Thinking outside the Chinese square
“China is out of control,” a substantial importer tells me. “Prices are no longer negotiable, deliveries are almost on a ‘wait and see’ basis and quality is moving towards ‘take it or leave it’.”
He added that, when presented with a faulty shipment (backed up in writing by Qualspec) a certain Chinese factory spokesperson said it was not faulty, end of subject.
The way Australian clothing importers are combating this Chinese attitude is to either grovel or try to find another factory. It is almost as though, if China fails to supply, we’ll all go naked.
It is time, my friends, to fight back.
Those of us who are long enough in the tooth can remember the reverse of the current position. The government had done away with quotas, reduced duties and allowed a swag of countries to export their clothing to Australia duty free. This killed the heart of the local sewing industry and all of its ancillaries like sewing machine and textile suppliers. A few little islands of manufacture remained to make short runs at high prices. Clothing companies booked flights to China and went into the factory wilderness looking for competitive, reliable suppliers. To a large extent, the trail had been blazed by people like Sandra Moss years before, who camped in strange Chinese hotels and beat her factories into submission to supply the right quality at the right price to Pretty Girl.
The hordes followed, full of fear and ignorance but, bit by bit, they built relationships with Chinese factories and the bonanza began. China learned to be a champion exporter of clothing.
It will require the same bravery and perseverance on the part of Australian clothing companies to abandon China the way as they abandoned the local industry all those years ago and once again go looking for new supply countries, new Chinas. They are out there but dealing with them is going to be anguish-ridden – for a while.
The current deterioration in Chinese supply is giving us breathing space but I predict that by this time next year the situation in China will be twice as bad as it is now. Chinese local demand and the attraction of long run orders from the US and Europe will leave Australia virtually schumttaless.
Chickenman speaks
Chickenman’s head has come out from under his wing and he’s clucking loudly about the perilous state of the fashion industry in Queensland. While we immediately think of damage from cyclones and floods, the collateral damage to trade in consumer goods is also immense, he says.
While there’s plenty of money flowing into tradie’s pockets there is correspondingly little going into the cash registers of the boutiques. Many of them were relying on a strong summer to pull them out of the winter bog. Instead, in many areas, they are in deeper as consumers turn their dollars towards the more pressing needs of housing. Austerity may benefit the budget apparel market but certainly not the mid to upper category.
Chickenman reminds us that behind the boutiques and bigger stores there is an army of suppliers and their agents who will all suffer as well. He says that the fashion agency business is on the nose in Queensland, with only a couple of big ones able to make a modestly profitable living. Others might survive through amalgamation.
“The thing you can’t really measure,” Chickenman says, “is the effect of a loss of public confidence. People buy clothes when they are confident and as that confidence grows, so does the level of fashion interest. The Queensland disasters have drained confidence and this will have an Australia-wide effect because Queensland is our third biggest market; in some summer apparel, our biggest.
The support that is being extended to Queenslanders in general should include its fashion industry.”