Imports Oriental Blog

International apparel manufacturing and sourcing. If we don't make it, we can find it.

Posts Tagged ‘customers’

Washing Care Icons – do YOU know what they mean?

Tanya Crossman

Tanya Crossman

Today I want to share something a little different with you. The Telegraph (a UK newspaper) published an article online last month about care labels on clothing. It turns out that very few people can decipher the detailed instructions conveyed by care icons.

Care icons are supposed to simplify instructions – to allow consumers to understand how to care for their clothes properly, regardless of language. If no one can read the language of care symbols, however, they aren’t doing their job.

Nine in 10 people are unable to decipher common symbols used on clothes labels. . . A third of people surveyed said that they recognised none of the six symbols shown. . . Just 10 per cent sign knew the sign for “do not dry clean”, while only 12 per cent were familiar with “drip dry only”.

The statistics are based on a survey of 2,000 people in the UK, who were shown 6 care symbols and asked what each meant. I must admit, I did a terrible job myself.

It makes me wonder why awareness is so low. Is the system of symbols too complicated? Do a large percentage of people simply not care about the best way to care for their clothes?

Awareness was highest among 18- to 29-year-old women – for whom taking care of clothes is clearly important.

I think the conclusion that these women are more careful with their clothes is a logical assumption, but we don’t know that for sure. At any rate, it’s interesting to me that younger women are more familiar with care symbols than those who have been doing laundry for decades.

It would be helpful to find out HOW they know what the symbols mean. Are they working in clothing retail and have been trained to know? Are they researching what the care icons on their own clothing means, so they can care for them in the best manner? It’s even possible they know which items will be difficult to care for before making a purchase.

Personally, I try to select clothes that are easy to care for; I have in the past rejected items I liked because I knew I wasn’t willing to iron them every time I wore them, or to always dry clean them. Even if I understood perfectly how an item should be cared for, chances are I wouldn’t change my laundry routine for it.

What about you? Do you understand the washing care icons on your clothing? Do you care?
Why do you think younger women are more aware of care icons?

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Posted in : Textile Industry

Knitwear: It’s all about Details and Service

Danny Coyle

Danny Coyle

Our business focuses on Textiles and Garments.  We started in jewelry, but now we only specialize garments and textiles. For about 5 years we focused on woven garments, but in the last year we’ve shifted to knitwear items.  The difference between our two lines of business is much greater than I expected.

Our woven apparel business is product-based.  We have a few core products with item codes; a customer can tell us the code # they want, and buy that product with minimal customized adaptations.

Knit apparel is a totally different story. It’s all about service and details. The customer’s need to get a long list of details exactly correct makes it hard for overseas buyers to source knitwear from China without going to a large, established, expensive factory with large minimum requirements..

A long list of details

A typical knitwear order with 5-10 styles could have as many as 1,000 individual details to receive from the buyer and then execute and monitor.  These details include:

  • garment measurements (20-30 per style)
  • garment style and construction details (yarn tension, knitting style, design elements)
  • manufacturing details (requirements for washing, drying, and ironing)
  • yarn details (color, composition, handfeel)
  • accessories

Then there are all the other details involved in international trade deals, such as:

  • Documents required by the customer
  • Labeling
  • Packaging
  • Payment terms
  • Shipping

Every one of these details has the potential to destroy an entire project.  While this may also be the case in many other industries, knitwear manufacturing includes a variety of subjective criteria that that cannot be quantified – suitability is up to the opinion of the buyer.  Handfeel variations, color variations, and even measurement tolerances can be acceptable to one buyer, and unacceptable to another.

Managing the varied and subtle details is a very complex undertaking. It is impossible to cover all your bases from a distance. This is where we come in, with a blend of foreign expertise and hometown advantage.

Where service comes in

Our job is to fully understand all aspects of the project, effectively communicate all requirements to the relevant parties, then monitor each stage of the process to return finished products in line with customer expectations. In short, we oversee and manage the entire project, from start to finish.

We take the detailed instructions we receive from our customers and explain them to all the suppliers involved – dyeing factories, knitting factories, after care providers, etc. We frequently work with smaller factories as they give the time and attention to detail that is required for smaller orders, without the higher costs associated with large factories.

The communication hub we provide creates benefit on all sides. Our foreign staff walk customers through the details of each style with greater effectiveness than a small factory owner could. Our local staff communicate with small factories more clearly than a foreign buyer could.

By using our services, our customers leverage the benefits of boutique factories while keeping their costs down.

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Posted in : Business in China, Knitwear, Manufacturing, Textile Industry

Emotions and E-mails: Maintaining Good Communication in Long-Distance Business


Danny Coyle

Danny Coyle

With our headquarters in China and our customers overseas, face-to-face meetings are virtually impossible. Therefore, the main lines of communication are e-mails and phone calls, leaving a great deal of room for miscommunication.

Here are a few communication lessons we’ve learned:

1. Email is best for facts. If it needs a lengthy explanation, pick up the phone.

We find that if the explanation can be given in a few sentences or bullet points, e-mail works great. This method saves both time and effort in communicating. However, when the details are based on opinion or need a lengthy explanation, too much information is left open to interpretation. At this point, it is best to pick up the phone, which ultimately saves both time and effort.

2. Learn to read the emotions in an e-mail.

An important skill is reading the emotions of your customer (or supplier)—recognizing, for instance, when they are getting frustrated or are not understanding your details. If you can pick up on these nuances, you can save yourself—and them—future problems or setbacks. Also, if you sense they are getting frustrated, pick up the phone.

