Tips for Production

MADE Apparel Services Podcast

Host Heather Zager shares valuable insights for new and small brands looking to simplify their manufacturing process to save time and money. She emphasizes the importance of narrowing down design options to keep costs reasonable and avoid overwhelming inventory numbers. Heather suggests starting with one design in a size range with limited colors to keep costs manageable. Once success is reached with that design, other options can be explored.

To help streamline the process and validate design ideas, Heather recommends sharing design options on social media to gather feedback. This also helps build a strong social media presence and encourages engagement. Listeners will also hear practical tips, such as how to learn more about material sourcing and pattern-making to save time and money in the long run.

These strategies not only simplify production but also ensure that brands make informed decisions, minimizing risk, and maximizing profitability.

About Heather Zager | MADE Apparel Services Founder and Owner

Heather Zager found her calling when she signed up for a beginning pattern-making course and realized she had a passion for technical design. She subsequently enrolled in the Apparel Design and Development program at Seattle Central College and graduated two years later with her Associate of Applied Science Degree.

After graduation, she began working with Meta assisting in developing and designing augmented and virtual reality wearable tech gear. In 2020, MADE Apparel Services was born with the idea of helping makers, inventors and designers bring their own sewn product ideas to manufacture. Since then, she has worked with various businesses such as Santa’s Tailor, Feathered Friends, Wolfpack Gear and Classic Accessories, helping them achieve their goals in design, development, pattern making, sewn construction and manufacture.

Today, Heather continues to grow her knowledge and share her experiences with others to bring their visions to reality.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• Episode 4: Concept to Customer Part 2: Material Sourcing
• Choosing Fabrics: Fabrics 101
• MADE Apparel Services Newsletter

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Contact Heather Zager | MADE Apparel Services:

• Website: MADEApparelServices.com
• Facebook: MADEApparelServices
• Instagram: MADEApparelServices
• Linkedin: MADEApparelServices
  
  

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Transcript

Heather Zager: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to the Made Apparel Services Podcast. My name is Heather Zager and I will be your host for this series. I am also the founder of Made Apparel Services, which is a sewn product development company for small brands. Whether you are just starting out or a seasoned pro, I have a lot of resources to help you on your journey to manufacture. Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter and follow me on social media for other fun updates. Links to both are always in the show notes.

Heather Zager: [00:00:29] Welcome back to my podcast. Today I'm going to talk about a few things you can do to simplify your design idea to better prepare you for manufacture. And by prepare, I mean helping you to understand ways you can keep the development and production of your idea moving forward so you save time and money. It's totally fine if you decide against these tips. My goal is only to help you to see the consequences of each of these so that you can more confidently make a decision now about your production plans. So the first and most obvious way to reduce costs and simplify getting to manufacture is to really think about how many designs you actually need. I've had clients with upwards of 15 design ideas, and this is because they feel their website should be full, but 15 is usually too many to start.

Heather Zager: [00:01:21] Even if you have a following on social media, you don't have any historical data to tell you what they will like or not like. Also, having fewer designs is much easier to track, especially when you realize that each design will have to come in a size range. And if you have colorways for each design too, you'll end up with dozens of inventory items to keep organized and keep track of. Instead, share your designs on social media and ask your following to pick their top three looks. Depending on how many people respond, and what they say, you'll get a really good idea of interest before you spend a lot of money guessing what designs will be popular. Plus, you build engagement and they get to be involved in supporting you. By the way, if you feel your site needs to be full, take a step back and ask yourself instead, what is unique about your brand over everyone else selling something similar? I find that folks who want a lot of designs on their website haven't really thought about what it is that's selling their designs. Most of the time you just need a good founding story, but if you still feel you must fill your site with items, then consider using branding blanks, which are just pre-made garments that you can have custom printed with your logo. You can use those as a way to fill in space on your website, rather than developing a lot of unique designs. Now, if you aren't on social media yet, or you don't have a landing page where people can go and sign up for updates and know where to follow you, then start working on that instead of more designs. The goal of gaining this following is to have some pre-sales. This will help you to know your order quantity, which sizes and colors are most popular, so you can be more confident that your first order you place for production will be on target with your demand, and you don't end up with extra supplies, colors, or sizes that you don't need. And this brings me to my next tip.

Heather Zager: [00:03:27] So if you still feel like you need a whole bunch of designs, then maybe this logic will help to convince you to minimize. So let's take, for example, that you have one design. Well, each design obviously needs to come in a size range eventually. Let's say that there's five sizes, extra small to extra large. That is the average number of sizes that a manufacturer will allow before they start charging you extra. If you haven't done pre-sales or any kind of customer surveys, which isn't uncommon at this point, and that's okay, then you likely don't know what sizes will be most popular. So, let's just say you need to start out with 5 of each size, so that's a total of 25 pieces. 5 in extra small, 5 in small, 5 in medium and so on. Now, also consider if you have colorways for each design, and usually there's about three. So, let's do blue, yellow and red. That probably means you need 5 of each color, also. 5 blue in extra small, 5 red in extra small, 5 yellow in extra small and repeat that for each size. This brings the total to 75 pieces. Now, if you're using a US based manufacturer, you're probably looking at somewhere around $15 a piece as an average. So that brings your total cost to make 75 pieces to $1,125 for one design. Now, if you reduce by one colorway, your total becomes 50 garments, bringing ...