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Buying Office as a Catalyst in Global Apparel Sourcing: A Case Study in Korea

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DOI: 10.1080/20932685.2010.10593076

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249 M. Lee, K. Oh / Journal of Global Fashion Marketing 1-4 (2010) 249-255

Buying Office as a Catalyst in Global Apparel Sourcing: Case study of

Foreign Based Buying Offices in Korea
：

MiYoung Lee1), Keunyoung Oh2)

Abstract in two stages of pre-production stage and bulk production

stage.
The three things regarded as most important strategies for
The apparel industry is very globalized and inter-connected
the future of buying agent: providing value-added product de-
industry due to the complex production and marketing through
velopment services, building a strong vendor-buyer relationship,
all stages of value chain. Most apparel companies obtain or
and improving work efficiency. Competitive buying offices pro-
manufacture products through global sourcing. Global sourcing
vide buyers with value-added services through R&D teams as
is defined as the process of identifying, evaluating, negotiating,
well as quality-assured production management through
and configuring supply across multiple geographies in order to
vendors. Through this process, buying office can demonstrate
reduce costs, maximize performance, and mitigate risks. Most
the competitiveness of the Korean market as a core place in
large-sized apparel companies that operates their own foreign
the fashion industry rather than the mere manufacturer of or-
buying offices, located in foreign markets to facilitate produc-
dered products, allowing continuous business deals with the
ing and importing in that region for the company.
buyer. The relationships among buyer, buying office and ven-
In this case study, in-depth interview with merchandisers or
dor has been changed from hierarchical relationship to collabo-
managers of buying offices and vendors in Korea was con-
rative partnership. This relationship is mutually benefitial, and
ducted to explore the role of buying office in Korea under the
facilitating relationships through an integrated supply chain re-
competitive global apparel sourcing industry. Also, buying offi-
sult in reliable execution. Through the partnership relation, as
ces’ strategies to have competitive advantage in a global sourc-
work is done more efficiently, the buying office mediates the
ing industry were examined.
opinions of the buyer and vendor, and thus can specialize in
Work orders from foreign retailer buyers are handled by the
the distinct task of creating a balance between buyers and
merchandiser team of buying office that liaises with vendors.
vendors. Through the experience of the direct dealing between
Within the buying office, merchandisers cohesively work with
buyer and vendor, it would reiterate the importance of the
technical design team, quality control team, and colorists to
buying office’s role of mediator, allow buying offices to assign
complete apparel production with vendors on behalf of the
tasks to the vendor, and the buying office is decidedly playing
buyer. Among the several departments within the buying of-
the buying office’s inherent role. These efforts of buying offi-
fice, merchandisers play a central role as a communication hub
ces have strengthened the competitiveness of the Korean ven-
between buyers and vendors and among the internal teams.
dors as well as buying offices located in Korea.
The working relationship between retailer buyers and buying
offices can be divided in three types involving colorists, mer-
Keywords: Buying offices, Apparel, Sourcing, Vendor, Korea
chandisers, R&Ds. The colorists, merchandisers, and R&D
teams of buying offices work with their corresponding counter-
parts in retailer buyers. First, colorists receive seasonal color
palettes consisting of 8-10 colors for main fabrics prior to the
developmental stage of the season and proceed with lab-dips
developed by major fabric mills. ， ，
Secondly, merchandisers work with vendors on behalf of re- ， ， ， ,
tailer buyers. Within the buying office, merchandisers mostly 。 ：
deal with buyers and technical design team and quality control ， 。
team deal with vendors. Thirdly, the R&D teams work with ， 、 ，
designers, sourcing teams, and product development team in 。 ，
the retailers. Buying office’s working process can be divided ， ，
。 ，
。 ， ，
1) Associate Professor, Inha Unviersity, Korea, Tel: +82 32 860 8137,
E-mail: mylee@inha.ac.kr 。
2) Assistant Professor, Fashion Textile Technology, Buffalo State-State ， 。 、
University of New York, USA, Tel: +1 716 878 4659, E-mail: 、 、 ， 、
ohk@buffalostate.edu
， 。
Ⓒ 2010 KAMS. All rights reserved. 。
 M. Lee, K. Oh / Journal of Global Fashion Marketing 1-4 (2010) 249-255 250

