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What Buyers Want

By Terissa Teh

So you've lost hours of sleep, haven't been out on a good night for a while and your social life is slipping. What you do have however is a fabulous collection sitting in front of you… designed by you. And now what? You're ready to present it all to the buyers of your dreams, but how? What do buyers want?

A buyer's decisions will impact a store's sales and reputation. Responsibility lies with customers returning to shop at their store. They attend trade and fashion shows, meet with designers, sales agents and must analyse inventory and sales reports. They follow competitor advertisements, negotiate deals on prices, payment, deliveries and are inevitably busy as a result.

Before you approach your targeted list of buyers you will need to do a fair bit of prep work. It might seem a pain at first but as a young designer you want to come across as a professional and ready for business.

The following easy steps outline what you should have in your basic Buyer First Aid Kit:

Tools

• A good first point of contact with a buyer is to have eye-catching images.
  Design is visual and should therefore be represented in this way. A buyer will instantly be able to tell the minute they see a garment whether it's right for them. So, have good quality images taken in hard and soft copies, you could be on the phone to a buyer and be asked to email through some strong pieces so have these to hand.
  
  
• Key looks from the coming collection (this could be in the form of sketches) as well as images from your past collection to give a feel for your 'season to season' image.
  
  
• Line sheets and order sheets;
  Line sheets - should contain reference outline drawings of the garments with brief descriptions in no more than 5 words e.g. black skirt, blue tulle detail. This could also be a name for that range followed by a number.
  Order sheets - will hold extra information on those references (no drawings needed) such as details of colours available. You can accompany this with a folder of sample fabric swatches in those colours where necessary (see Range Planning).
  Choose whatever works for you but be careful to ensure that each reference code is different to avoid confusion during later orders.
  
  
• A list of any stores you might be stocked in already, this will give an understanding on where you are currently positioned in the market. This particularly refers to larger stores who will generally request this.

Range Planning

• Is your range devised in a way that will give a buyer combination choices?
  
  
• How many samples should be shown?
  When producing samples you don't need to produce examples in every shade of the rainbow but you should have colour swatches readily available to show what other choices exist.
  
  
• What is a minimum order?
  It might be more cost effective in production to place a 'minimum order' rule on basic garments, these could be sold in a pack e.g. 1 x S, 1 x M, 1 x L.

Play Detective

Be familiar with the other brands in the store you are aiming for, do you sit well alongside them etc? You should have a certain familiarity with what's there to show you haven't randomly selected a store from a hat!

Timing

In all businesses, timing is essential. If you have stated your delivery time from the time of an order placed, you must stick to it. Buyers will be more cautious to new designers when it comes to this, so re-assure them and deliver on time!

• You will be working to season and this will give you some time to produce a buyer's order. This will obviously depend on the style of each individual garment but you need to calculate how long it will take you to get a volume of pieces made and delivered. This is referred to as the 'lead time' and could be 4 months or 4 weeks depending on what it is you're producing.
  Tip: when calculating, allow room for any problems you may encounter during production e.g. delay on ordering fabrics

Pounds, Euros and Dollars

The money stuff doesn't have to be as complicated as you might imagine…

• When talking to a buyer you will be quoting in wholesale prices. A minimum mark up on your wholesale price will retail at 2.5% minimum and up to 3% in some cases. Bear this in mind on the more expensive items but this could be due to hand beading or heavy embellishments. These details should be mentioned at a buyer meeting to explain the nature of any special pieces.

Remember

Meeting a buyer isn't an interview! Go for an initial casual yet informative chat to get a feeling of whether your collection is right for them and if selling your range there is beneficial to your brand image. It should work two-ways.

What do buyers want? Be equipped, prepared and they'll want you!

Terissa can be contacted at: qt@london.com