Here are the noteworthy entries from one year ago for the week of July 15-23 2005:
Hangtags, labels & domain names- competing with your customers?
If you’re selling wholesale to stores and retailing direct on the web, you have to walk a fine line because retailers may not carry your line if your tags and labels point to your website. Miracle provides guidance on how to manage relationships with both kinds of customers to maximize your growth and keep everybody happy.
WOATS and GOATS
Miracle analyzes the problems and pitfalls of tee shirt lines from WOATS and GOATS . If you’re producing tees, you must read this to avoid the biggest mistakes she sees. Don’t get caught being categorized with the worst of rank amateurs. Oh, and have I mentioned that Miracle is a buyer?
Shrinkage and fit
Don’t compromise the integrity of your sizing standards. The ins and outs of selling prewashed goods and cutting accordingly. This post provides guidance on test washing your products to ensure your sizing remains true, even after the customer has bought the item. A must read to learn how to manage size differences across color ways of any given style.
Speaking of tees
A profile of organic tee maker and supplier T.S. Designs. T.S. Designs has invented a new dyeing and sublimation process with a lower ecological load. This post includes full contact information and resources if you’re sourcing tee related products and services.
Just-Style
A review of the web publication Just-Style. It’s pricey and suited for larger concerns. Still, I occasionally find interesting tidbits although in this post, I take them to task for printing some abject drivel from an apparel industry lean consultant wannabe.
Big Fish
Whereupon I again take Just-Style to task for printing the aforementioned drivel from a lean consultant wannabe. This guy thinks that Zara’s lean cycle time is owing to management waving a big stick around so that everybody knows that the head guy is serious about people moving faster. Actually, I didn’t get too far into his arguments because that could lend the impression his ideas were worth the value of time it took to dispute them. Still, I contradict his key ideas to provide an analysis of how Zara’s operation works. If you’d like to emulate Zara’s success, the basics of their simple plan is all here. It’s not complicated. Really.
Lean Dream Teams
A continuation of the above post but this focuses on the dynamics of a lean team. Most manufacturers think that driving lean manufacturing processes means having a team comprised of amiable personalities with unparalleled drive and skills who are happily motivated to produce miracles in 80 hour work weeks. In real life, teams can be incredibly successful in spite of being frighteningly disfunctional and neurotic. This is a (humorous) profile of one successful team.