， ， to seek low-cost suppliers, retailers or apparel branded manu-

。 facturers in (most) developed countries send their cut-and-sew
， ， work or other orders to manufacturers in Hong Kong, Taiwan
， ， and Korea, where the local manufacturers had their network of
。 ： ， factories across Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines,
！ ： China, Vietnam, and other Asian or South American countries.
， ， ， In U.S. retailers, marketers, and branded manufactures as the
， leading forms that organize the large scaled apparel imports
。 (Gereffi, 2001). Branded manufacturers include the larger appa-
、 、 rel manufacturers such as Express and they have extensive net-
， ， ，
works of offshore sourcing /buying offices and foreign
。
suppliers. While retailers buy apparel items from manufacturers
， 、
in the past, they became a major importer of apparel items by
， 、
competing apparel manufacturers. The retailers such as
， 8-10 、 。
Walmart often delegated their functions, including sourcing of
，
。 ， fabric or product development, to their Hong Kong, Taiwanese
； ， and Korean contractors, including buying office/agent or
、 、 ， vendors.
， 。 Most large-sized apparel companies that operates their own
， foreign buying offices, located in foreign markets to facilitate
， ， producing and importing in that region for the company.
， 。 Through the foreign buying offices, buyer would survey their
， 。 ， markets for new products development as well as sourcing
、 、 ， merchandises. Most buying offices are located in major apparel
， ， production places. Fashion companies that are not large enough
， to operate their own foreign buying offices often rely on in-
。 、 、 dependent buying agents. These independent agents usually
， ， provide same services that apparel companies’ foreign buying
， 。 offices do, and they are paid by commission (Stone, 1994).
： ， ， ， Global business, especially cross-cultural business, practices
， ， impact heavily on communication, conflict, and perceived rela-
， tionship performance between buyers and foreign suppliers
。 ， ， (LaBahn and Harich, 1997). Differences in cultures including
。 values, attitudes, manners, customs, and languages, can cause
miscommunication and create further problems in supplier eval-
： ， ， ， ，
uation, contracting, product inspection and maintaining relation-
ships in global sourcing. Buying offices would help to commu-
nicate between buyers and vendors effectively and brings prod-
1. Introduction
ucts to market for the buyers at the right cost, quality and de-
sign though working with the global network of factories,
The apparel industry is very globalized and inter-connected
mills, and raw material vendors .
industry due to the complex production and marketing through
The Korean textile and apparel industry, which started to in-
all stages of value chain. As apparel markets become global,
crease textile exports with low-labor wage labor in the 1960s,
competition becomes more intense. In order to be successful,
accounted for about 40% of Korean total exports in 1971
companies needs to provide creative products with good qual-
(Korean Federation of Textile Industries, 2002). During the
ity, to lower the cost and to improve customer service.
1970s, the export volume of Korean apparel and textiles in-
Sourcing refers to the process of determining how and where
creased by 13 times and most apparel and textile firms were
manufactured goods or components will be procured/obtained
born global. Because of this growth, the Korean export apparel
for manufacturers/retailers (Dickerson, 1999), and most apparel
and textile industry was named one of the big three, along
companies obtain or manufacture products through global
with Hong Kong and Taiwan, in the international export
sourcing.
market. In the export-based industrial structure, the buying offi-
Global sourcing is defined as “the process of identifying,
ces and agents played the important role of connecting foreign
evaluating, negotiating, and configuring supply across multiple
buyers’ orders to apparel suppliers. However, due to the high
geographies in order to reduce costs, maximize performance,
increase of wage and lack of experienced labor in the late
and mitigate risks (Su et al., 2005, p.262)” Usually, in order
1980s, foreign buyers change their purchasing lines from Korea
251 M. Lee, K. Oh / Journal of Global Fashion Marketing 1-4 (2010) 249-255
