Buying Behavior of Clothing buyers

Research and development in apparel industry is ongoing process. Every now and then, we encounter new developments, innovations, improvements in existing processes, which are in terms of fabric, style, stitching details, patterns, prints and their designs, but cycle of fashion keeps on revolving and always repeats after certain period.


Fashion trends moves in the direction from west to east. Trends which are in the western countries (USA, UK, France and Italy), will be the future trends in east and other countries. In other terms, we can call them fashion trendsetters.


Trends are in terms of styling, detailing and patterns, which is the invention of their dexterous designers and trend readers. Innovations and research done in terms of fabric and accessories in China, India, and Hong Kong shall be the basis of styling and patterns of trendsetters. Eventually call them supporters/active participants of the trends.


Nevertheless, we can segregate the whole apparel and fashion world in three categories.

1. Fashion and trend-setter countries
2. Retailing, Marketing and merchandising specialist countries
3. Sourcing, Production and process oriented countries


1. Fashion and trendsetter countries are France, Italy, UK and USA. We find lots of excellent designers, designing institutes, fashion stores, boutiques, and renowned brands. Like- Chanel, Armani, Hugo Boss, GAP, A&F, Valentino etc.


2. Marketing and Merchandising specialist countries are USA, UK, Hong Kong & India. They have the best concepts of marketing, retailing and merchandising in their own areas. Due to presence of the best fashion merchandising schools, they have good command over their retailing and marketing skills, India and Hong Kong are the emerging markets nowadays in terms of their retailing plans and encouragement to satisfy the domestic demand. Like- Macys, Wal-Mart, Target, GAP, A&F, Nordstrom, Reebok, Nike, Sainsbury, Lifestyle, Wills lifestyle, Max. etc.


3. Sourcing, Production and process-oriented countries are China, India, Vietnam & Bangladesh. They are export & process oriented countries due to less expensive labor, cheap raw material and govt. encouragement to exports. They are the best in to their own areas of specialization. Like- LinFung, Must Garments, Lenny Fashions, GI, Orient Craft etc.


There are many other countries, which are the part of above-mentioned categories like Spain, Germany, Pakistan, Canada, Brazil, Thailand etc. Nevertheless, they cover only a small part of these categories.


However, buyers study the trends very carefully, understanding the concepts of behavior of consumers, their presence, their aesthetic sense etc. Generally, when we get into this concept, we find that North American buyers travel to European markets to grab the idea of fashion trends, stories, themes and color combinations. After studying the market, they apply the same to prepare their style packages, to get the prices and costing from vendors. It applies the same to European buyers; visit the America or Retail outlets of US based brands to sense the market trends.


Many Italian/US brands emphasis to colors and hand feels with their basic patterns. Brands like UCB, American eagle are the examples of these outfits. However, it is presumed thinking that, It is not the color, but also the hand feel, which sells the garment into the market. Colors are their to tempt the customers to pull them in the showroom, it is the hand feel and price, which ultimately satisfy their aesthetic desires and psychological needs.


Behavior is a quite personal term to be used, but their behavior always depends on the behavior of their customers and competitors. All buyer look for, all kind of resorts to launch their product first, with improved innovations in market, to fetch the sales profit. This is the nature of business, first come first profit. Who reaches the destination first, is the winner of the game?

Source: http://www.fibre2fashion.com/

2009 China Textile Industry Summit To Be Held June 11

The 2009 China Textile Industry Summit, themed "Crisis and Opportunities," will be held June 11 - the day before the grand opening of the 14th International Exhibition on Textile Industry (ShanghaiTex 2009) - at The International Conference Centre in Shanghai.

Keynote speakers include Secretary General of the Boao Forum for Asia and world business expert Long Yungtu, who will examine the global market situation and the impact of the financial crisis on China's economy; a Shanghai city official, who will focus on modern service industries and Shanghai; and a leader of the China National Textile and Apparel Council, who will discuss the impact of the financial crisis on China's textile and machinery industry and the industry's development trend.

The Summit is organized by Shanghai International Exhibition Co. Ltd., Shanghai Textile Technology Service & Exhibition Center and Hong Kong-based Adsale Exhibition Services Ltd., and is sponsored by Shanghai Textile Holding (Group) Corp., China Council for the Promotion of International Trade Shanghai Sub-Council, China Chamber of International Commerce and Shanghai Chamber of Commerce. Supporters include China National Textile and Apparel Council and Shanghai Textile Industry Association.

Source: http://www.textileworldasia.com/

Fashion show with tinges of green

FDPC and Apparel Brain Connect hosted a fashion show, by paying tribute to the green revolution in the burgeoning fashion industry. Katharine Hamnett, the renowned fashion designer, who is considered “Queen of Green”, was also present along with Mr JN Singh, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Textiles.

Ms Hamnett has been closely involved with organic apparels since 1989 and has tied up with an Indian company to promote the cause of sustainable fashion and apparels in India.

Mr Raghavendra Rathore, the doyen of the fashion industry in India said, “This fashion show along with the presentation of Ms Katharine will go a long way in the development of the green revolution in the fashion industry of India.

