FSI Fort Lauderdale Inc., a US-based importer is geared up for multidirectional growth initiatives regarding its sourcing from India.
The company, offering mainly women and girlswear, has its total sourcing base in Tirupur and only last year sourced garments worth US $ 43 million and expects to see an increase of 30 per cent in the next financial year.
It will also start its own manufacturing facility in Tirupur and will add new vendors as well. Currently, it works with 17 vendors in the city.
The company, having its corporate office located in Dallas, Texas, and showrooms in New York and Los Angeles, is owned by Leo Del Calvo and Kathy Del Calvo. It caters to retail stores such as TK Maxx, Ross Stores, Burlington, DD’s Discount, Bealls Outlet, Bealls Florida, Gabriel Brothers and Boscov. It has a strong marketing team and mainly supplies to value retailers so it gets less of an impact of lowered market sentiments.
For the past 17 years, FSI has been working with Tirupur and since 2017, started its own office there named Cali Supply India Pvt Ltd. The company has graphic designers and development divisions located in Tirupur itself.
Kathy Del Calvo visited India recently and met local suppliers. Vijay Senthil, having experience of two decades in apparel industry, last year joined the company last year as Country Manager India and was recently appointed as Director.
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“We are planning for our own production units as few of our orders are of very small quantity and we prefer such orders to be completed in our unit only. Initially we will have around 100 machines and later the capacity will be enhanced,” Vijay informed apparelresources.com
The company has average FOB of US $ 1.6 to US $ 8 and the order size starts from 1200 pieces and goes up to 15,000 pieces.
“As our business is growing as we are totally into knits garments, in long term we can also explore Bangladesh for sourcing but major thrust will be on Tirupur only,” said Vijay.