Sunday 3 October 2021
Friday 24 September 2021
Erex garment production factory
EREX FACTORY
How It Works With Us
You pick a style(s). You either supply fabrics or we source. We manufacture.
You start selling; online, offline, everywhere you can and before you know it you are turning over huge sums of money like other brands we produce for.
Due to our strict Non disclosure policies, we do not disclose our clients identities.
Frequently Asked Questions
1) Is There A Minimum Order Quantity? Yes! Our Minimum Order Quantity is 5 units.
2) Does The 5 Units Have To Be One Style? Yes it has to be. But within the 5 units, you can choose to have different sizes and colours/prints of fabrics.
3) I Am Starting Out, Is 5 Units Not A Lot? Not really. Especially if you plan to sell online.
4) Why Can't You Manufacture Say 2 Units Of A Style? We can actually! But our set up cost to manufacture 5 units or less is the same. Pattern has to be made and graded, and sample made and remade and readjusted. Fabrics have to sourced and sorted, cutting taken place and training to line supervisor must happen, line supervisor then in turn train sewing machinists on what style is about. We run a modular production system, a garment could be handled by up to 10 persons before it is finished, therefore for every style, everyone has got some training to do. All these happening while we are generating our own power. Whichever quantities we choose to manufacture, these costs have to be recovered. The optimal and feasible quantity we have come to know is therefore 5 units, to enable our cost recovery whilst delivering incredible value for the customer. 5 units is the quantity at which we can guarantee you success if you put in a very little efforts.
5) Does It Mean There Can't Be Small Scale Fashion Vendors? The hard truth is that this business is not "viable" in long term at very low quantity, except of course you are a specialist celebrity bespoke brand. If we agree to manufacture so little units for you, neither your business nor ours will survive and thrive - our business survives when yours does! At low quantities, your unit costs are much more higher meaning you sell at a very thin margin or you sell at premium price and over-price yourself in the market, and if you are a new entrant in the market, you may find things very challenging. Make no mistakes, this is a trade with very little or no barrier to entry and competition is brutally stiff. To survive, you must be able to bring something completely different to the market. This is what we help you do, by bringing together that elusive but key mix of style, price and quality.
6) So No Matter How Many Styles I Order, I Have To Order 5 Units Of Each Style? Yes. Doing otherwise will not be in your interest.
7) How Do I Start - I Would Like To See Your Price List? We have no fixed price list. Every item is priced differently based on their manufacturing complexity & fabrics consumption. For example, a basic Kimono Blouse may only cost N1500 (USD 3.0) to make excluding fabrics where as same Blouse with a bit of detail may be say N1,700(USD 3.50), all exclusive of fabrics.
8) Do You Work With Product Pictures? Most of our clients work with internet images. It is a good idea to work with internet images as it helps you to know exactly how your item would fit & look like. You can still be creative by combining features of 2 or 3 images into one item & it becomes unique or you begin with an internet image & put your own twist to it and personalise it & make it unique. You can also create your own designs with clear illustrations of the front, back and side details to enable us interpret it better.
9) Sampling; Can I Order A Sample Of A Style? Yes you can order a sample of anything in any size you want. We will make the sample and send it out to you. There is however a fee for research and development which starts from N5,500 (USD 11.00) for new customers joining us. This fees covers all the cost of the sample excluding the fabrics. But if you would like us to make the sample on our own fabrics, then you would have to make payment separately for the fabrics. We will hold this N5,500 (USD 10.00) on account for you. If you end up ordering at least 10 units of the style, we will incorporate the balance of the unit design cost into your other production units. We are sorry to be asking for this N5,500 (USD 10.00) for a sample. This is to protect ourselves and prevent the abuse of the sampling process.
10) What About Working Illustrations? For sure we can work with your illustrations to bring them to life. But with sketches, you really don't know what your final items is going to looking like, for example, 2 different fabric choice can make 1 illustration into 2 different finished products. Therefore with illustrations, we strongly recommend starting out with samples
11) Are Your Quotes With Or Without Fabrics? Upon receiving your images, we will provide quotes for both with & without fabrics. For quotes with fabrics, we will state the family of fabrics we are proposing. A number of our customers prefer to supply their own fabrics to put their stamp on their products.
