Today I received a box full of fabric swatches from one of the textile vendors, and it looks like 2 or 3 of their fabric patterns could work for me. I am supposed to get the other vendor’s samples this week and then I can compare pattern preferences and costs. I am very excited that this long, drawn out textiles drama may be wrapping up soon.
My consultant is putting together a spreadsheet of all of the materials (including quantities and costs) I will need for my bags. Once I add my manufacturing and shipping costs I’ll get a pretty good idea of what my overall production costs will be. Based on the costs I have already seen, I can see that my competitors have made compromises to keep their bag MSRPs relatively low. Some use plastic zippers instead of metal ones, some use knock-off magnet closures instead of the ones from the US company with the patent. It’s amazing to see how many costly elements go into bag production.
My consultant proved to be very useful today. He knows the owner of a well-known hardware vendor, and he was able to reduce the minimum quantities of hardware I would need to purchase in bulk. I am very glad I didn’t cut him loose earlier!
Tomorrow I was supposed to go to Portland to meet with a leather vendor, but we decided to postpone the meeting until Friday because there is a snowstorm headed our way and I didn’t want to take any chances with the weather.
Overall I thought today was a good day. I’m looking forward to the rest of the week.