Fashion Blogs

Don't fear raising prices to your buyers...

The unfortunate reality is that clothing prices are rising. If you have not already felt the pinch from your factories I would be surprised. The cost of cotton has gone thru the roof.

Here is a cotton price chart. I am NOT an expert on commodity prices but this chart appears to show a significant increase in cotton pricing from 2009.

I obtained this chart from http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/CT/M You can use it to get cotton price charts for additional time periods if you wish. You can also get intraday cotton prices, daily cotton prices, weekly cotton prices, etc.

Other fibers are following suit. In addition, labor cost has increased dramatically.

I read from one report from July 2010, that the labor ministry in Balgnadesh agreed to increase the garment workers minimum wage. The wage increased from 1,662 taka ($25) monthly wage to 3,000 taka. In an artilce I read in November 2010 it said, "In an important step towards a living wage for the country's garment workers, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers Exporters Association (BGMEA), an association of factory owners, announced that next month it would begin paying workers the new national minimum wage." So, if the cost of garment production labor increases, the cost of garments increase.

Labor cost has also incresed in China and other countries as well.

Anyway, my point is that the factories are charging more money for garment production. Therefore, you may want to (or need to) increase your selling price to clothing retailers in 2011. However, obviously you will need to hope that your competitors are not keeping their old (lower price), if you try to raise your price to your buyers. My feeling is your competitors will also need to raise pricing, but this is something you will have to carefully monitor on your own.

Good luck... 2011 will be another challenging year. Hopefully cotton prices will come back down to earth... For now, they are out of control high...