Importing clothes/shoes etc to sell...any advice?

Sarahpuggy

hi all,

I currently work as a fashion buyer, so i understand quite well how buying and selling works, but i want to start something up along side my full time job.

I have access to alot of suppliers, but they are big suppliers who supply the high street and mail order catalogues, so their minimum orders are like 500 at the very least.

How do i go about finding suppliers that will let me buy small amounts? I am thinking of clothes and shoes mainly to sell through a website, and hopefully once its up and running, branching out into accessories/homewares etc..

i know i have the dedication to make this work, i just need to know how to go about it!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Sarah.

windswept

try the uk business forums website for advice , they are usually full of helpful people, I used them a lot when we first set up our business. the main problem will be finding suppliers and even when found, getting them to supply you. it will be easier to persuade them to supply you if you are already registered with hmrc, have a business bank account etc. you have to be able to prove to them that you are a bona fide business before they will even consider you. once you have one supplier it gets much easier, they will expect you to pay up front for orders though.;)

Equinut

hi sarah

this is exactly what my wife did, came from a buying background and then launched an online clothing business. if you want any pointers then advice is free, just PM me. as long as you're no competitor, no problem

i wouldn't worry too much about how established you are - almost all suppliers will expect upfront payment anyway to start with, so as long as you have the wonga to start with, then no problem.

the minimums are the tricky bit. i do think that unless you have a significant wodge of cash, you will be looking at using blanks until you get the volumes to go straight to factory.

best factories (price-wise) are ex-europe - so turkey, china, pakistan, non-EU eastern europe. then you need to take into account quota, too.

my advice would be try to identify one of your existing contacts - perhaps by using the personal relationship you already have with them - to get them to agree to small minimums. try and use what advantages your current role has, as when starting out you need every ounce of help/advantage you can get.

oh, and make sure you have your marketing all sussed out. buying's important, but only one part of the cherry - after all if you can't bring to market and sell what you've bought in, then it doesn't matter how good the buy was!

equinut

martindow

I have found that companies are often much more flexible than they appear to be about minimum orders. We negotiated for a while with a Chinese company who wanted a minimum order of 100kg of their products which was far more than we wanted to start with. We exchanged emails for a while and they agreed to an initial order of about a third of that as we said we wanted a small order first to check the quality. Once this precedent was set we continued with similar size orders.

As has been said they will want to work on a pro forma basis so you need to establish some trust as you will pay before anything is sent. I would also suggest that you get a quote to deliver to the door rather than to a dockside or airport. The carrier will then sort out customs clearance and invoice you for duties and VAT. Otherwise you will find a lot of unexpected costs of import agents and the like.

Good luck - I hope it all works out.

Sarahpuggy

Thankyou all for your very useful replies! I am at the early idea stage, so i will take all of this on board. Thankyou!

Sarah x