My experience in finding a supplier for branded clothing

Hi Guys,

I would love to share my experience with finding a clothing supplier for a well known brand. After lurking around Alibaba for about a month, I was told that basically all suppliers for this brand are fakes and no one can supply originals.

I then stumbled upon a supplier from Canada; seemed like a legitimate company. Many weeks spent asking all the ins and outs on email and MSN.
I was promised an order form, and basically never received it. None of my emails were returned and they disappeared from MSN. Thank god I never placed an order, otherwise i would've been kicking my self.

Till this day, they have not replied.

It is so hard to find a decent supplier, I guess that is the reason many of us don't share them.

ever thought about approaching the company that makes them?

Good point, AustGarageSales.

Some brands have tightly controlled distribution channels that often, the only way to get authentic merchandise at wholesale prices is to go to the company directly. They would usually have their own set of authorized dealers, you can contact their authorized distributors or you can inquire how you could become an authorized distributor yourself.

All the best, ausware!

Yep, really good advice from both Satya and AGS. Direct approach to the brand owner in regards to accessing their authorised distribution channels is about the best way to go.

General rule, the bigger the brand name, the tighter the control and the less chance you will have of accessing it at supplier direct prices. One place you will not find genuine designer brand name clothing is in China, no matter what they say, no matter what the price!

Depending on the actual brand, liquidations can be a good avenue, however there are plenty of pitfalls when dealing in the surplus market as things are not always as they seem.

The biggest tip I could give anyone when dealing in surplus, is to ask question, after question, after question. Even what you may thing is obvious, get them to confirm it, and should they grow tired of your questions and start ignoring you, then you need to be looking for a better supplier straight off the bat.

Areas you should be looking at in the surplus market is loads of master cased goods, or A1 stock (new overstocks). Anything under those two type of loads and you are starting to look at loads containing customer returns, and from there you are starting to get into risky territory unless you are fully aware of what you are buying and what will be required to sell them.

Hi
Branded or labels are the hardest, fake are so easy to buy, I tried Louis Vuitton hand bags, got burnt and now I will not touch it unless it comes from their official website, yes, it is very expensive, but, if you get it cheaper, it is second hand or fake?

Hi
Branded or labels are the hardest, fake are so easy to buy, I tried Louis Vuitton hand bags, got burnt and now I will not touch it unless it comes from their official website, yes, it is very expensive, but, if you get it cheaper, it is second hand or fake?

I agree. Designer goods may probably be the hardest products to acquire. Designer goods are also very high risk as most suppliers online sell very convincing fakes. It's true that many designer products are manufactured in China these days, but it’s almost impossible to get hold of genuine, authorized items because most stock is distributed to pre-approved retailers only. So you do need to keep a close eye out because it’s not uncommon for a Chinese manufacturer to get an order of designer products and then make a few hundred more extra. They’ll give the original order to the brand’s preferred distributors, but they’ll sell the others on the sly to other contacts. Even though the items are exactly the same, manufactured by the very same company as the authentic items, they are still classed as fakes or unauthorized because the supplier does not have the distribution rights for it.

Aside from going straight to the brand owners, another option to legitimately source branded goods is to use liquidators, as Fudjj pointed out. Liquidators get closeouts and salvage items directly from some of the top department stores, so they frequently have some top designer brands in their inventory. Liquidation is a different ball game to sourcing from wholesalers, though because the product can be in a wide variety of conditions. In other words, you will be dealing with used items as well as new. Nonetheless, it's a great way to get brand name and designer items, while still making a good margin.