Cultural Enterprise Office

1. Matching the manufacturer to your business

Try to match a manufacturer to your business size, but don’t feel if you're a small company you can’t match yourself with bigger manufacturers – talk to the best you can.

2. Choosing a manufacturer

“Check quality levels of factories by counter-sampling, checking costings, and asking for references – any reputable factory will be happy to supply references. You’re looking for dependability – if they’re late, you’re late, and that can ruin customer relationship.” – David Finlayson, APM Agency

3. The first meeting

Once you have found a suitable partner, it's important to meet them. Travel to meet your manufacturer. You then have one chance to impress them – you need to have done your homework and you need to be as flexible as possible. 

4. Negotiate

Minimums are hard for small brands. Negotiate. Ask where are the gaps in production and where can you be squeezed in? 

5. Have funding in place 

You need to be prepared financially – have funding to go into production with confidence. You need to have the money to back it up and be able to carry on. 

6. Be prepared 

A spec sheet, along with a sample or toile, is essential to translate the sizes and dimensions of your design to the manufacturer. This would include a technical drawing of your design, with details of topstitching, trims used and any other information that they will need to produce your garment.

7. Fraud

No relationship with your manufacturer? There could be a risk of counterfeiting. Hold onto your own samples for proof of authenticity and contact Scottish Enterprise to run anything suspicious by the experts.

Disclaimer: We want to keep you in the know, so we offer a wide selection of useful resources. But Cultural Enterprise Office isn’t responsible for the advice and information of external organisations in this document. So if you have any questions, please contact the specific organisation directly.