8 Benefits of Manufacturing your Leather Goods Locally in the UK
Let’s talk about manufacturing leather locally in the UK
As you get ready to turn your designs into products, you will find yourself most concerned with finding a suitable and trusted manufacturer. The idea of outsourcing will seem tempting, with low costs and quick production. With those offers, you may end up having to trade quality for cheaper labour. A lot of businesses outsource to help manufacture their goods as they see it as cost-efficient. But they often sacrifice the quality of service and the benefits of manufacturing locally.
As the world’s customers become more aware of what they wear and how their products impact the overall environment, ethical brands are becoming more popular. Consumers demand transparency from brands. And companies who are more aware of their consumers’ demand are the winners of the market. We encourage businesses to go domestic with manufacturing leather locally. Here’s a list about why we champion British craftsmanship through production within the UK.
‘Made in the UK’ Can Add Value to Your Brand
People like to invest in a product that they know was crafted with a story. A product that was carefully made by hand shows careful consideration for the end-user. Customers genuinely value domestically manufactured products and will be willing to pay premium costs for them—even international customers from all over the world value bespoke leather goods made in the United Kingdom. Home to expert leather artisans, the feeling of wearing a locally made product from the United Kingdom certainly gives a different class to it.
Service and Adaptability
Choosing local manufacturing means you get to be part of the production process. Quality of service remains high with regular and direct communication between you and your manufacturers. Outsourcing limits your capacity to oversee the process from start to finish. It is also harder to develop relationships with leather goods factories in distant locations. Direct communication enables you to react to the market in real-time. Discussing more possibilities with your manufacturers and moving through the design process more efficiently.
Waste Reduction and Transparency
Being better connected to the development of your product allows for higher quality control, reducing waste and overproduction. Controlling your order quantities from smaller production batches removes overstocking inventory in storage and warehouses. The reduction of “air miles” also makes for a more eco-friendly product. Keeping the cost of logistics to the bare minimum can significantly decrease the overall waste produced during the shipping process.
Quality Control
Instead of having to ship prototypes from one part of the world to another, you will be on hand to check the quality of your product from prototype to the first sample and deal quickly with any problems that arise. This allows for a more organic development process. Keeping costs low and ensuring the final product reaches the highest possible standards with minimal delay. Face-to-face communication will allow the company and the client to understand each other better and solve any issues with ease and in time. No longer will there be any miscommunication between two parts of the world and not to mention, the number of key-points lost during the translation. Keeping your manufacturers close helps you run your business much smoother.
Minimum Order Quantities
If you are looking for small-batch manufacturing and one-offs, you are more likely to be able to find these services with local production. Logistically, this means greater predictability of delivery times and lower costs. Keeping your minimum quantities under control allows your business to grow gradually, reducing the risks associated with immediately commissioning large orders. With the MOQ being low when you are producing locally, you can test out various products in the market and see if they do well or not. This gives a great benefit from future marketing strategies and leather sample making. Over time as you test out the market and find your sweet spot, it can significantly benefit your business than having to order thousands of products and not sell anything in return.
Shipping
Shipping can be a concern when you choose to outsource your product services. Depending on your manufacturer’s location, your product could be sent halfway around the world, leading to high shipping costs and delivery durations (as well as increasing the air miles and carbon footprint of the product), and widening the scope for delays.
With manufacturing leather locally, you can ensure predictable delivery times and lower lead times when items are out of stock, as well as using a cheaper delivery method. Even though shipping methods have become famous throughout the years, there are still risks involved with shipping across the world.
Overseeing Work Conditions
Businesses have an ethical responsibility for the treatment of workers. And that the manufacturers they use to abide by health and safety regulations. Over the last decade, the exposure of avoidable tragedies (e.g. the collapse of Rana Plaza) has brought this need into the light. Using local production facilities enables you to oversee working conditions and make sure regular health and safety checks are performed.
Regulation of working hours can also be restricted within local production facilities. You are better able to check for fair working conditions and ethical production with local manufacturers, avoiding, for example, the exploitation of minors in production. From a business perspective, customers often prefer an ethically-produced product!
Boosting Local Economy
Fuelling local businesses increases the financial wellbeing of other makers, strongly identifying the brand with its locality. It is also good to know the people and the faces of those helping your brand grow.
Summarising all these great benefits of manufacturing leather locally in the UK, control over your manufacturing process significantly outranks the risks from overseas production. The rise of mass-manufacturing has dramatically impacted the overall quality of products worldwide. As the world moves towards becoming aware of effects from fast-fashion, the customers will value ethically made products more and appreciate them. We wholeheartedly encourage businesses to change mass-manufacturing overseas and go local for a cause and the future of ethical fashion.
Here at Nosakhari CreateLab, we provide expert knowledge on product design and manufacturing services for fashion accessories. Our services include Leather Sourcing, Sample Making and Production, which can be found here.
You can also find more information about the benefits of manufacturing locally from these articles.
- Advantages of manufacturing products in the house
- 4 big reasons to manufacture in a local factory
- Top 6 benefits of local sourcing
- 5 benefits of UK manufacturing
- Made in the UK, the pros and cons of outsourcing clothing manufacture overseas
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