Fig. 1. Imports and exports of clothing (MTI code 441) in Korea
to less developed countries, resulting in the decrease of the
number of buying offices/agents in Korea in late 1990s-2000.
Thus, we would like to find our what are the roles of buy-
ing office in Korea in todays’ global apparel sourcing industry:
do they have any competitive advantages for the future?
In-depth interview was conducted to explore the role of buying
office in Korea under this very competitive global apparel
sourcing industry. Also, the working process of buying office
and their strategies to have competitive advantage in a global
sourcing industry were investigated. For this purpose, merchan-
disers and managers from Korea branch of foreign-based
Buying Office, including Mast Industries (Far East) Ltd.,
Tween Brand Sourcing Korea, and Li and Fung Korea, and
former employees of Korean independent buying offices were
interviewed. Managers from major vendors in Korea, including
Youngone Holdings, Hansoll Textiles Ltd. were also partici-
pated to provide insight on the working relationship with buy-
ing offices.
2. Buying Office in Global Sourcing
2.1. Recent Buying Office Trends
Since the mid-1990s the buying offices in Korea and over-
seas have shrunk in both size and number as many small buy-
ing offices went bankrupt. In comparison, it is well known
that the vendors who produce clothing continue to grow and
turn into enterprises. In the case of major vendors in Korea
such as SAE-A Trading Company, Hansol Textile Limited,
Hansae, and Youngone Holdings continue to grow, expanding
their production facilities across Asia and South America dem-
onstrating just how much this industry has grown in size. For
instance, Sae-A Trading Company with a $920 million sales
volume in 2009, have 17 oversea offices and 20 factories in
Guatemala, Nicaragua, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, and United
States producing 1.4 million pcs/day for their buyers including
mass retailers (e.g., Walmart, Target, Kohl’s, Sears, Kmart ),
branded manufacturers (e.g., Hollister, GAP, Banana Republic,
Liz Claiborne, Abercrombie & Fitch, , Osh Kosh Babies,
Gymboree, Justice, Aerospotale, Adidas, Tommy Hilfiger,
Express) and fast fashion companies (e.g., Uniqlo, ZARA,
Mango)
As of late vendors are improving their competitiveness so
that they can execute one-stop orders through vertical in-
tegration of not only sewing but also textile and printing mills
as well as production, pressing, and packing factories. They al-
so form a R/D team in the firm not only technological re-
search and development but are also gaining strength in design
trend analysis and design. Through these changes one can ob-
serve how vendors changed from the manual role of merely
receiving the order and producing it, to a more proactive role
of making suggestions on new ideas, designs, and product
developments.
As vendor has gained experience producing buyers’ orders
and they reinforce themselves with specialized personnel who
work as buying agent, vendors started to directly work with
their buyers instead of going through a buying office. These
forms of direct deal methods allow firms to decrease the cost
of commissions that go to buying offices which in turn has
the benefits of lowering the prices for the buyers and increas-
ing the revenue of the vendors. However from the interview
with buying office merchandisers, there are cases where a buy-
er who made deals directly with the vendor would return to
dealing through the buying office. This is because the buyers
feel like they lack the negotiation skills of the buying office,
experiencing difficulties with the proceeding and controlling the
deal, and even the vendors can feel more comfortable dealing
with the buying office than with buyers directly.
From the interview, most interviewee pointed out that
Korean vendors and buying offices are known to handle well
complex and trendy products that combine an array of parts
that have to be manufactured within a short timeframe. Even
though the cost is little bit higher, Korean vendors have com-
 M. Lee, K. Oh / Journal of Global Fashion Marketing 1-4 (2010) 249-255
petitiveness in terms of high workmanship and efficiency as a
sourcing branch.
2.2. The Internal Structure of Buying Office
Work orders from foreign retailer buyers are handled by the
