Activewear Suppliers Shaping Modern Performance Apparel

You can launch an activewear brand with the most basic approach: make a handful of items that people need to wear during training, running, stretching or whatever else people do in the course of day. Actually translating this concept into a collection takes far more than slapping a logo on some existing garments. Your activewear suppliers will affect how much control you have, how quickly you can develop products and how easily you can increase production.

The various stages require different production methods. When a label is new, flexibility and low- risk of developing are important. However, a known label may place more emphasis on exclusivity of product, reliable quality, and repeat orders.

Your First Supplier May Not Be Your Last

A fledgling brand still has relatively limited budgets and uncertain forecasts. Buying in mass quantities before sales are proven risk tying heavy cash flow into high stocks for an indeterminate period.

Therefore, a new clothing company can initially use already established shapes or just simple personalizations. The company has the possibility to explore colors, shapes, target market prices and responses on the product, without the need to create each piece of clothing.

Things are different. When shoppers start coming back for particular items, the brand might want special sizing, fabric options, measurements, colors and construction specifications. Production also picks up.

The supplier you used at the testing stage may not have necessarily been able to give the required control or capacity. That does not necessarily mean the supplier failed. The brand has just moved into another stage of development.

Stock Products Offer a Quick Starting Point

Compared to other types of clothing, activewear is therefore a relatively quick entry for a brand from the start of production to when is sells.

Suppliers generally have inventories for mass-produced lines like leggings, sports bras, shorts, T-shirts, crop tops, and jackets. One can pick from the available models and customize them with own labels, logos, tags, packaging or other branding items.

It shortens development work and makes it easier to launch a small collection. This approach can be relevant for those entrepreneurs testing an idea of business before having to committing hundreds of millions into developing a collection.

Originality is the major limitation. When a number of brands pick from the same catalog, their stock product may look almost identical. Stock product is thus ideal where speed takes priority over total uniqueness of the garment.

Private Label Gives the Collection Its Own Identity

I‘m doing private label. It gets nearer to a real branded product.

The fabric, knitting or production process is supplied by the supplier but the brand has influence over the labels, hangtags, packaging, logo, color, or chosen detail. Certain suppliers offer the option to alter fabric, measurements, trims or other aspects of the garment.

The actual degree of customization may vary quite a bit. One manufacturer may supply a catalogue style with just a number of options for branding where another would do a wide number of modifications.

Brandshave to explain what these differences are before placing the order. A single pattern might be used by other customers, but it could have an entirely different logo and packaging designed around it.

That is where that distinction becomes crucial in a situation where a brand would want its customers to identify it through its fit and not the logo.

OEM Starts With a Clear Product Concept

The OEM development demands additional burden onto the brand.

Rather than selection an existing item, the brand offers a well-defined idea. The tech pack could detail any numbers (measurements), material needs, artwork, construction specifications, sting and other details, label and packings specifications. A reference sample can be sent to production.

The supplier then builds samples within those specification and pronto the products for large scale manufacturing.

I think it works for brands who already know what they want to produce. Perhaps they have a specific waistband, pocket layout, compression, oversized silhouette or special element that can’t be found in a archetypal collection.

In that case, with a launched product, it will create compromise. OEM will give the brand more flexibility in order to defend the original idea.

ODM Helps Brands That Need Development Support

The few companies that do know the type of collection that they want but don‘t have a team of designers to develop the concept;

ODM has the power to fill in this edge. The supplier can provide the familiarity, forms, fabric choices and technology know-how; the brand can define the collection toward the specific end customer, price point, visual concept and market positioning.

This way it has the potential to cut the time-to-market but without making the clients take a clearly identically product.

Official terminology tends to define ODM as between the manufacturer of private label based on existing catalog and the fully specified OEM research and development – though individual suppliers may use those terms in different way.

But the language is less important than the deal itself. The brand needs to know what the supplier is willing to change on a garment, who does the development work, and what the supplier requires in the final specification on order to proceed to sampling.

Growth Changes What a Brand Needs

However, it can get quite complicated with multiple products selling in a collection.

One pair of crash pants may have been so successful over time that it has spawned many other colorways as well as measured. A favorite training top can add to the set. The addition of new season‘s items can also see jackets, shorts, bras or lifestyle items added to the range.

Thus production then is a challenge of consistency.

Repeat orders require the same size, fiber properties, colours, trims and look of original product. Also a supplier require just sufficient capacity for large volumes without altering the quality that satisfied the first time round.

Now then, it‘s not even just someone to make clothes. Now the brand is looking for a production partner who can move along a product road map.

Good Supplier Relationships Involve Real Development

There is no reason a good production relationship has to be a simple order/ delivery one.

The identity of the brand is established and understands the target customers and what it wants the look book to say. The supplier understands fabrics, patterns, construction, equipment, limitations of production, and cost of manufacture.

The above two forms of knowledge are also compatible.

Suppose a brand is looking for a lightweight training top that has a soft handle, great stretch and is wickable. Rather than a lengthy spec sheet showing generic fabric to purchase, a variety of options can behave quite differently when sewn in, laundered and worn. An experienced supplier can advise those differences before a volume order is placed.

That conversation is the cheapest way of preventing costly changes later.

Different Products Can Need Different Production Models

One company is not required to have a single production method throughout their entire range of products.

A simple T-shirt can go with a private-label model. A signature pair of leggings can go with OEM development. A seasonal collection can go with ODM support when brand wants to move fast.

This puts the companies into the position of having the ability to deal with risk while maintaining product differentiation.

It is also all representative of activewear. A simple training top won‘t warrant anywhere near the same development process as a compression legging or even a technical sports bra. Sometimes the product itself will dictate the amount of development work the supplier will have to undertake.

The Best Supplier Depends on the Next Step

No pre-existing production model applies to all activewear brands.

A new company may require a fairly straightforward way into the market. A developing brand may need increased control over product development. An established brand may require more intensive technical support, stable repeat production, in larger scale, closer adherence to specifications across a range of collections.

The real question seems therefore not only to ask, “Which is the best supply66?”.

Probably a more suitable questions would be, “What do the brand need next?”

That answer is dynamic. A company might develop stock products, enter private label, go through OEM producing its own original garments,then develop a long term production business around its core collection.

If this is the case, the supplier increases in value when it is capable of delivering once the brand is ready for it but without constraining the next step.

JiuvelWear, runs by Dongguan Jiuzuo Clothing Co.,Ltd. offers customized apparel development including fabric sourcing, product development, sample production, bulk production and quality control. This offer allows brands to have a practical route to develop their clothing idea from initial concept to a full collection that they can continue to develop as the business expands.