Chasing After Suppliers

I have never really understood why suppliers have a pricey approach to their customers. I am talking about weavers, printers, tie-dyers and large textile cooperatives who promise to send swatches so I can place an order but never live up to their words. You could just chalk it down to a cultural difference or disorganization, but it’s at a higher level too. I met an urban educated manager of a large non-profit set up to promote handloom fabric at a craft exhibition in February and only after incessant emails and phone calls did I finally get some swatches (gorgeous ones, however) last week.

What is sometimes frustrating is that I try to do whatever it takes to keep my customers happy (like driving to a customer’s house to deliver her urgent alteration on Christmas day) but very few suppliers think of their clients as customers who are giving them business. I tell my sales staff that we have to be polite to every customer, even if we know some are bigger shoppers and others are just window shoppers. It is the opportunity that a window shopper today will buy something for herself tomorrow that we don’t want to lose out on. Plus, I want everyone who comes to my store to have a pleasant experience; it’s just not nice to discriminate.

With fabric suppliers I have to call and introduce myself to ask for swatches (sample cuttings), follow up with a text message (sms) to tell them my office address, call again a few days later to remind them, and so on. At first I used to think it’s because they knew my order quantities would eventually be small, which means I was less important than some of their bigger buyers, but recently while talking to a manager of a large cooperative I made sure I didn’t mention my order quantities. Perhaps they are heavily understaffed and have no one else to pass the job onto. But if that is the case -and I empathize completely- wouldn’t it be easier to be up front about it rather than ignoring emails or saying the swatches will be sent the next day?

There are exceptions to the rule (Eco-Tasar in Delhi is run very professionally) and there is an interesting pattern I am seeing in these suppliers with service inertia. Very often I have found that the suppliers who took ages to send me swatches are the ones who had the more interesting textile designs and better quality work. For example, after 8 months of calling my cut-work supplier in Varanasi and pestering him with text messages, I received some beautiful swatches the other day (pics below). This means that with a little thick skin and persistence, it is possible to get to the good stuff.


Cut-work swatches from Prabha Traders (more delicate and flowery than my usual favourites, but beautiful nevertheless).