Register for a free basic membership to enjoy up to 5 free articles per month.

These are three examples of how various liaison and buying houses are geared up to increase sourcing from India. There are many factors responsible for this growth in sourcing including individual reasons like few of the retailers adding new stores, importers adding new products in their offerings, new markets and new clients also in the process to onboard. Buyers shifting their sourcing base from China to India and exploring India’s potential is the most common amongst the various general reasons given.

The Sting started its India sourcing office just two years back and recently extended the same. Notably, the company – with over 150 stores – is planning to open more stores as it is witnessing good demand in existing stores as well. By next year, the company will double its sourcing from India which is currently about € 7-8 million per annum.

Subaash Dhananjayan, MD, India & South Asia, The Sting Companies Sourcing and Productions, said, “From India, we have a target of sourcing € 15 million in the current fiscal. India is full of potential in most of the product categories, be it design development, timely delivery or even costing and we want to explore this potential completely. This is the main reason to increase our thrust on India.”

Completely agreeing with the potential of India, Cotton Haven Apparels, Coimbatore (subsidiary of Cotton Haven PTY Ltd., Australia) is another company that is in the process to increase its sourcing from India.

So far its parent Australian company was totally into uniforms and workwear but now it is entering into fashion apparel, medical textiles and adding new markets too. The company has clients in Australia, the UK as well as the Middle East and is now expanding into Europe and the US. It is expecting 100 per cent growth by exploring new categories and new markets.

Initially, the fashion garments’ sourcing will be at least one million pieces per year from India.

“Earlier our parent company was not focusing much to source from India due to price point, lead time issues and their focus was mainly on China and Bangladesh but now they have opened up and I have observed that Indian vendors have also improved on price point and lead time. And for our new initiative on fashion garments and medical textiles, which are the strengths of India, the country is definitely going to be a strong sourcing base for our company,” said N. Thiyagarajan, GM of the company who is also a NIFTian.

Sharing about the push to start the fashionwear segment, he said that, “While dealing with uniforms and protective clothing, we get restricted as these are niche segments. And these are price-sensitive also,whereas in fashion business, there is scope for value-added as well as basic garments, a variety of fabrics and designs. Types of value addition give space to get a better price.”

Not only the liaison offices of various overseas companies, Indian buying houses are also geared up to increase their business on similar lines by adding new clients, newer product categories, etc.

MS India Sourcing, a Noida-based buying house dealing mainly in womenswear and kidswear, is into serious discussion with six new clients (big retailers and wholesalers) and at least three or even more are expected to be onboard with the company.

Surinder Singh, Partner of the company told, “Our core markets are EU and US and we are focusing on the same with new offering of sustainable fabrics as well as we are working to explore hospital and hospitality segment and uniform segment as post-Covid, there has been a huge demand in these sectors and uniforms are easily available in India.”

The company offering apparel for women, is mainly working with wholesalers and retailers in both countries. It is expecting 15 per cent growth in its regular business and Surinder strongly believes that once new clients and newer product categories are included, there will be higher growth.

“There are very good prospects in India and I believe that apart from fulfilling our commitment on quality, delivery and price, there is a need to support the buyers on product development (PD) also as with collective efforts on PD, overall opportunities increase a lot,” said Surinder.

For Cotton Haven Apparels, the focus will be on men, kids and women segments in knitted and woven categories. Its main products will be T-shirts, activewear, formal suits and blazers and formal trousers. In future, the product portfolio will be expanded further.

Regarding medical textiles, N. Thiyagarajan shared that this is also a very prospective segment where volume can increase manifold. They can get orders of even 10 million pieces of a particular product in this segment. With changing scenario of sourcing as China is not a priority as it used to be, buyers are looking towards India. The only constraint is that in few particular products, fabric availability is a concern otherwise there is no bigger kind of challenge. There are good facilities for medical textile-based products. Tamil Nadu is doing well in medical textiles, so there are enough growth avenues in this category.

The Sting sources circular knits and woven products for men and women. Few of its core products include T-shirts, blouses, skirts and shirts. It sources a mix of basic as well as fast fashion and it is expected to increase sourcing in all product categories.

Cotton Haven Apparels plans to have a new and big office in Coimbatore soon for which it is hiring 15 more professionals across departments like merchandising and quality. Currently, the company is working with seven vendors from South India as well as North India. Discussions are also going on with 20 new vendors across various product categories. The company will target apparel manufacturers of Tirupur and nearby clusters Erode and Salem for knitted and woven products. For every product category, at least three to five vendors will be identified. The company will work together with the vendors on product development also.

The Sting, working with nearly 10 Indian vendors, is also adding four new vendors as of now. It extended its office just few months back.

Similarly, despite having good capacities of existing vendors, MS India Sourcing has around 11 regular vendors and is open to add new vendors also, especially those which are into sustainable products and have thrust on product development.

Just a few months back, Superdry, the leading British apparel and accessories’ retailer, officially said that it will increase its sourcing from India. Currently it is around 20 per cent and in next three years, the same is expected to be around 25 per cent. Few of the other established brands are also in the process to increase sourcing from India. Apparel Resources got to know from confirmed sources that M&S is also increasing sourcing from India; recently its team from the UK was also in India in this regard.

The Netherlands and Australia have seen good growth in apparel import from India. The below table shows that compared to 2019-20, in 2021-22, both countries have imported higher value of knitted as well as woven apparel from India.

Source: Ministry of Commerce (India) All figures in US $

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Stay updated on your topics of interest with our handpicked news and articles