OEM is the abbreviation of original equipment manufacturer. OEM production has developed rapidly in China’s manufacturing industry in recent years, especially clothing. For many bosses who have achieved a certain scale in the clothing wholesale industry, the first step of clothing branding is to do clothing labeling.
OEM clothing is a special form of clothing wholesale industry with relatively high threshold. There is less non-contact, and even some people in the industry have some prejudice against it.
Why do most clothing brands start from labeling?
What are the advantages of clothing labeling in developing brand business?
What is the production process of clothing labeling?
1. What Is Clothing Labeling?
The participating roles of clothing labeling are mainly brands and manufacturers. In general, after finding a suitable manufacturer, the brand manufacturer authorizes the manufacturer to use its own brand logo. The production factory helps the brand design and production.
Many clothing stall owners want to put their own logo on the clothes they sell and create their own clothing brand. At this time, you are the identity of the brand to the manufacturer.
A brand can entrust multiple manufacturers to help produce. This is why people often complain that the quality of the same brand is different every time they buy it. This is mostly due to different manufacturers and batches. The first mock exam of brand transformation is the transformation of many brands from traditional wholesale to brand owners.
Similarly, clothing styles without logo designed and produced by the same manufacturer can also be sold to multiple clothing brands at the same time. As like as two peas, you can always see the same style of clothing in A’s B family. (many final orders for foreign trade are mainly obtained through these OEM manufacturers).
2. If You Want to Be a Brand, You Should Make Your Own Labeling First
When the clothing business becomes bigger, it will naturally move towards the direction of brand development;
It can be said that the first step for most bosses to make brand clothes is to start with labeling.
OEM simultaneous interpreting has many advantages over traditional wholesale purchase.
① Supervise production and ensure garment quality
The traditional way of purchasing goods is that the boss goes to other wholesalers to get the goods in person to earn the price difference. Only those who are capable can get the first-hand supply, which is time-consuming and laborious, and the quality of the goods is often uneven.
For clothing labeling, after placing an order, you can supervise the production and raise the demand for improvement at any time to ensure that the quality and style of the same batch are satisfied.
② Small investment and profit maximization
Build your own factories and production lines, with large investment and long cycle.
Without strong capital, we can’t afford it at all. Brands can apply the saved funds in all aspects, such as national investment promotion and sales.
③ Flexible order, low risk
The market demand is changing rapidly. In the process of OEM, manufacturers will provide semi-finished products for garment production for many times.
The brand can modify the unfinished design at any time according to the market preference and trend, so as to reduce the risk of unsalable and pressed goods caused by wrong selection.
④ Manufacturers reduce capacity
After nearly ten years of accumulation, China’s existing production lines have overcapacity. After being entrusted with orders, “OEM” gives full play to the idle productivity and promotes the progress of enterprise technology and the growth of manufacturer performance.
It is a win-win situation for brands that have just started in the early stage and are short of funds to cooperate with manufacturers with idle resources.
3. How Did a Branded Garment Come into Being
OEM is your production and my brand.
For a branded garment, the brand manufacturer usually provides the vector diagram of logo and some logo accessories, such as the shipping mark of the garment, and then the manufacturer provides all the other materials. The production of a batch of branded clothing mainly goes through the following processes:
① The manufacturer designs and the buyer selects the money to place an order
The manufacturer will design multiple styles in the first two or three months of the peak season, and then send them to the brand for selection, which is the so-called order meeting.
After the brand selects the style, it puts forward the improvement demand and asks the manufacturer to improve the proofing.
Brands will place orders only when they are satisfied with the improved samples. (there is still a big gap between the sample and the style actually sold at this time).
② Factory purchased fabric accessories
The manufacturer of the proofed sample will leave one for the bottom. The purchase of the factory is mainly divided into two parts: purchasing fabrics and accessories according to the standard of sample clothes.
Ordering fabric: first of all, we should calculate the amount of fabric, the amount of one piece, plus 5% loss. If the number of orders is small, the loss should be increased. After calculating the quantity, the buyer will contact each dyeing and weaving factory to provide various similar fabrics for later use.
Ordering auxiliary materials: for the auxiliary materials produced by OEM, the brand manufacturer basically designates the supplier to the factory, and the manufacturer only needs to place an order according to the quantity.
③ Make pre production samples and modify the process sheet as required
After procurement, there is a trial production process before formal production. The factory will use the garment ERP system to generate the process sheet through the process and auxiliary materials.
After the fabric arrives at the factory, make a pre production sample and send it to the brand, and then modify the process sheet according to the batch comments. Then it can be officially produced.
④ Production report and settlement after QC quality inspection
During the production process, the manufacturer will report the production progress and problems encountered in the production process to the brand every week,
The brand will also send a resident quality inspection (QC) to supervise the production,
After the final quality inspection is qualified and the settlement is completed, it can be sold.
4. For The First Time, What Should I Do?
OEM clothing has obvious advantages, but its disadvantages are also obvious. If you do OEM for the first time, if you don’t pay attention to the following points, it is easy to amplify the shortcomings and take risks.
① Do a good job in quality inspection and strictly control the quality
As mentioned above, the problem often encountered in OEM production is that different batches and manufacturers have different quality.
In fact, if the quality inspection is not strict, the quality of the same batch will be different.
Manufacturers often cut corners in order to save costs; Or when purchasing wholesale fabrics, I’m afraid that there may be remaining, so I buy in multiple batches, which is also easy to cause differences in the quality of fabrics in the same batch. The most important thing about OEM clothing is quality inspection.
② Pay attention to the supply of logo accessories to prevent infringement
Many of “super a goods” and “tail orders” of many big brand clothes, except that some of them are fake and shoddy, flow out of the OEM of big brand clothes.
After signing the trademark license production contract with the designated supplier of auxiliary materials, always pay attention to the quantity of auxiliary materials ordered by the manufacturer at the supplier. On the other hand, the resident QC should pay attention to whether there is surplus goods.
③ Strictly control information before production and beware of commercial disclosure
Garment manufacturers all know that style is the core competitiveness. In the trial production stage between order placement and formal production, we should strictly control the information. It is difficult to control the information after production.
But as long as you produce one day earlier than your peers, you will make one more day’s money.