12) What Other Helps Do Your Offer? Free initial advice/guidance on fashion industry & also training & tips on how to sell.
13) Are My Designs Safe With You? Sure of course. If we manufacture your unique styles, you can be rest assured that we will not agree to repeat same styles for another customer.
14) Do I Have To Come To Enugu Where You Are? No! Not at all. Many of our clients over the years have not visited us for once. But if you want to visit, why not. We have a state of the art facilities to show off & we will be glad to show them off. We also serve free world wide varieties of tea & coffee. You will be most welcomed & we would be glad to have you any day. But please note that all factory visits are pre-booked & planned as we do not allow walk in visits, again due to commercial confidentiality amongst other things. Factory visits are strictly for paying customers.
15) So How Do I Send Things Like Fabrics To You And Receive Finished Goods From You? We work with several delivery & dispatch company & we are able to reach every corner of Nigeria & West Africa. We review the best options available for each customer and advise them.
16) Do You Do Branding? We will help get your products fully branded in your own brand name so you can start to build your brand from day one.
17) How Long Does Production Take? Usually 3 weeks from start of sewing for. Subject to factory schedule.
18) Can I Talk To Someone On Phone/Whatsapp? Yes. But if anything's not clear, get back to us via whatsapp DM. This is for unity & trail of all our communication, unlike phone calls & more so that any member of our team can have conversation with you without having you repeating/explaining everything all over. They would simply browse your conversation history & be updated with your details. But if you really want a phone number to speak to someone, you can put a call to our Key Account Manager Ebere on 07032113474. Due to the volume of enquiries we get, Ebere may require you to send all your enquiries & questions via WhatsApp.
19) Is There A Contract Requirement? Not really. Everything we discuss & agree with you in our WhatsApp DM forms the basis of your contract with us
Thanks
Team EREX
Monday 20 September 2021
Wednesday 15 September 2021
How to start a successful ready to wear brand part 2
HOW TO START A SUCCESSFUL READY TO WEAR BRAND PART 2
So, in the part 1 of this post, I told you about 2 ladies Suzy and Jenny who both started ready to wear brands and acted differently.
Read the part 1 here https://www.facebook.com/groups/191131231446029/permalink/994677824424695/
Back to my gist, Suzy met a clothing factory to manufacture one sample each of her designs and got her beautiful friends/models to wear them and take clean and clear pictures of them.
Suzy opened a Facebook page dedicated specially to her business and ran traffic to it using paid ads targeting the kind of people she wanted to buy her dresses.
Finally, Suzy started getting messages from the ads.
To her surprise, her target market liked her designs but most wanted something slightly different from the ones she sampled. They were quick to tell her exactly what they wanted and she took note that most of them wanted almost the same kind of designs.
Ah! She was glad she only produced 1 each.
She also noticed that most of her ideal clients wanted a particular size. She was shocked; She had assumed most of them would be sizes 8 and 10 but she discovered they were mostly asking for sizes 16 and some bigger sizes.
She was getting more information than she would have gotten by merely guessing or making assumptions.
With a few little modifications to designs, she produced the most requested sizes in a larger quantity, repeated the photoshoot and ran paid ads to them again, targeting the right audience using the insights from the ad she ran.
Suzy begins to rake in sales and cash in big. Meanwhile, Jenny watches from the side and concludes that Suzy is just a lucky little girl who had so many friends that like to spend money on clothes.
How would you rather run your ready to wear brand? Like Suzy or Like Jenny?
Feel free to share so that others can learn
My dress from EREX
Eberechi Igwe
HOW TO START A SUCCESSFUL READY TO WEAR BRAND
HOW TO START A SUCCESSFUL READY TO WEAR BRAND
I recently got contacted by some persons who intend to start their ready to wear brand and had no clue on how to go about it.
I will share the response I gave to them here so you can learn and apply to your business.