merchandiser team of buying office that liaises with vendors.
Within the buying office, merchandisers cohesively work with
technical design team, quality control team, and colorists to
complete apparel production with vendors on behalf of the
buyer. Among the several departments within the buying of-
fice, merchandisers play a central role as a communication hub
between buyers and vendors and among the internal teams.
Within well-established buying offices, R&D team functions
independently from the order handing teams consisting of mer-
chandisers, technical design team, quality control team and
colorists. R&D teams can be divided into fabric R&D and gar-
ment R&D. Unlike other teams whose jobs need to be ini-
tiated by the buyer’s requests for sample or price quotes or
order commitment for bulk production, both R&D teams ini-
tiate their projects voluntarily by researching fabric trends and
garment trends, sourcing innovative and functional fabrics and
other materials, and developing garment designs for the exist-
ing retailer buyers. The R&D teams continuously produce val-
uable outcomes that can be provided to retailer buyers. Since
this R&D function is not a profit-generating department, it is
run as a cost center; however R&D functions have been a val-
uable asset to buying offices by bringing in more dependency
or loyalty of buyers to the buying office.
By utilizing the fabric and garment trends and new material
sourcing information provided by the R&D team of buying of-
fices, the overseas retailers can enhance their fabric and design
development and eventually reduce their internal R&D costs.
The investment in the R&D function by buying offices has re-
sulted in providing an additional value-added service to retailer
buyers, which has fortified the relationship between retailer
buyers and buying office. The internal structure of buying of-
fice is found in the figure 2.
Fig. 2. The internal structure of buying office at working level
252
2.3. The Buyer, Buying Office, and Vendors
The working relationship between retailer buyers and buying
offices can be divided in three types involving colorists, mer-
chandisers, R&Ds. The colorists, merchandisers, and R&D
teams of buying offices work with their corresponding counter-
parts in retailer buyers. First, colorists receive seasonal color
palettes consisting of 8-10 colors for main fabrics prior to the
developmental stage of the season and proceed with lab-dips
developed by major fabric mills. The lab-dips are carefully
evaluated with proper lighting specifications required by buyers
internally within the buying office and forwarded to the
buyers. Once a lab-dip is approved, the colorists prepare the
color standards with 3-4 approved lap-dips for each color on
different fabrics. During the bulk production, the colorists pro-
vide guidelines to vendors in preparing fabrics and evaluating
garment samples.
Secondly, merchandisers work with vendors on behalf of re-
tailer buyers. Most foreign retailers do not have in-house appa-
rel manufacturing factories; they work through buying offices
to source from overseas apparel manufacturers (Fung, Chen,
and Yip, 2007). Within the buying office, merchandisers most-
ly deal with buyers and technical design team and quality con-
trol team deal with vendors.
Thirdly, the R&D teams work with designers, sourcing
teams, and product development team in the retailers. Both
fabric R&D and garment R&D conduct year-around trend re-
search and fabric development, produce trend reports, and de-
velop fabric and innovative garment samples for the retailer
buyers. This working relationship is different from the other
two relationships in terms of the direction of information flow.
In the colorists and buyers and the merchandisers and buyers
relationships, the flow of information is driven by retailer buy-
ers and workforces in buying offices respond rather passively
more depending on the decisions made by buyers. However, in
the R&D teams and buyers relationship, information is fed to
buyers by the buying office. R&D teams’ understanding of
buyers’ design concepts and fabric direction determines the
quality of the work produced by the R&D teams.
Fig. 3. The workflow among retailer buyers,
buying office, fabric mills, and vendors
253 M. Lee, K. Oh / Journal of Global Fashion Marketing 1-4 (2010) 249-255

