Buying agents and buying agencies have an important role to play when it comes to bringing orders from overseas buyers. This fraternity is business enhancer both for buyers and the Indian exporters. Despite the last two years proving to be quite challenging for buying agents’ trade bodies, they have defied all challenges and are working for overall growth. Some of these efforts have been quite fruitful, while some that are in pipeline are also expected to benefit the Indian buying community. These trade bodies have covered various areas to enhance business and smooth running of the same. Their efforts include connecting more and more factories with buyers, enhancing infrastructure, lobbying with the Government for industry-friendly schemes, solving payment issues, better networking, increasing mutual understanding, knowledge sharing, developing expert skilled mid-level professionals, and much more.
In discussion with Buying Agents Association (BAA), Federation of Buying Agents (FBA) and Association of Buying Agents for Textiles (ABAT), Apparel Resources explores how the initiatives of these trade bodies are benefiting the buying community and overall India’s apparel export trade.
BAA working in multi-direction…
Buying Agents Association, the oldest association of buying community in India, is working in multiple directions which also includes a futuristic approach as well as enhanced mutual coordination.
“We focused a lot to enhance the mutual understanding and coordination between the members of our association and did the same through more meetings, more interaction among each other. Now we have much more cordial relations and it also has a positive impact on the smooth functioning of our business. Now, none of the buying agents target anybody else’s account,” says Vishal Dhingra, Chairman, BAA.
Also Read: World is looking up to India as a new hub for sourcing: Vishal Dhingra, Chairman, BAA
Lobbying with the Governments is one of the biggest efforts of BAA. The association actively worked with the UP Government and is very hopeful to get a handicraft park near Muradabad. With the help of PHD Chamber, BAA strong advocated for the extension of the interest subvention scheme and recently the Government enhanced the same for three years.
Also Read: Government extends Interest Equalisation Scheme; apparel industry welcomes the move
To ensure cost-effectiveness, BAA has collaborated with the prestigious testing company Bureau Veritas and all of its members and vendors get almost 60 per cent discount for testing services.
As buying agents and buying houses struggle for expert merchandisers, BAA has developed a course curriculum and associated with fashion institutes that can work on this curriculum and prepare expert merchandisers as per the need of buying community. “As of now, buying community is dependent on the merchandisers who have experience of working in export houses and have gained immense practical knowledge. Our collaborative efforts with institutes will help us to get such qualities in a fresher merchandiser and will also benefit on the cost front,” says Vishal, adding, “BAA is also taking classes of such students to improve their soft skills and confidence to get business from overseas buyers.”
It is worth noting that BAA has opened its permanent office in Noida and is further enhancing its regional cooperation across textile hubs. Now, the association is targeting to have its strong presence across India.
FBA creates three ‘assets’…
To boost exports of labour-intensive products like apparel, home furnishings & home décor, FBA has created three ‘assets’ during the last two years and these efforts are continuing.
Lokesh Parashar, Spokesperson FBA said “The Great Pause prompted FBA to stand up to the challenges to help the members bridge gaps in supply chain. Vendor Connect Program (VCP), Physical Factory Tour, Payment Recovery Mechanism are three of our major initiatives and I am proud to say that these have immensely benefited not only our members even the exporters also,” commented Lokesh.
Vendor Connect Program, a virtual exercise, connects around 100 factories to the buying agents, and these buying agents and their buyers have direct interaction with the factory. And whatever a buyer wishes to know about the factory, they are able to know by going through factory video and having direct discussion with exporters. Out of these 100 factories, 65 are from the apparel segment. Each such session are attended by an average of 12-15 buying agents.
Also Read: Federation of Buying Agents increasing its reach globally
After this program, when Covid was in control, FBA started Physical Factory Tour. Under this program, a group of buying agents visit various hubs and have factory visits, meeting with factory owners. Each tour is of two days and also has a networking evening. All this is live on Instagram, so that more and more buyers can have a feel of the same. Now, this program will be enhanced as buying agent groups will be visiting the southern part of India like Tirupur and Coimbatore.
The third and major step of FBA is the Payment Recovery Mechanism. Under this step, so far out of 120 disputes, 45 have got resolved and almost US $ 270,000 has been recovered from Indian exporters, and, at the same time, FBA has been able to save US $ 22,000 for buyers as exporters were not able to deliver their orders. The entire process has been carried through Legal Experts rather than with the involvement of any middleman.
As now travel has started again, moving forward, FBA’s focus is to attract buyers from overseas and B2B meetings of its members (buying agents with overseas buyers) are being organised. At the same time, under the Hosted Buyer Program(HBP), the federation is also promoting buyers to come to India and such buyers get 50 per cent of their expenditure from the Federation. HBP started in 2019 and 33 buyers were hosted by FBA when they arrived in India.
ABAT growing in Southern India…
Another trade body of buying community that is emerging strongly and is quite active on the ground level is the Association of Buying Agents for Textiles (ABAT) located in Tirupur. This association has long been focusing on promoting the brand ‘Brand Tirupur’ among overseas buyers by exploring such buyers who have less or no sourcing from Tirupur, and the association has been successful in doing so. Over the years, with ABAT’s collaborative efforts, Tirupur has reached a level where it is now eyeing to clock Rs. 100,000 crore (US $ 13.50 billion) after crossing Rs. 30,000 crore in 2021…
At the same time, it is also working as arbitration for its members and is also process screening new buying agents so that there are no unethical issues and the credibility of buying agents is enhanced.“We are an emerging trade body and now we are geared up to grow with the growing business. Our focus is majorly on knitted garments which has a strong base in Tirupur. Our future plan also includes mobilising global resources to preserve the textile business and explore new international alliances,” says V. Elango, President, ABAT.
