Tirupur is doing very good business in the innerwear segment with many sizable units operating in the city, and the inherent strength of the same is being enjoyed by a few buying houses of the city. More than two decades old, Boss India, is one buying office situated in Tirupur that is focusing more on innerwear segment (briefs, vests, leggings), and enjoying more than 30 per cent growth in the segment. With an FOB range of US $ 0.75 to 1.50 these innerwear for men as well women are mainly for Europeand Israel-based importers. “At this lower-end of the market, bulk orders imply a 20 feet size container at least, less approval and quality issues due to uniformity of products and very basic products without any kind of value addition (plain body).
Both, we as well as our vendors, prefer to do these products despite little or less margin compared to other products, as regular and repeat orders are a surety and no big hassles in production process,” says K. Selva Kumar, Owner of the buying house.
The company is working with 10 vendors for this product item, mainly in Tirupur and a few in Mumbai. Kumar feels that the only problem in handling these very basic products is the instability of raw material prices and high cost of processing “Since we cannot be sure if the price of cotton fabric will remain stable over the next 6 months it is difficult to book orders based on the same,” reasons Kumar. Apart from these products the company is also into sourcing of terry towels which is almost 30 per cent of its total business.
