[goddog]

Hey there

Nice to meet all you guys.

I am a buyer and also run a small business t shirt distribution. I serve buyers from USA/Europe and act as a purchaser for them.

It is my pleasure to have you visiting this post about myself. I am a distributor specialising in garment wear and footwear. I have been doing this for about almost 2 years by now and my area of expertise brings me to HK, China, Thailand and HCM City where the products are available in the lowest price. This is a low profile business and yet it has earned me friends across the world who are interested to get products like jerseys, street wears, shoes.

It is a well known fact that most (in fact all) major shirt makers like Adidas, Nike produces their shirts in places like China and Vietnam because of their low operating cost. This will be some of the places which I will be sourcing your products for you. I am not talking about fakes here.

Do drop me a message and see what I can do for you guys!

 

[Domeboy]

hello bro,

sounds cool. I own a silkscreen shop in Boulder CO, and I have been looking for these one girly t's like a madman. I saw the shirt at a Kid Robot store here and I think they are made in Japan, but thats not for sure. Anyway it's the girls t's with light fabric, and an extendor seam along the bottom of the shirt - adding length and a slight curve to the bottom of the T. Man i have googled my *** off but cant find what they're called. Let me know if you have what I need. Or, even if you dont, show me what you got bro. Thanks.

 

[Rodney]

Welcome to the T-Shirt Forums!

Please remember that we do not allow self promotion or advertising in the forums.

 

[monkeylantern]

Welcome to the forums!

 

[hongkongdmz]

Do many people here source their products from Asia? I'm currently looking at Asia to do it as its cheaper and I have the contacts but otherwise is it American based companies you guys go for?

 

[Domeboy]

well man for me it's easier to get suppliers in the US. But I am looking to source directly from asia for two reasons.
A. prolly cheaper to go straight to the source
and B. they have dope designs, and current trendy stuff

am I right? I would love to get a contact for direct asia sources ... any tips?

 

[hongkongdmz]

At the moment China is pretty much the cheapest place and the quality is usually very good but you need an established contact there. But it might shift to other places in Asia, perhaps looking around online and establishing a trading contact or doing some research into the exact regions you want. It's all bascially low-cost due to cheap labour. Might move to Africa in the future, its becoming popular now to have products made in Eastern Europe though due to a similar geographical location and logistics. I'm just lucky to have a contact who knows a few suppliers in China's main manufacturing area. Its in the South of China called Guandong Province. But you need to be very, very careful trusting Chinese in doing business. Feel free to ask me any questions and i'll to answer what little i know.

Nicolai.

 

[goddog]

We do sourcing for people who are interested in asian or Japanese designs. For a idea of what we sell, you can check my designs at my ebay store http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQsassZteesupermartQQhtZ-1

Let me know what you are looking for.

 

[hongkongdmz]

goddog seems to have some established contacts within Asia. As I said, China is certainly cheap but as production costs rise it may move back to Vietnam, Thailand etc. You could always ask him about sourcing directly, sourcing directly from Asia may require you working through a free trading agent. Whats the cost per t-shirt you get from your US supplier? I post elsewhere in this forum I was told I can get heat transfer 100% cotton t-shirts for around 4.90USD. Or £2.70. I'm not trying to promote anything, just work out the price that exists in the USA.

 

[hongkongdmz]

Are you based in the UK goddog?

 

[goddog]

Agree with Nicolai, Guangdong is THE place to be other than Zhejiang. They have garment, electronics, toys and collectables wholesalers and manufacturers in this province alone. Forget about Shanghai or Beijing if you are sourcing

 

[goddog]

Singapore and yourself, Nicolai? HK? I will be coming down sometime next month. Do you think you can help me source that brand I PM you earlier? If you could, we can do business in days to come.

Anyone out there interested in EPL teams retro jerseys? Not the current release but the 70s - 80s team shirts.

 

[hongkongdmz]

I like the t-shirts on your ebay site. Your main advantage is buying them cheap I guess. Do you ship them directly from source to the buyer or maintain a high level of stock in the uk? Also, i'm wondering what kind of base cost you're paying for each t-shirt with design included. Don't worry im not interested in distributing t-shirts, i'm from hong kong so I know how t-shirts can be so much cheaper. But then tend to overproduce or ship them direct from Shenzen, and the whole of Asia does has fairly low labour costs. I'm just wondering about shipping t-shirts directly from source to buyers and whether that was worth it in terms of shipping cost and delivery time. I'm actually only 22 so barely starting out but i know a fair bit about Asia.

 

[hongkongdmz]

Hmm..based in Singapore. Are you a mandarin speaker? I doubt I can help with sourcing products based in HK just yet, sorry. I'm only looking to start a online t-shirt business with my own designs rather then get into product distribution. If you have the contacts and you've spent enough time in Asia im sure you can be successful though. My mandarin is somewhat ok.

 

[goddog]

No we have a warehouse that maintains relatively high level of stock. That's why we have been looking into distibution as well.

 

[hongkongdmz]

Guandong is the best place given the fact that you have Hong Kong so nearby to handle customs/shipping orders etc. It's like having third-world prices with a 1st world business centre next door. But a lot of chinese are now selling their products directly from source and to be honest the copyright laws aint too good. Although my friends dad is in fact in charge of that whole section of the hk gov. My supplier told me they made products for Tommy Helfiger before etc and im sure that they did. Do you think that labour costs in Guandong will rise sufficiently to have a negative impact on profits goddog?

 

[hongkongdmz]

You ever design any of your own t-shirts goddog? I'm wondering about selling a product in the Chinese market. My partner says its not very popular, and she's the one that knows her marketing. Maybe selling a branded product and design would work but would have to be low-cost as possible. Asian people know how cheap they can buy their clothes and dont like paying high prices. Unless you're talking about established brands, in which the Chinese see them as neccessary items. But if i wanted to sell my own products and design in China im unsure about my copyright protection and possible infringment. Where is Zhejian anyway? I'm more of an hk expat or I was. Now im more interested in Chengdu in Sichuan Province. Shanghai and Beijing are too high cost to do business and saturated with lao wai westerners now.

 

[goddog]

We designed these for the UK market, esp for a retail shop in Liverpool. After these Gerrard designs, he told us to put in new designs for Fowler, Rush and other players. We have since, a relative stream of large orders from them and also other teams.

http://i5.tinypic.com/16axte9.jpg

 

[hongkongdmz]

So you act as the uk link for your company? You sound like a trading agent and distributor. Your designers from Asia as well? Sorry for asking so many questions but you're the one with all the experience and i'm the young naive guy just starting out. Heh. Would you say £2.70 for a 100% cotton t-shirt with a heat transfer is expensive goddog?

 

[hongkongdmz]

Very nice t-shirt though. Do you know what the Liverpool retailer was charging for them?