Fabric handling and finishing are where quality is decided; the stitching line always looks busy.

Ask for a self-inspection report on a lot that has already shipped, and read the defects rather than the pass rate. Ask what AQL the unit inspects to and whether in-line inspection is happening or only end-line. If you use a third-party inspection body, say so at the enquiry stage — a unit that already ships under third-party inspection will not blink.

Check the legal entity, the export history and the bank details against the name on the invoice. And place a first order small enough that being wrong is survivable. A 150 to 300 piece style across three or four colours tells you more than any audit.

Why India rather than Bangladesh or Vietnam?

For long runs of a simple garment, it usually should not be India. Bangladesh will beat us on a 200,000-piece basic tee and deserves to, and Vietnam runs technical outerwear and volume synthetics better than the Delhi cluster does.

India earns the order where the range is the difficult part: cotton and viscose fabrics knitted and dyed in-country, woven womenswear with prints, embroidery and hand-work, small minimums across many colours, and design done here rather than sent here. Add a shorter fabric lead time because the mills are domestic, and a repeat that can turn in 12 to 15 days.

We have written this out at length in Insights, including where India loses.

Will a factory in India work with a small brand?

Some will, most will not, and the honest reason is arithmetic. A unit built around 5,000-piece orders loses money on 300 pieces, so it either declines or quotes a number designed to make you go away.

What to look for is a unit whose minimum is already low as a matter of how it is set up, not as a favour. Ours is 150 pieces per colour, and a style typically opens at 150 to 300 pieces across three or four colours. That is not a concession we make to new brands; it is the way the floor is planned, which is why the price does not move when you ask for it.

Cost and calendar

What it costs to manufacture clothing in India

We do not publish prices, and any figure you read on a website is a number for a garment that is not yours. What we can do is tell you exactly what moves the cost, so the quotation you get back is readable.

How much does it cost to manufacture clothing in India?

It depends on the fabric first and the labour content second, and the gap between a plain knit top and an embroidered woven dress in the same range is larger than the gap between two countries. Anyone quoting you a per-piece figure before seeing the specification is quoting a different garment.

In a typical woven womenswear style the fabric is the largest line by some distance, then the operation count on the line, then surface work — print, embroidery, hand-work, wash — then trims and packing, then inspection and freight. The bill of material and the operation breakdown are what a real quotation is made of.

Send a sketch, a reference garment or a photograph with the quantity and the colour split and you will get a costed answer against the actual specification. That is faster than a price list and it does not fall apart at bulk.

What actually moves the price of a garment?

Fabric quality and weight. A pearl-finish viscose lycra and a cotton sinker are not near each other, and a heavier GSM costs more twice over: in the cloth and in the freight.

Operation count. Every seam, pocket, pleat, pintuck and lining is line time. A style can often be simplified in two operations without the customer noticing anything but the fit.

Surface work. Embroidery is priced by stitch count and placement; prints by the number of colours and the panel size; hand-work by the hour. This is where a range gets expensive quietly.

Quantity per colour, not total quantity. Three hundred pieces in one colour cost less per piece than three hundred pieces across four colours, because the cutting lay, the marker and the dye lot all reset.

The calendar. Air freight, an expedited dye lot or a fabric bought at short notice all cost money that a normal calendar does not. Booking early is the cheapest lever you have.

What is your minimum order quantity?

One hundred and fifty pieces per colour. In practice a style opens at 150 to 300 pieces across three or four colours, which is a range you can test properly in a season rather than a single hedged bet.

A low minimum has a real cost and we would rather say it than hide it: per-piece cost is higher than it would be at 5,000, and the fabric usually has to come from a running quality rather than a colour dyed to your standard. What you buy in exchange is the ability to be wrong cheaply.

How long does it take, from brief to shipment?

First proto in 7 to 10 days from the brief. First bulk order in 30 to 40 days from approval. A repeat of an approved style in 12 to 15 days.

Of that 40 days, stitching is about 12. The rest is fabric, cutting, surface work, finishing and inspection — which is why the fastest way to lose a delivery date is a late approval, not a slow line.

How is a first order usually structured?

The commercial terms are agreed per programme and we will put them in writing before anything is cut, including what happens if a lot fails inspection and who carries the rework.

Costing is against the approved sample, so it moves only if the specification moves — a fabric change, a colour added, surface work added late. If you change the garment we will tell you what it does to the cost and the date at the point you ask, not on the invoice.

Longer form

Two of these are worth more than a paragraph

Where a 40-day lead time actually goes, and how India compares with Bangladesh and Vietnam, including where it loses.

Where a 40-day TAT actually goesIndia, Bangladesh, Vietnam — honestly

Send the garment, not the question.

A sketch, a reference garment or a photograph with the quantity and the colour split gets you a costed answer against your actual specification, usually within one working day.

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