Someone wants to start a ready to wear brand. Let's call her Jenny (not her real name)
Jenny has absolutely no idea about sewing.
She simply knows how to spot beautiful outfits and rock the living daylight out of them.
A friend asked her to go to Aba and buy fabrics at cheaper rates and off she went.
She found some beautiful styles and asked her tailor to make them in bulk. Oh, she knows her fans, family and friends. She knew they would buy.
Finally, she collected the dresses and managed to sell a few pieces. The other pieces remained with her as souvenirs of her failed attempt at building a ready to wear brand. She never sold any.
Sitting back, she kept wandering what she did wrong.
Most of the people that bought from her still owe her. Some of her friends even claimed they were just trying to help her build a budding brand and yet, they didn't pay.
Some people in her office who honestly wanted to buy to "support" her new business said she didn't have their sizes.
Las las, Jenny was frustrated. She had put in all she had into this business and now she was left with nothing.
Meanwhile, on the other end is Suzy.
Suzy is an undergraduate who loves fashion.
She wants to build a ready to wear brand so she seeks council from an experienced brand.
First, she decided who her target market was.
Secondly, she contacted a fashion illustrator to make clear sketches of the front and the back of the outfits that the kind of people she wants to produce for would like.
Oh, Suzy doesn't know how to sketch to save a soul.
She contacted a clothing factory that makes outfits for ready to wear brands and had them produce a sample of each of the designs.
She got some of her friends to model the outfits in a nice photo studio, posted them on her business page and ran Facebook ads to them.
Between Jenny and Susy, who do you think would do better?
To be continued.
Dress designed and made by EREX
Eberechi Igwe
Wednesday 5 May 2021
HOW TO GET THE BEST OUT OF YOUR LOW SKILLED STAFF
Are you sick and tired of hiring poorly trained personnel and watching them ruin the reputation you have labored so much to build for so long?
Hang on....this post is for you.
You have worked so hard to build your small business and now the orders are overwhelming.
After searching for so long, you finally find a humble and kind person to work with.
Well, maybe not so humble and kind....maybe its someone you can afford to pay.
Few days into the job and you find out that the new staff who was supposed to reduce your workload is now terribly making things worse for you.
All supposedly completed tasks have to be redone by you.
The persons work is a total disaster.
You are yelling like a maniac round the clock.
24 hours isn't enough to get anything done anymore.
You are just frustrated with your business
Here are a few things you can start doing immediately to make things better and exponentially improve the productivity of the person(s)
1) HAVE A MINDSET SHIFT
A) Assume that they know absolutely nothing; hence, expect absolutely nothing from them.
B) Be absolutely patient with them. Calm down even when they don't get it right the first, second and even third times.
C) Tell yourself they need more time and be kind enough to give them more time for the sake of your business.
2) SHOW THEM AND TELL THEM HOW TO DO IT
Instead of merely telling them how to do something, show them how to do it. Also tell them how to do it. If possible, create a training manual for them. If you cannot, ask them to make videos of you doing it. That way, their brain can correlate the training you are giving with what you are teaching.
3) AFTER SHOWING THEM HOW TO DO IT, ASK THEM TO DO IT WHILE YOU WATCH THEM.
Watch them closely and make corrections while they do it.
NEVER EVER EVER GET ANGRY WHEN they don't get it right and collect it to do it by yourself. You will end up burnt out and extremely exhausted and frustrated doing it all by yourself.
Be patient with them. It will take some time. Give it time.
4) DON'T pack so many things for them to do or learn at the same time.
Teach them one technique after the other
If not, they will get overwhelmed with too much information at the same time.
Take it 1 after the other.
5)After they have practiced the new skill you have given them about 20 different times excellently, move unto the next technique and repeat the process.
6) Always come back to monitor after sometime.
Don't get upset if they have altered your process. Simply get them on course and continue.
I hope this post has been helpful.
You can add more ideas on how to get the best out of your low skilled staff in the comments section.
Eberechi Igwe
Creative Director Maison D'erex
I teach people how to make badass female clothing and build a successful business out of it.