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Asia Is Not Always The Cheaper Manufacturing Destination

A couple years into the business, the 46-year-old realised that aside from quality and pricing, the main challenges posed by imports was the discrepancy between the size of women in different parts of the world.

“I am a large in Asia and in Kenya I am a small. So (by importing from Asia) we couldn’t cater to anything beyond a size 14 which is average for women in Kenya,” she said.

She also began to question the market perception which dictated it would be cheaper to import rather than manufacture locally. And so eight months ago, she went against the tide, imported fabric from Asia and set up a workshop on Ngong Road in Nairobi with seven tailors. The concept worked well, and between 40 to 50 per cent of what she sells in her stores today is locally made.

“Everyone told me it is very expensive to do and you won’t make as much money when you do it locally. But I am finding that on some products it is cheaper for me than to buy from the wholesale markets in Bangkok,” she said.

She admits, however, that what may have worked in her favour is that she had an established distribution channel in place, a reputation and a clientele base when she started manufacturing locally — an advantage that young local designers often do not have.

Wandia Gichuru of Vivo Activewear talking about her experience importing clothes from Asia for the Kenyan market, and why she resorted to manufacturing them locally. I love the last bit where she says that she had a reputation and a clientele base before going local. I figure the fact that she had a standard to uphold also helped her with quality control. Read the rest of the story here.

With the right incentives, Kenya can be a viable manufacturer of goods. For some reason however, I feel like our government isn’t as keen to empower manufacturing because it is an “old and boring” sector, and there’s nothing much to talk about in way of achievement, compared to tech, which is viewed as modern and trendy. Just my observation though.

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