FDPC, is a government owned body, which is helping fashion designers across the country, by giving them a platform. Mr Vijay Singh CEO of FDPC said “This is a correct platform to promote young designers who propagate and believe in preserving mother’s nature bounty and ethical fashions”.

Along with Katharine, leading designers like Raghavendra Rathore, Varun Bahl, Jai & Parvesh, and California based designer Kareena showcased their collection and promised support for ethical fashion.

Source: http://www.fibre2fashion.com/

TradersDiamonds.com - A new and easy diamond solution for Jewellers.

Today, for most jewellers, sourcing solitaires is a very tedious and time-consuming task. In such a scenario, buying solitaires online would be an idea to scoff at, a distant, unfulfilled dream. . But B2B portal www.tradersdiamonds.com is well on its way to making that dream come true, making the process of sourcing solitaires for jewellers as convenient as paying bills online.

Set up by Mr. Srinivasa Gopalan, a seasoned entrepreneur in information technology and founder CEO of Lister Technologies and Mr. Mithun Sacheti, a GIA educated jeweller gemmologist who belongs to well-known jewellery family, Jaipur Gems, Traders Diamonds is a pioneer in the online trading of diamonds for jewellers.

Mithun Sacheti, Director, Traders Diamonds gave Roli Gupta details about the Traders Diamonds brand, its raison d’etre and its vision for the future…

RG: What is Traders Diamonds?
MS: TradersDiamonds is a B2B website that sells certified loose diamonds to jewellers & other members of the diamond trade. This “exclusive trade-only” website allows traders to browse to a selection of close to 80,000 solitaires of every colour, cut, clarity grade combination in carat weight starting from 0.30cts to 10cts and above. Our model is based on aggregating the diamond inventory of manufacturers across the world and bringing it directly to jewellers in India using our website– www.tradersdiamonds.com.

RG: Why did you set up Tradersdiamonds.com?
MS: In the course of doing business in India for the last few years, I have met a whole lot of jewellers who get a lot of solitaire enquiries but they invariably prefer to let the business pass because solitaires are extremely time consuming and expensive for most jewellers – firstly because they are a high price item and secondly because of the various cut, clarity, color and size combinations, a jeweller will have to keep a very large number of pieces to be able to offer his customers a wide range which essentially means large investments in inventory.

Secondly, there are more than 5000 manufacturers in the world. A jeweller’s chances of getting the best priced diamond are proportional to the number of manufacturers whose inventory information he has. The market is highly fragmented and unorganized. So getting this inventory information is physically impossible. That means the jeweller often ends up buying a more expensive diamond, purely for lack of organized information. This was another opportunity area waiting to get tapped.

Thirdly once he receives the enquiry, the jeweller spends a lot of time calling different manufacturers to find the right solitaire for his customer. So, time that a jeweller would typically like to spend with customers is spent on diamond procurement. This again is a huge pain point with jewellers.

I have been in the US, where I have seen how online models have benefited the diamond trade. And I have seen how online companies which aggregate information on flights or financial products have changed industry dynamics in India.

So there is a need and we felt that an online model would address that need. And that is how TradersDiamonds.com came into being.

RG: What is its USP? What makes it different from the others in the same field? What sort of competition does Traders Diamonds have?
MS: TradersDiamonds.com has no like competition, as of today - one which offers an aggregated inventory online. That said, we do look forward to having that kind of competition. Then there will be more people working together to change the mindset of jewellers and convincing them about the benefits of an online model.

Competition however comes from the other diamond suppliers. There are basically two types. There are the manufacturers themselves, many of whom have a trade website as well. But their inventory is far limited as compared to ours and that gives us a huge edge. Then there are the brokers and wholesalers. Again, their database is limited to a few vendors and we can offer a far larger range of options. Secondly, our users can easily access our inventory whereas they can only call to get information from the brokers and wholesalers. In both cases, our larger inventory helps us to frequently find a lower priced diamond. Then, there are a few other trade portals which typically serve as aggregators. However these are subscription based and the subscription costs are fairly high. So a small jeweller who has only a few transactions may not find them expensive. Our model however is purely brokerage based and there is no subscription fee.

In addition to that, we have created a website which makes it extremely easy to search for diamonds. We also have a dedicated customer service team to help the jewellers with their requirements.

Our association with foreign manufacturers gives us another USP in terms of inventory of fancy shaped diamonds. We are far better positioned to offer a range of options in most of the popular fancy shapes, even in large sizes.

Finally, we have a dedicated team of GIA trained gemmologists. This team offers diamond advisory services to the jewellers, helping them with the finer technical issues. There are various issues like the grading of Zimbabwean stones, which jewellers are unclear about. Our advisory service often comes to their rescue.

RG: How do you plan to position it?
MS: Our positioning is very simple. We want to be the one –stop shop for all kinds of diamonds and solitaire requirements for all kinds of jewellers. Once a jeweller comes to us, he need not go anywhere.

We don’t want to be labeled as just an online retailer for the internet savvy jeweller. We have combined the advantages of the internet with good old diamond expertise and offline measures to be able to offer the best range of diamonds to all kinds of jewellers.

Source: http://diamondworld.net/