Garments Buying House | Working Procedure of a Garment Buying House

Last Updated on 01/06/2021

Garments Buying House: Flow Chart, Functions and Working Procedures

Noor Ahmed Raaz
Faculty Member, Dept. of Textile Engineering,
Atish Dipankar University of Science & Technology
Email: raju.uttara105@gmail.com

Garments Buying House:
Garments buying house or export house works as intermediateries between the buyer and the manufacturer. Buying house procures garments from the manufacturers and exports to other countries. Garment merchandisers are key persons in buying house. Garments Buying House is a very profitable business, any smart people with less investment can earn millions of Dollars. Buying house basically is an office with some testing machine and equipments, as it is not directly execute the order. So every buying house needs some energetic skilled merchandiser to maintain the placement of order and execution, some quality controller (QC) to maintain the products quality some other officials to do official works.

Basically Garment Buying houses try to communicate with buyers of other countries who want to buy garment products. Then they contact with garment factories that can make those kinds of products and fulfill buyer’s demand. Like this they create a contract between these two parties. Sometime buying houses make their own sample section, so that they do not have to go to factories for collecting sample and they can attract customers faster and easily. On the other hand, they create a show room of their product to attract the buyer. Moreover, this house maintain the merchandiser to follow up the product processing line perfectly and also build a quality assurance team for checking the actual quality of the product.

Many bodies say that basic elements of garment buying house are one decorated room, chair, table, PC/Laptop, internet connection, telephone and the most important is skilled merchandiser.

Process Flow Chart of a Garment Buying House:

Contact with the Buyer
↓
Communicate
↓
Meeting
↓
Send Letter of Credit (L/C) to the Garment
↓
Develop the product
↓
Inspection by Buying House
↓
Complete working paper or document for shipping
↓
Send one copy to the bank↔Attach one copy with the product
↓
Shipment

Functions of a Garments Buying House:
Buying house work as intermediateries between the buyer and the vendor. 60-70% worldwide buying routes through the buying house. Buying office may be buyer’s regional office. These are situated predominantly at the vendor’s location work on profit percentages/commissions. It is also an independent company that works with multiple buyers.

You may also like: Why Garment Industry Depends on Buying House?

Major functions of a garment buying house are as follows:

1. Product development and sampling
2. Identifying the proper manufacturer based on requirements
3. Order processing
4. Communication with buyer and manufacturer for approvals and smooth running of order
5. Communicating buyer requirements
6. Order follow up at every stage
7. Quality control and monitoring throughout the process
8. Conducting factory audits at manufacturers campus
9. Shipping and logistics

Working Procedure of a Garment Buying House:
Every organization has its own working procedure. It’s varies from organization to organization. Buying house work flow is given below,

1. First of all marketing merchandiser contact with a buyer and collect an order by showing the garments they made before or directly ask which type of garments buyer need.
2. Then he /she find out the suitable factory for that specified garments. The factory must be audited by recognized organization like Oeko-tex, WRAP etc. (Depends on Buyer).
3. Do consumption and costing and bargaining with factory for cost for the specific product. Finalize cost and send it to buyer.
4. Then development merchandiser develops the product send 1st pattern for any correction.
5. Usually buyer makes some modification on 1st pattern, so 2nd pattern is submitted according to 1st pattern comments.
6. Then fit sample is made and QC (Quality Controller) check is it follows the approved 2nd pattern.
7. Then the Red seal sample is sent for approval which is also known as buying sample. And if the red seal sample approved then the order is confirmed.
8. Then production merchandiser starts his work.
9. Production merchandiser basically follows up the total production stage. After getting approval of red seal sample he has to book the fabric and trims.
10. He has to Follow up the fabric and trim arrived in factory in time or not. After all approval he does production planning meeting with factory.
11. QC has to follow the production is running with approved item, fabric and accessories or not. He helps production merchandiser by giving all production information.
12. QC’s main task is to check all samples (red seal, gold seal, web sample etc) sent to buyer, and help factory people if there any confusion with production.
13. Fabric, trims and accessories are checked in lab in buying house. It‘s called in-house test like bulk fabric hanger, shade variation in shade continuity, lab dip, fabric quality etc.
14. Different types of inspection also done in lab before ex-factory/shipment.
15. After doing ex-factory showing packing list and some commercial activities buying house receive their commission.

There are huge task is done by a buying house which starts with meeting with buyer and ends with collecting commission from buyer.

You may also like:

1. Role of Merchandiser in Garment Industry
2. Step by Step Knit Garments Merchandising: A Beginner’s Guide
3. Career in Merchandising: Factory vs Buying House
4. The Way of Smart Apparel Merchandising
5. Strategic Business Pattern of Apparel Buying House or Sourcing Hub Office

Mazharul Islam Kiron

Founder & Editor of Textile Learner. He is a Textile Consultant, Blogger & Entrepreneur. Mr. Kiron is working as a textile consultant in several local and international companies. He is also a contributor of Wikipedia.

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