Apparel Online India Magazine April 1st Issue 2019 | Page 41

INDUSTRY LIVE
Start-ups and SMEs are positive on getting workable MOQ
“I feel that MOQ is like
a myth. In the past ten
years, the Indian retail
industry has jumped
beyond anything. We
have to start relooking
at how manufacturing
needs are to be met, so
that we can explore the
potential of India.”
– Mohit Mathur,
Senior VP Sourcing,
Landmark Group, Bangalore
orders, there are some agents which
look for and associate with small
factories which don’t even have their
own marketing division. And this has
really worked out.” Myntra operates
as a standalone brand under Flipkart
ownership, focusing primarily on
‘fashion-conscious’ consumers. By
2014, when Flipkart acquired Myntra,
its portfolio included about 1,50,000
products of over 1,000 brands, with a
distribution area of around 9,000 pin
codes in India.
Being Human, another well-known
Indian brand, is also following on
almost similar way. The company
has a great variety of vendors
whether small scale, mid-level or
big level. “With a strong focus on
vendor development, we bifurcate our
vendors price-wise, category-wise and
efficiency-wise as well. All these are
taken into consideration regarding
any sourcing strategy,” shared
Purvi Joshi, Vice President, Being
Human Clothing. The brand also has
grown from small volume and today it
has a stable position with an average
of good volume and a strong reach in
15 countries, 500 store-in-stores and
75 exclusive outlets.
As the fabric constitutes the core of
garment manufacturing, brand and
retailers find solutions for MOQ at
For start-ups and SMEs, the
challenges with respect to MOQ
are higher as resources, as
well as reach is less. Despite
this, some of them have had a
positive experience. As asserted
by Rohit Oswal and Tejas
Shah, Co-Founders of Outliers
Clothing Co. Pune (a growing
start-up), “Recently, we met
many Bangladeshi garment
manufacturers in Apparel
Sourcing Week and few of them
agreed to reduce their MOQ from
5,000 to 3,000 pieces per style but
still it is a huge quantity for us or
for any emerging online/offline
platform. But the ray of hope is
that like us, many start-ups have
raised the same question to them
and Bangladesh companies have
assured us that they will come
Rohit Oswal and Tejas Shah, Co-Founders of Outliers Clothing Co. Pune
up with a solution for this as
they would not like to miss this
customer base also.”
On similar lines, Suneel Jain
of Dhanalaxmi Garments,
Bangalore, a wholesaler
supplying menswear to retailers
Suneel Jain of Dhanalaxmi Garments
like Saravana Stores, Pothys,
explained, “If Bangladesh
exporters do not want to miss
the major segment of the market,
they have to divide their order
size as the market doesn’t allow
for higher volume. Business can
then grow multifold.”
the fabric end. They create strong
partnerships with fabric mills/
manufacturers so that the garment
manufacturers can easily cater to
small orders. Myntra successfully
tried to standardise fabric and made
sure that it can get fabric according
to MOQ. “We have some fantastic
partners who really support us…. At
the end, it should be a win-win for
both sides,” added Neetu.
Bangladeshi exporters completely
agree on this point and they insist
that the issue of MOQ should be
solved at the fabric mill’s end and not
by the garment exporter. “We don’t
work on the basis of any MOQ; we
are catering to H&M which has an
order quantity of 700 pieces and even
higher. The MOQ problem arises when
fabric quantity and availability do
not match. If the fabric is available,
then there is no issue at all. If there
are different styles available in
similar fabric, it solves the problem,”
informed Sanjay Dahiya, CEO, Laila
Group, Dhaka. The company is
working with Westside which has an
average order size of 1,800 pieces and
uses common fabric and gives similar
kind of construction, but changes
the washes. It must be noted that
Laila Group is one of the well-known
apparel exporters of Bangladesh.
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