Fashion product pricing is essential, yet tricky to get right. To make your fashion business work, one of the key things you must do is make a profit. We know, that does seem fairly obvious! But actually taking charge of what needs to be done in order to actually do so can be challenging and sometimes overwhelming.

Never fear and don’t despair, we have easy-to-follow advice on fashion product pricing for profit.

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Tips for Fashion Product Pricing

1. Know your target market

The key is to have an in-depth and well-researched knowledge of your market, your customer, your costs and your route to market. "How?" We hear you cry. Just ask yourself the following questions:

• What is your market?
• Who is the current market leader?
• Who are your competitors?
• What are your competitors pricing their products at?

Jot down your findings and what you immediately interpret from what you’ve found. Now, let’s get down to business! If you've already done your business...

How frustrating is it when you contact factories or suppliers and get no response? Regardless of whether you are contacting them for business, pricing or for more information, you mean business, so why don’t they reply? Here are the Do’s and Don’ts of communicating with factories so that you get better results.

It is always a little confusing after you pitch to a factory with an email or letter asking for information or a quote and they never get back to you. It is hard to understand why anyone would turn down the opportunity to build new connections and create new business. But the simple truth is that suppliers often receive many enquiries from designers and fashion start-up businesses, that rarely result in orders for that supplier.

Here is some advice on communicating with factories:

Don't contact a supplier before you're ready

Make sure you are well organised so you can order - and provide - accurate and well-structured prices and guidelines. Suppliers are going to need certai...

A pattern cutter should be viewed as the fashion designers engineer. It’s a misconception that their role and place in fashion is secondary to that of the designer for many pattern cutters have a vast knowledge of design and construction. Both necessary skills that are required to breathe life into a two-dimensional drawing.

How to get the best out of your pattern cutter should be at the forefront of your mind if you’re about to embark on developing a fashion range.

However, if you’re new to the fashion industry understanding how to find the ‘best’ pattern cutter is, could be hard to decipher.

In the first instance, a pattern cutter will need some information from you and our selection of Top Tips will clarify what that information should be.

1. Sketches and Flat Drawings

In order not to waste time and to be able to get the best out of your pattern cutter, clear, detailed flat drawings are the first items you need to collate for your first meeting.

These should include front and ...

Most manufacturers include a number of care labels on their clothes to tell consumers that the garments meet certain standards. Let's understand what instructions must go into Care Labels.

These labels include the washing instructions (care labels) you see when you read that your lovely new knitwear, after it has emerged from the washing shrivelled and discoloured, should have actually only been hand washed at precisely 24.7 degrees by a Benedictine Monk before being dried slowly over a naked flame and beaten by a club.

What you might not know is that these logos are actually a type of trademark called "Certification Marks." These marks provide a guarantee that the goods or services bearing the mark meet a certain defined standard or possess a particular characteristic.

The owner of the mark will generally define what that standard or characteristic is. But as these marks are owned by other people, you will often have to pay for the privilege to use them. Generally, this is done by ...

Finding a pattern cutter right for the job at hand can be a daunting experience. Often people in the industry say that good pattern cutters are like gold dust. And once you find a good one – there is no guarantee that they will be free to take on your project. But, providing that you do some thorough research and check credentials, you should be able to secure someone who can do the job properly.

The fashion industry produces a vast array of different products. These include, but are not limited to, trousers and skirts, evening dresses, tailoring, coating, and shirting. Underwear is also part of the equation, and let’s not forget the accessories market that includes footwear and handbags. Just as there are different types of items, there are also different types of pattern cutters. As a new brand keen to get your creations turned into a blueprint for your designs, finding a pattern cutter that is right for your particular needs is easy if you only know what to look for.

Finding a ...

Prior to the 18th century, if you were wealthy enough to have your own dressmaker, the paper patterns they worked from were very simple and had no annotation. They were usually made for each individual client. But if anyone else wanted to have the same garment made for them too, the re-sizing and pattern grading was a complicated task, even for the most adept seamstresses.

In the mid-19th century, sewing patterns were made available to the wider, albeit, still affluent public. Launched originally in America, women could purchase patterns through a women's journal published at the time.

With advances in technology, the large-scale production of graded, practical and easier-to-use sewing patterns, can be traced to 1867.

Ebenezer Butterick was the first to start mass-producing patterns and print them on tissue paper. They were available to purchase in a variety of sizes, with one size per package. 

It was not until the 1970s, when sales were lagging, that multi-size graded patterns b...

Working in fashion manufacturing means that often one spends vast amounts of time discussing THE critical path and making sure production runs on time. For those new to the concept - this is an important moment. Not understanding what the importance of the fashion critical path is, can only spell trouble for your business.  So let's take a look at what that is, how to create one and why it is so important to a business.

What is a Critical Path?

In the apparel industry, the fashion critical path is actually a production plan that contains a list of all of the necessary activities that are required to be done within a particular time frame. This ensures that your production orders are shipped successfully within the estimated time of delivery (ETD).

A smart merchandiser maintains the critical path in order to identify the crucial tasks, which if not attended to, could impact on delivery schedules for the products. This method of working and tracking production was originally develo...

How to find a good factory to make your product? A common question anyone looking to turn their fashion idea into a reality will ask countless times. Not because it is hard to find contacts these days, but simply because the prospect of contacting a manufacturer, whether by phone or through email, for the first time can be a scary one. What should you ask, what do they need from you, will they want to work with you?

Learn how to find a factory to make your product and find out the imperative questions to ask and what you must have ready before taking the next step. The success of your business and product depends on finding the winning factory for your idea.

It is important to trust a factory in order to work with a factory. To be able to trust a factory, one needs to ask necessary questions and know all the facts before one jumps into building a relationship with a factory on weak grounds.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE MADE?

When you are trying to find a factory to make your product, one...

Design and product development are the cornerstones of a fashion start-up.

It is no secret that the fashion industry is predominantly a product-based industry. Success is often underpinned by great design, strong product and well-structured collections. Many fashion companies and brands launch and eventually fail as they often focus too much on the "design" itself, without realizing the additional components required to create a long-lasting product, rather than a short-term fad.

In this installment, we will explain what you need to do for your fashion business in order to have your ideas translated correctly into the products that you want.

Read the previous instalment in the Toolkit Series here.

The starting point

There is no right or wrong here. How one designer designs is different from another, some get inspired by a piece of material, an exhibition they visited, a holiday, or a movie – whereas others start with a product in mind and build around it.

Moreover, success means ...

In essence, the Fashion Spec Sheet is the "blueprint" for your garment production, as it contains all the necessary components required to manufacture it. Let's see its importance and how you can create one.

Whether you like it or not, being creative is not enough. You need to be able to communicate clearly your idea to the makers, who can be next door or halfway across the world. To avoid the risk of being misunderstood, which will lead to a waste of time and money, certain admin and processes must take place.

As in architecture, you cannot build a good building without a blueprint – in fashion, you cannot create a product without a Fashion Spec Sheet.

What is a Fashion Spec Sheet?

 A SPECIFICATION SHEET commonly referred to as "Spec Sheet," is produced to provide essential details to ensure the correct execution of your designs into professionally finished garments. It should be given to the factory whenever a sample needs to be made and when you issue a docket. This will enable ...