The working relationships among retailer buyers, buying of-

fice, fabric mills, and vendors are found in Figure 3.

2.4. Buying Office Working Process

Buying office’s working process can be divided in two

stages of pre-production stage and bulk production stage. In
the pre-production stage, buyers send style tech packs to mer-
chandisers in buying office and ask price quotes from vendors.
The merchandisers forward the style tech packs to major ven-
dors and request initial price quotes from the vendors. Within
one or two weeks, sample garments are produced at the sam-
ple production facility of the vendors and send to the buyers
with quoted prices. The garment samples are internally eval-
uated by technical design team for its measurements, fit, and
sewing specifications in buying office before being sent to the
buyers. During this development stage, colorists are working
with the buyers and the fabric mills on lab-dips on major
fabrics.
The garments samples prepared by vendors are evaluated
during style alignment meetings or buying meetings held in
buyers’ design headquarters. Styles are screened and selected
for bulk production during the meetings. Buying office or ven-
dors are not invited to the buying meetings. Once buyers sort
out the styles adopted to be produced in bulk for the next
season, they forward the style tech packs with adoption com-
ments made by product development or design team to buying
office for bulk production.
Bulk production work process is illustrated in Figure 4.
Upon receiving the style tech packs for bulk production, mer-
chandisers in buying office negotiate production costs with
vendors with the consideration of order quantity and production
capacity given the proposed delivery date. Merchandisers care-
fully review not only the production costs quoted by vendors
but also their factory conditions since retailer buyers have
strict vendor compliance. While merchandisers are working Fig. 4. Buying office working praocess
with vendors and buyers in price negotiation with terms of de-
livery and shipping options, technical design teams are simulta- request top of production samples in all sizes that are pro-
neously working with vendors on fit sample development. Fit duced in vendor’s factories to be assured that the product
samples are developed by the vendor and inspected by techni- quality are achieved in bulk production. The quality control
cal designers at buying office. The approved fit samples at team of buying office is normally stationed at the factory
buying office are sent to buyer’s technical team for fit while bulk production is processed. To maintain product qual-
approval. Retailer buyers are different in size measurements, fit ity consistently during the entire bulk production, buyers often
requirements, and sewing specifications. As price and delivery request in-line samples in all sizes sent from the factory to
negotiations reach to an agreement between the buyer and the buyers. Careful monitoring on product quality in bulk pro-
vendor, merchandiser in buying office arrange a fabric book duction is made by the quality control team of buying office
for bulk production at fabric mills for vendors. on behalf of retailer buyers.
Once fit sample is approved, pre-production samples are de-
veloped in all sizes in the right fabric with the right accesso-
ries specified in the style tech pack. The pre-production sam-
3. Innovative Strategies of Buying Office for
ples developed at vendors’ sample production facility are for- the Future
ward to the buyers after initial inspection done by the techni-
cal design team of buying office. Order commitment is made In order to have competitiveness in a global apparel sourc-
by the buyer with the approval for the fit and overall quality ing industry, buying offices took efforts in developing val-
of pre-production samples. Once bulk production starts, buyers
 M. Lee, K. Oh / Journal of Global Fashion Marketing 1-4 (2010) 249-255
ue-added product, efficient working processes, and a new rela-
tionship with vendor and buyers.
3.1 Providing Value-added Product Development
Services
Buying offices provide retailer buyers with value-added serv-
ices through R&D teams as well as quality-assured production
management through vendors. Most foreign-based buying office
has developed a global network of external design services that
can be tailored with buyers’ brands concept located in key
market in the US, Asia, and Europe. Buying offices much ef-
fort to build a strong R&D team to provide design services.
R&D team usually provide trend services, including key trend
show recaps, fabric research, print development and painting
services.
In order to fortify the vendor-buying office relationship,
buying office fabric R&D team sources innovative and per-
formance fabrics and develop new fabric samples for retailer
buyers. Garment R&D teams are developing styles for the spe-
cific retailers the buying office have established business rela-
tionship with and suggesting their designs to the buyer’s de-
sign team. Since foreign retailers spend a great deal of re-
sources in creative design development, the efforts made by
buying office’s garment R&D team are favorable viewed by
the foreign retailers. Due to the nature of globalization in the
recent fashion trend and the good reputation of Korean fashion
industry, the adoption rate of the designs developed by the
garment R&D team is increasing even through the retailer de-
sign team still screen and modify to meet their design
directions. However innovative R&D efforts made at buying
offices have become a strong factor to retain buyers and to in-
crease their dependency on buying offices.
In the case of Korean vendors, they do not merely sew and
produce the clothes according to the buyer’s order but they al-
so recommend to the buyer ways to increase the product’s val-
ue, increasing competitiveness more than other sourcing firms.
Some buying offices use vendor’s R&D team to suggest new
