Over the past few months I've had the opportunity to help six emerging entrepreneurs who are at various stages of starting or expanding their apparel businesses. These interactions made me aware of the fundamental knowledge I acquired in my start-up years by producing apparel domestically before venturing offshore.Only after developing my experience "tool kit" was I confident enough to venture offs...

This week I'm at my apparel factory in the Free Trade Zone in the village of San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic coordinating and planning back to school programs. Key staff or I come here about every third week; it's a Monday through Friday drill, from 7 AM to sometime after 7 PM. With about 100 offshore employees, key relationship building, on the spot problem solving and being a good corpor...

Great sales representatives are the lifeline for most children's apparel manufacturers and finding a talented and connected rep is pretty hard when your just starting in business.I'd like to share how I found sales people for Corky when we were a new manufacturer in 1994. Back then there wasn't an Internet to do research, instant communication via email or jpegs that could be easily viewed by anybo...

Corky was a new line 15 years ago and we've learned a lot about forecasting demand for production. This post will be somewhat analytical, yes its the engineer in me, but it will be of great use to a new apparel manufacturer.As a manufacturer you must realize in your first few seasons a retailer can't make a large category commitment to you because there is too much risk of non-delivery. I think the...

Yes, Easter was early and it hurt apparel sales in March because consumers weren't ready to buy summer merchandise.In the 250 year span from 1875 to 2124 Easter was never before March 23rd and Easter occurs only twice on March 23rd, first in 1913 and then again this year 2008. Next year we return to a retail friendly Easter date of April 12.In my post Early Easter May Lead to Retail Markdowns I gue...