3. When emotions are hot, only use e-mail to establish understanding of the other side (not to defend your position).

When a customer or supplier is already angry, it will be difficult for him to see your side of the situation. When the other party is angry, e-mail (as with any other communication tool) should only be used to understand their point of view (by asking questions, clarifying, etc). Don’t try to defend yourself (it will make matters worse). First try to understand. Then, having established understanding, you will have a better idea of how to proceed. And then, remember point one—try a phone call!

A quick story of how these skills have paid off for us.

We hired an independent consultant for a job. Things started out well (via phone, actually), but as time progressed, we kept having trouble communicating expectations (via email). We came close to firing the consultant because the exchange of e-mails was starting to spiral out of control. Emotions ran high, tensions rose, and trust was deteriorating. We decided not to continue the discussion by e-mail, but instead to wait a few days until our next scheduled phone call. By that time, emotions had settled somewhat and we could speak in a more matter-of-fact way. We presented our expectations, he accepted responsibility for his mistakes, and we were back on track again. Just hearing his tone of voice told us that emotions and e-mails had caused the situation to seem like a much bigger deal than it really was.

Be the leader in your business relationships. If communication is breaking down, avoid taking the easy way out. Instead of shooting back an email in the hope he’ll see it your way, pick up the phone and deal with the situation effectively.

How do you maintain clear lines of communication with business partners in different places?
How do you prevent emotions from muddying the waters?

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Posted in : Business Relationships, Business in China, International Business

Overabundance of Choice leads to Buyer Confusion

Jill Coyle

Jill Coyle

We read a lot of general business blogs as well as China-specific blogs. The concepts of good business apply everywhere in the world.

I recently read a great article on MarketingProfs talking about the importance of giving consumers an appropriate number of product choices – too much choice results in confusion and lower sales.

Although we are B2B sellers, and I’ve found the principles in this article true in the China Export arena. When we’ve given customers too many choices – whether in new clothing styles, colors, materials – they will often take longer in making a decision…or not make a decision at all.

Read the full article here

Have you ever seen a sale stall due to an overabundance of choice?
How do  you combat this problem?

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Posted in : Business in China, International Business, Textile Industry

Sell People What They’re Already Buying

Danny Coyle

Danny Coyle

One Idea That Changed Our Business Forever

We started our business as a jewelry company in 2004. Things went pretty well for the first year or so—especially when we were traveling throughout the US to sell our China-made jewelry first-hand. After our big sales push, we returned to China; and I quickly realized that trying to sell jewelry was hard for 2 reasons.

1. I’m a man and an engineer by training – those two things combined to make a terrible jewelry salesman.

2. Selling jewelry 10,000 miles from your customer is very hard. Jewelry is subjective – and therefore difficult to sell when you can’t be in front of your buyer, explaining it as they touch and feel the jewelry piece.

We were talking about these problems with a wise friend and business mentor. And he said something so simple and so genius. He said:

“Instead of trying to sell people what you want to sell them, sell people what they are already buying!”
That day we made a vital shift; and our business has never been the same. I decided to start selling what people were already buying. It was a case of jumping on someone else’s bandwagon, but I didn’t care. There were deals to be made and I was excited.

I started calling as many customers as I could find for all kinds of China-products. I specifically focused on silicone bracelets (like the yellow Lance Armstrong Livestrong bracelet). I focused on this since it was jewelry, it was easy to make, and very popular at the time. I figured we could make a deal.

One of the customers asked if we had popcorn shirts. I knew what a popcorn shirt was because someone had given one to my wife a few years back. So I went looking, found them, put them on our website and on Alibaba, and someone else wanted to buy them. Our orders started growing, and more people wanted them. Suddenly we had a whole new business.

Since then, we’ve expanded our travelwear line because people wanted to buy more. We’ve recently found that we can also meet a high demand for sweaters, so we’re selling those, too.

So, instead of selling people what you want to sell them, try selling them what they want to buy. It might be easier that way.

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Posted in : Entrepreneurs, International Business

Maintaining Long-Term Business Relationships from 10,000 Miles Away

Danny Coyle

Danny Coyle

We opened our trading business in China 6 years ago, trading a variety of products (jewelry, apparel, accessories etc.) One of the biggest challenges we’ve faced over the years is how to maintain customer relationships when you are 10,000 miles apart.

It can be expensive to maintain customer relationships when long distances are involved. Strategies you might normally employ are not suitable to a long distance business relationship. Regular face-to-face meetings are not an option. So what can you do to build and maintain trust with your customers?

Here’s the big secret we’ve found: make your customers your friends.  People like to do business with their friends.  The relationships we have with our customers will continue to last even after our business with them is over. (We hope it never is, but realistically speaking, our business will likely conclude at some point).  Our customers know that we have their best interests in mind first, because we are interested in more than their money; we are interested in them as people.

This is one area where genuine authenticity and integrity is important.  If you are interested in customers’ personal lives only because you want to get a sale out of them, your efforts are likely to backfire. This kind of dishonesty is easy to detect and could risk the business you have with them.  If you can instead find it in yourself to be interested, to ask questions about who they are, and get to know them, doing business over great distances becomes a lot easier.

It’s about doing the best job you can – not because you want to make money, but because you want your customer to be able to say “we have the best product in the world.”  You want your customer to be able build the success of his business on the quality of your product.  When your customer knows that you are doing your best to provide him with the best product, not only because of the requirements of the order, but also because you are putting your heart into it, he is more confident to sell the product.

Furthermore, if your customer knows that you care and that you are doing your best, he will be more open to your explanations when things go wrong. When a mistake happens, it is easier for a customer who trusts your motives to make the effort to understand what happened rather than getting angry and threatening with liquidated damages or worse.

Be interested, be willing to open up and be a real person.  It’s another way to keep existing customers on board for the long-haul.

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Posted in : Business Relationships, Business in China, International Business

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