"Hi, can you make hoodies?"
The contact form, Instagram DMs and the info inbox fill up every week with messages from people starting a clothing brand. Some have a full tech pack, fabric sourced and a first order of a few hundred units per style. Many have a sketch, a mood board, or just an idea and a question about price for fifty pieces. They all get the same careful reply from the owner or a merchandiser, often a long email explaining MOQs, sampling, and what a tech pack is.
The brand with the tech pack and the budget waits two days for a reply, alongside everyone else, and signs with a factory that answered first.
Every enquiry is treated as equal
Most factories want small brand work: it can grow, and it fills gaps between large orders. The difficulty is that enquiries arrive without the information needed to judge them, so every one gets the same manual treatment.
- Contact forms ask for a name and a message, not product, quantity or readiness.
- Enquiries arrive through several channels, with no single list.
- Minimums, sampling fees and process are explained from scratch in every reply.
- There is no way to tell a ready brand from an early-stage one without a conversation.
- Nobody tracks what happened to each enquiry after the first reply.
What the swamp costs
The owner's or merchandiser's time is spent educating people who are months away from ordering. Meanwhile, the enquiries that are ready to go get a slow reply and go elsewhere. Some early-stage brands would become good customers in a year, but nobody follows up because nothing records them. And the constant stream makes the team dread the inbox.
Intake and triage for brand enquiries
- A proper enquiry form on your website asks what a production manager needs: product type, construction, fabric sourced or not, quantity per style and colour, target delivery, whether a tech pack or sample exists, and budget range if they will share it. It lets them upload a tech pack.
- The form explains your minimums, sampling process and what you need from them, in plain terms, before they submit, so expectations are set early.
- Enquiries from email and social messages are pulled into the same list, with an automated reply pointing to the form where details are missing.
- Each enquiry is sorted into groups you define, such as ready to quote, needs a tech pack, below your minimums, or not a fit for your machinery. Anything uncertain goes to a person.
- Ready-to-quote enquiries reach the merchandiser straight away. Early-stage ones get a helpful standard reply with guidance on what to prepare, and are kept for follow-up.
- The list lives in a CRM such as HubSpot or a simple pipeline, so every enquiry has a status and nothing is lost.
| Enquiry | Today | With triage |
|---|---|---|
| Full tech pack, realistic quantity | Waits in the queue | Reaches a merchandiser first |
| Sketch and an idea | Long personal reply | Standard guidance, kept for later |
| Below minimums | Negotiation by email | Told clearly up front |
| Instagram DM | Answered on a phone, maybe | Pulled into the same list |
An inbox you can manage
The brands that are ready get a fast, informed reply, often with a quote request already complete. Early-stage founders get useful information and a way back when they are ready. The owner spends time on the enquiries that can become orders, and can see how many enquiries arrive and how many turn into sampling.
Is your inbox like this?
- Most enquiries are from start-up brands with little information.
- You explain MOQs and sampling in nearly every reply.
- Good enquiries wait behind early-stage ones.
- Enquiries arrive by DM, email and form with no single list.
- Nobody follows up enquiries that were not ready.