Notes for owners · Sales management
Fabric mills and agents: how to follow up a swatch request
A swatch register for fabric mills and agents: what to write down when a swatch card leaves, who gets a cutting instead, and the three questions to ask on the call that follows.
The GullySales team · Updated 17 Oct 2026 · 6 min read
On this page
A swatch card goes out in a courier envelope, the buyer is busy, and three months later the agent is asking who got the grey twill. A plain register stops that: one line for each parcel, written when it leaves, with a call-back date beside it. The date is what keeps a swatch from becoming a lost lead.
Why does a swatch without a date go cold?
A garment unit's merchandiser gets swatches from several mills and agents in the same week. They pile up on a shelf, and get gone through when a buyer sends a brief. If you called on the day of delivery, you were noise. If you never called, you are one of twenty cards on the shelf. Which quality was yours? The merchandiser cannot say.
So the work has two halves: record what went, and call when the buyer is likely to be looking. Neither half needs software.
The register: one line per parcel
Keep it on a sheet or in a plain notebook. Write the line before the courier collects the parcel, not after.
| Date sent | Buyer, town, phone | What they make | Qualities and shade codes sent | Docket and courier | Delivered on | Call back on | What they said | Next step |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon 4th | R. Traders, Kolkata, 98xxx | Boys' school trousers | Poly-viscose 2/2 twill, codes 14 and 22 | 5521, Courier A | Thu 7th | Mon 11th | Colour 22 close to their sample, price high | Send cutting of 22 in their shade |
| Tue 5th | Neha, designer, Jaipur | Women's tops | Cotton lawn print, 6 designs | 5530, Courier B | Ring when delivered |
Three habits matter more than the columns. Print the quality code on the card itself so "the blue one you sent" can be found. Fill in "Delivered on" from the tracking, not from memory. Set the "Call back on" date only when delivery is confirmed.
Who gets a swatch and who gets a cutting
A full swatch set costs the mill fabric and the agent a courier charge. Treat that as a small bet and place it on named buyers.
- A garment unit with an order in hand or a buyer brief: full card, the qualities asked for.
- A tailor or retailer with a regular need: the card plus the rate for the likely metre.
- A designer starting a label: a few qualities in the shade and handle described, and a note on your minimum metres.
- Someone who will not say what they make: a single cutting and a question. If the question goes unanswered, they are collecting.
Say plainly in your first reply what you need to know to decide: what garment, how many metres in a year, and the quality being replaced.
The call after: three questions
When the delivery date is confirmed, wait two or three days and call. Ask three things in this order.
- "Have you handled it, and what do you think of the hand and the weight?" This gets the buyer talking about the cloth.
- "Is the shade near what you need, or should I send a cutting in another?" This opens the second sample.
- "What are you paying now for something similar?" This tells you whether price is the barrier.
Write the answers in the "What they said" column in the buyer's own words. Then decide the next step before you put the phone down: a cutting, a rate on WhatsApp, a visit, or a date you will try again.
For example: a suiting agent in Surat
Take a made-up agent in Surat who sells suiting for a Bhilwara mill, working from a phone and a bag of swatch cards. After an exhibition the agent posts cards to a dozen trouser and shirt makers and writes nothing down. Six weeks later a trouser maker in Rajkot rings: "The grey you sent me, what is the rate for 500 metres?" The agent does not know which grey. The card has no code. The agent quotes the mill's best-known grey, the buyer finds it is a different weight from the one liked, and the enquiry ends there.
What the agent changed was small. Every new card now carries a code. Each parcel goes into the register on the day it is posted, and the call-back date is set from the courier tracking. At the call the agent asks the three questions and writes the answers on the same line. The next time the Rajkot maker rang, the agent found the line, saw code 22, and quoted the right quality. For the dozen parcels already out, the agent went through the courier receipts and rang each buyer to ask which card they remembered. Only five could say. The old enquiry was lost, and about ₹7,000 of cards and couriers went with it. The agent, the mill and the figures are invented for illustration.
When to close a line
A line is dead when the buyer has the swatch, has been called twice after delivery, and has neither answered nor asked for a rate. Mark it "closed, no answer" with the date. Re-sending cards to a silent buyer costs fabric and teaches the buyer that more will always come.
A line stays open when the buyer has said "not this season". Write the month named and call then. Ask what they are cutting now, not whether they liked the card. Decide too what you do when a closed buyer rings back: reopen the same line, with the old date left visible, so you can see how long it took.
Start the register with the parcels already out
Take the courier receipts from the last two months and write one line per parcel, even if half the columns stay blank. Ring the ones that were delivered and never answered. The habit of replying to every enquiry is covered under lead response and follow-up. The other buyers a mill or agent meets are described on the textile and garment manufacturing page. If the register needs more than a notebook, tell us what you need.
