Selling to garment wholesalers and agents in the big garment trading markets

A wholesaler or buying agent in a garment trading market might have six factory offers open on one phone while talking to a shopkeeper. The one they forward is the one they can read in ten seconds: rate per piece, set ratio, minimum, whether GST is in it, and how the goods travel. State those in your first message, in that order, and you are compared on cloth and finish instead of being dropped for missing information.

What is the agent doing with your message?

Not choosing a supplier. They are building an offer for a shop hundreds of kilometres away, and your message is a part they will paste. If your rate has to be explained, they will drop it and use the factory whose rate already reads like a line on a bill.

So the message has to survive being forwarded without you. It needs your rate, a photo with the fabric named, and no phrase such as "as discussed" that only makes sense on your side of the call.

The terms to state before they ask

Write one message and keep it as your standard first reply. Change only the style and the rate.

Style: women's cotton top, 3 designs. Rate: ₹__ per piece, GST extra. Set: 5 pieces (S, M, L, XL, XXL), minimum 6 sets per design. Fabric: cotton lawn, washed. Dispatch: by transport of your choice, LR number sent on WhatsApp when it is booked. Payment: ₹__ advance, balance before dispatch for the first order. Shortage or damage: tell us with a photo within __ days of delivery.

Each line answers a question the agent would otherwise ask, and each question is a chance for them to turn to the next factory. Three lines matter most.

The set. "₹185 a piece" is meaningless until the agent knows whether it is a free-size piece or a set of five sizes, and whether the set ratio is fixed or can be changed. Say the ratio and say if you can change it.

GST. Say extra or included. An agent who reads the figure as inclusive and finds it exclusive when the invoice arrives may feel misled.

Transport and the LR. The agent's shop will want the lorry receipt number to follow the goods. Sending it on WhatsApp when the goods are booked helps earn repeat orders in a market where goods travel through a transporter.

Credit: a rule for the first three orders

Credit is part of how these markets work, and it is easy to give too much too soon. Use a rule you can apply without a debate: the first order against payment before dispatch, the second against a part-advance, the third within a limit you have set for that agent. Put the limit in the same message as your terms, so enforcing it is never personal.

If the agent pushes back, ask for the name of a factory that has supplied them and ring it. Skip credit for anyone who will not give one. A rejected parcel is the other risk. Decide in advance who pays the return freight and how many days the agent has to report a fault, and write both lines into the template.

Whose buyer is the shop?

An agent who brings a shop in another state usually wants the shop to stay theirs. Agree two things in writing before the first order: whether the agent's commission is inside your rate or added to it, and whether you may sell to that shop directly later. A sample line for the agreement: "Agent commission is 3% of invoice value, paid within 7 days of our payment received, on every order from shops the agent introduces for 12 months from the first order; after that the shop may order from us directly." The figures are placeholders for you and the agent to settle. A factory that quietly goes round the agent loses the agent's other shops too, because agents tend to talk to each other.

For example: a Noida maker and a Gandhi Nagar agent

Take a made-up Noida unit that makes women's cotton tops and wants to sell through an agent in Gandhi Nagar, Delhi. The maker sends a photograph and "₹185". The agent has three other offers open and replies with one word, "set?". The maker says a call will follow in the evening. By evening the agent has forwarded a different factory's message, which gave rate, set, minimum, GST and the LR promise in one block.

The Noida maker now keeps one template and sends it with the first reply. It states the set ratio and says the sizes can change for an order above the minimum. The next agent written to answered with an order for two designs and asked the maker to hold the same fabric for a repeat. Holding that fabric tied up about ₹40,000 of stock for three weeks. The rate stayed at ₹185. Two of the five other agents written to that week did not reply at all, so one template is a better start, not a guarantee.

When this is not the route for you

If your capacity is small and every order is custom, a market agent is the wrong channel. The agent wants repeat sets of the same designs, so a factory that cannot make the same top twice will disappoint. Sell to boutiques directly instead; choosing a private-label supplier shows what boutiques ask.

Agents are also a poor fit when you need long credit to survive. If the plan depends on a wholesaler paying in ninety days, fix the cash position before you add agents.

Write the terms message once

Open a note and write the terms message with your real figures. Send it to a friend who knows nothing about your factory and ask what is missing. Dealer and distributor programme is the related work for agents and wholesalers as a channel, and textile and garment manufacturing is the wider section for a garment unit. If you want a second view on your terms, tell us what you need.