Wholesale garments for Kolkata retailers

As a wholesale garments supplier for Kolkata retailers, we source readymade garments in Gandhi Nagar, New Delhi, and supply them by the lot to shops and resellers in the city. The work is planned backwards from Mahalaya, when a Bengal shop needs its stock.

We source from manufacturers and supply at wholesale; private label runs through partner units. We do not own a factory, and we do not pretend a Delhi lot is the answer to every line a Kolkata shop sells.

What Delhi lots add for Kolkata retailers

A Delhi lot earns its freight when it brings a Kolkata shop something its usual sources do not: styles they do not make in depth, a second source that keeps prices honest, or stock for a season when local supply runs short.

Kolkata’s own trade is strong in hosiery, and in kidswear and menswear from tailoring clusters such as Metiabruz, sold through Burrabazar and the haats across the river in Howrah. For everyday hosiery basics the closer source usually wins on freight, and we will say so.

Delhi helps with the lines you want to compare or widen: men’s shirts and T-shirts, denim and trousers, women’s kurtis and sets, and kidswear in styles your local suppliers do not hold. Each starts with a sample, so you compare like with like before committing.

The test is simple. If the per-piece rate, plus freight to Kolkata, plus the time the lot spends on the road still beats the local price for the same specification, the Delhi lot makes sense. If it does not, buy nearer home.

Illustration: a shirt quoted at ₹ 300 a piece, with freight at ₹ 15 a piece, lands at ₹ 315 before GST. If the same shirt costs ₹ 330 locally, Delhi is cheaper; at ₹ 310, it is not. Round numbers, not our prices.

Working back from Mahalaya for Puja stock

Start from the day the goods must be on your shelves, before Mahalaya, and count backwards through every stage. Each stage has an owner, and most delays come from a decision that waited.

Gandhi Nagar is busier in the weeks before festivals, and a brief that arrives in July meets shorter queues than one sent in September. Clear comments on a sample, sent together rather than one at a time, save a whole round.

After the Pujas, the next Delhi lot worth planning is for Poila Baisakh in mid-April, briefed in winter while the Chaitra sale clears last season’s stock.

Dates come on the quotation, with what each one depends on. If a date moves, you hear as soon as we do, not on the day the transporter was due.

Size ratios and assortments for a Bengal shop

Write the size ratio from your own Puja sales, not from a Delhi habit or another buyer’s lot. A shop that sells through its middle sizes first by Saptami should weight the ratio towards them.

• Kidswear by age band, with garment measurements for each band, since parents buy for the Pujas by age and bring back what does not fit.
• Menswear in sets where you sell them as sets, such as a kurta with pyjama, with each piece sized and counted.
• Colours by festival: deeper shares of the red, white and festive shades your Puja customers ask for, and lighter shares of the rest.
• Single-piece packing for lines that leave your shop as gifts through the season, so you can hand one over without breaking a bundle.

Say whether the Puja lines should come in solid or assorted packs. In the rush, a shop that shelves straight from the bale usually wants assorted ratio sets; a shop with a store room may prefer one size and colour per pack.

Specifying winter lines for a mild winter

Kolkata’s winter is short and mild, so winter lines for a Kolkata shop need a lighter weight than stock made for colder northern winters. Put the fabric weight, the GSM, in the brief, and approve it on the sample.

• For the city: light sweatshirts, thin jackets and layering pieces, in shallow depth, since the season is short.
• For the hills and the North-East: heavier lines specified separately if you also supply shops further north, each with its own size ratio.
• For Christmas and the new year: light woollens and partywear, timed to reach you in early December.

A heavy jacket that suits a Delhi January sits unsold in a Kolkata January. Writing the weight down costs less than finding that out.

Packing a lot for the road east

Lots are packed in Gandhi Nagar to your instructions and handed to your transporter with the tax invoice and the packing list. For Kolkata, three instructions matter more than usual.

• Monsoon packing. From June to September, rain and waterlogging can meet the goods at the Kolkata end, so ask for polythene-lined bales or cartons and waterproof outer wrapping, and agree insurance with your transporter.
• Onward marking. If part of the lot goes on to shops in Bihar, Odisha or Assam, say so before packing; we pack by destination and mark each bale to match the packing list.
• Counting at your end. The packing list shows style, colour, size and count per bale, so your staff can check a bale without opening every bundle.

Before any of it is packed, pieces are counted, ratio-checked and measured against the approved sample, and anything that fails is pulled out. If that leaves the lot short, you hear before it moves, with the count and the reason.

Buying for onward sale across eastern India

Some Kolkata buyers are wholesalers themselves, supplying smaller shops in Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Assam and the North-East. A Delhi lot bought for onward sale is specified differently from one bought for your own shelves.

• Assorted ratio sets sized for a small shop’s order, so you can sell a set on without breaking bundles.
• Labels as supplied, unless we have agreed your own label for the lot.
• One tax invoice to your GSTIN, with the onward invoices and any onward e-way bills raised by you.

Reorders for onward sale need the same garment each time. We keep the approved sample and the specification for each style, so the next lot is briefed against them rather than against memory.

GST, the invoice and checking our registration

Every lot carries a tax invoice showing our GSTIN, 07CBUPK4786Q1ZD, your GSTIN if you are registered, the HSN codes, quantities, rates, and GST on its own line. A registered Kolkata retailer uses it to claim input tax credit.

At the time of writing, GST on readymade garments is 5% where the sale value is up to ₹ 2,500 a piece and 18% above it; your quotation confirms the rate for each line.

Goods going from Delhi to West Bengal generally move as an inter-state supply, so the invoice may show IGST rather than CGST and SGST; confirm the treatment with your adviser.

Before paying any new supplier, check its registration: the GST portal’s taxpayer search shows the registered name and status for any GSTIN, ours included. An e-way bill travels with the goods where the consignment value requires one.

Our note on GST on readymade garments explains how the ₹ 2,500 threshold is read on a lot that mixes lines on both sides of it.

Delhi lots for Kolkata’s online sellers

If the lot is going onto Meesho, Flipkart or your own store, it has to support a listing as well as a shelf: consistent sizes, a size chart taken from the approved sample, and labels that carry the declarations a marketplace asks for.

Online buyers choose by the size label and the chart, so a lot whose sizes run small comes back as returns. Measure several pieces per size before the chart is published.

Shoot the listing photographs on pieces pulled from the delivered lot; a sample sewn weeks earlier may not match the batch shade. Once the stock lands, our marketplace account management in Kolkata can run the listings.

How a first order from Kolkata works

Send a brief: the category, a reference photograph or a garment you sell, quantities per style and colour, the size ratio, your price band, the date goods must reach Kolkata and your transporter, if you have one. We reply with questions or a sample plan.

You approve samples and the quotation in writing, and nothing is bought or made before that. Samples, photographs and measurement sheets come to you for approval, so no trip to Delhi is needed, though you are welcome to see the goods in Gandhi Nagar.

For a whole season under your own name, private label through partner units is the route, and indicative per-piece rates are on the rate card.

The method in full is on our wholesale garments page, and our Kolkata page covers the rest of our work in the city.

When the brief is ready, the contact page has every way to reach us.