trends, analysis of their competitors, textiles, trims, and designs
and show that they can solve anything in Korea that may be
related to the fashion products.
3.2. Building a Strong Vendor-buyer Relationship
The relationship between buying office and vendors has
changed from hierarchical relationship to collaborative partner-
ship in which all involved need one another and cooperate
based on trust. Before, buying offices would create competition
among vendors in order to lower the price, however as of late
they are pursuing “partnerships” with the three or four vendors
and through long-term relationships they maximize cooperation.
The Buying office is also working to build a secure partner-
ship with vendors by inviting vendors to the meetings with
buyers. In the collaborative partnership, the studied buying of-
254
fice in this case study tries to involve their major vendors
during the buyer team’s visit to the buying office and vendors’
production facilities. The buyers’ trip to Korea is important to
vendors since during the visit, vendors can show their own
R&D functions and domestic and international production
facilities. The buying office merchandisers schedule buyers’
visits to the vendors’ headquarters and production facilities and
to major fashion markets in Seoul to impress buyers on the
fact that fashion trends found in Seoul are quite advanced and
inspiring. On the other hand, some buying offices arrange ven-
dors to visit buyers to provide the chance for vendors to pro-
mote their companies by exhibiting their capabilities and pro-
duction facilities.
Buying offices would commence education on textile,
bleaching, printing, and other manufacture-related technologies
to its merchandisers with the cooperation of the vendors.
Through such education, the buying office has the advantage
of increasing the understanding about manufacturing process.
In addition, when there are changes in external environment
or if the vendor, buying office, or buyer has internal diffi-
culties they should discuss it together and strive to solve it.
When the financial crisis took place in 2007, some head-
quarters (buyers) faced challenges such as personnel reduction,
they would request help to the vendors and through the ven-
dors’ cooperation they received a lot of aid; the headquarters,
buying office, and vendor would discuss it together and find a
solution – constructing such long-term cooperating relationships
is a notable competitive advantage.
3.3. Improving Work Efficiency
The strong vendor – buyer partnership allows buying office
to lend part of their managing functions to vendors. The tech-
nical design team of vendors can directly work with buyers to
have fit samples and preproduction samples approved in a
more rapid and efficient way without being pre-inspected by
the technical design team of buying office. This direct commu-
nication between buyers and vendors are possible when a
strong partnership among the buyer, the buying office, and the
vendor is well established. The technical design team of ven-
dors is trained at the buyer’s headquarters on their measure-
ment protocols, fit specification, and sewing instruction to in-
spect the samples at the vendor’s sample facility. With this
process, buyers and buying office can reduce the preparation
time prior to cut confirmation. Also the use of product man-
agement system that are installed in the buyer, the buying of-
fice, the vendor, and the manufacturing factories help the bulk
production moving smoothly resulting in a much shorten lead
time from the initial price negotiation to final product delivery.
This process would become an opportunity for the buyer
and vendor to deal directly and thus could endanger the buy-
ing office’s position. However it is possible because it could
create a trusting partnership among the buyer, buying office,
and the vendor that would strive to bring about more efficient
work procedures and better product manufacturing.
255 M. Lee, K. Oh / Journal of Global Fashion Marketing 1-4 (2010) 249-255
4. Conclusion
Through in-depth interviews with managers and merchan-
disers from buying offices in Korea and major vendors, the
role and working process of buying offices were investigated
and what kind of strategies that buying offices seeks to be
competitive in a global apparel sourcing industry. The three
things regarded as most important strategies for the future of
buying agent: providing value-added product development serv-
ices, building a strong vendor-buyer relationship, and improv-
ing work efficiency.
Competitive buying offices provide buyers with value-added
services through R&D teams as well as quality-assured pro-
duction management through vendors. Through this process,
buying office can demonstrate the competitiveness of the
Korean market as a core place in the fashion industry rather
than the mere manufacturer of ordered products, allowing con-
tinuous business deals with the buyer. The relationships among
buyer, buying office and vendor has been changed from hier-
archical relationship to collaborative partnership. This relation-
ship is mutually benefitial, and facilitating relationships through
an integrated supply chain result in reliable execution. Through
the partnership relation, as work is done more efficiently, the
buying office mediates the opinions of the buyer and vendor,
and thus can specialize in the distinct task of creating a bal-
ance between buyers and vendors. Through the experience of
the direct dealing between buyer and vendor, it would reiterate
the importance of the buying office’s role of mediator, allow
buying offices to assign tasks to the vendor, and the buying
office is decidedly playing the buying office’s inherent role.
These efforts of buying offices have strengthened the com-
View publication stats
petitiveness of the Korean vendors as well as buying offices
located in Korea.
(Received: September 25, 2010)
(Revised: November 22, 2010)
(Accepted: November 29, 2010)
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