In apparel/textile segment be it online or offline channel from Design to Delivery various brands & businesses are undertaking many initiatives in offering innovative products which includes specialized packaging, deliveries, sharing wishes on their birthday, anniversary & offering them special discounts for those events etc., to show that they CARE for them.
Usually it ends there, unless the customer comes back with the complaints, there is no further follow up on this from most of the brands & retailers.
In other businesses after sales service is one of the key activities which decides the fate of their success & business continuity. However, in case of apparel business, product QUALITY & CARE are the 2 important things which decide the success of the business. As plenty is being spoken about QUALITY in various articles, I have decided to talk about CARE in this article.
CARE
It is one of the most used words in the modern era & has a great meaning.
What is meant by CARE?
- provision of what is necessary for the welfare, maintenance, and protection of something.
- serious attention applied for doing something correctly to avoid damage or risk.
CARE for your body
To manage our body's health, taking CARE of it is important. This pandemic has taught us how important health CARE is. We have started practicing many things to take CARE of our health. Unconsciously we have started to manage our body like a temple now a days.
CARE for your second skin
Like our body the next important thing we should CARE for is our apparel, after all we know apparel is our second skin which covers our body, earns respect for us, gives us pride & it’s a feel good factor too while wearing it.
Hence, it's equally important to CARE for our apparel like our body. All our apparel need special CARE depending on composition, quality, manufacturing type, properties, behavior etc., which we all know.
I am sure most of us would have come across several scenarios like the ones listed below;
- White shirt getting spoiled from the navy tint of denim garments
- Pastel shade t shirts turn darker as the same got washed along with Kurtis.
- Garments getting spoilt due to excessive heat while ironing as we do not adjust the machine based on fabric type
- Apparel's freshness gets spoiled completely due to excessive soaking & wash duration etc.,
It clearly shows that though many of us know the importance of CARE instructions, we fail due to lack of knowledge & application.
CARE label
It is wise to be aware and have deep knowledge about the garment wash CARE as we spend our time, effort and money in purchasing it. For us as individual consumers from the apparel industry, it is also the business medium through which we earn our living. Which makes it further more important to understand the value of CARE.
I believe it is wise to ask below questions amongst us…
- how many of us really apply our knowledge while handling our apparels & how much of it is transferred to other people?
- in many homes CARE of our second skin (apparel) depends on the knowledge levels of our home makers & maids isn't it?
- all of us know wash care labels are attached almost in every garment, how many of us genuinely review & follow them while using?
- as stakeholders of textiles/apparels ecosystem, how many of us really have knowledge about wash care & familiar with those symbols & texts printed on the wash care label?
- do the mills or vendors share right wash care instructions of the goods being supplied by them, are they equipped to provide the same rightly?
Conclusion
As I mentioned in the beginning, for the success of apparel business & to have an enhanced/improved product life cycle creating awareness about apparel CARE is imperative.
Changes must happen as listed below;
Individual
- start applying, gain thorough knowledge & share knowledge on apparel CARE.
Teams
- apparel CARE should be part of their L&D (learning & development) initiative, especially for the operations & sales team as they face consumers directly, for all the new employees it should be part of their induction program.
Companies
- knowledge assessment on apparel CARE should also be part of the recruitment criteria of different functions like design, buying, merchandising, sourcing, planning, marketing, supply chain etc.,
- should start creating awareness amongst consumers on how to handle their apparel better through their marketing activities. This shows that they genuinely CARE for their consumers, rather than just attaching a care label & believing that their part is done.
Institutions
- in their curriculum, apparel CARE should be added as a main subject. Various fibre properties, behaviour, characteristics, significance of washing & laundry should be taught in all courses related to apparel.
I believe our apparel deserves this CARE from us as it covers our body, earns respect for us, gives us pride & it’s a feel-good factor to wear an apparel which is looking good. Isn’t it?
Let’s CARE for our second skin.
RELATED TOPICS:#Agile,Ramesh Gunasekaran
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Vijaya KrishnanSep 11, 2020 at 12:16 pm
Hi Ramesh Very good articulate. There is absolutely no or very less awareness on washing clothes. As a Textile technologist even we sometimes fail in educating our family on handling the clothes while washing. People spend good enough money on clothes. Though the brands take necessary steps to retain the aesthetics, if it is handled wrongly in washing then we are to expect the garment lose its richness in one wash. I think the floor staff need more training on these areas to educate the customer on handling the garment in washing. Regards
Ramesh.gSep 14, 2020 at 11:06 am
thank you Vk, yeah your points are very valid & businesses should start educating there front end teams towards this knowledge transformation to consumers. It's time to create an awareness on the importance of CARE to every consumers through various marketing initiatives too which reaches them easily.
Prasad B SSep 04, 2020 at 10:00 am
Hi sir, you infact have thrown light on importance of taking good care of "first skin" clothing. We should spread the msg across to as many people as possible. It would enable customers to enjoy and love the product which they have liked and purchased. It's such a simple but most important aspect of clothing that most customer's tend not give a thought to and act accordingly. Thanks for sharing insights on the same. Look forward to reading more of your posts.
Ramesh.gSep 09, 2020 at 10:37 am
Hi Prasad, happy to have your views, thanks for your time & efforts in sharing your thoughts. you are absolutely right on the same. customers can cherish the feel of wearing a good product if they can focus little on the care part which is the responsibility of the sellers.
Pavan shettiSep 04, 2020 at 08:58 am
Nice one and informative
Ramesh.gSep 04, 2020 at 10:28 am
hey pavan thank you for taking your time & sharing your feedback
Venkatesh KumarSep 03, 2020 at 15:58 pm
Good one Ramesh. Country like India should offer text warning for wash care rather just showing it in symbols. As described in article many of us gets laundry done through maid and they should be educated by employers to have better care on wash so that we can have extended life of the textile garment. Many times I used argue with my family members that except underwear & socks other garments doesn't need to be placed under sun not more than 30 mins but their misconception always goes in other way. End of the day only good service & trust can take you to the places. So brands should make serious note of this and care the customers to scale up their business.
Ramesh.gSep 04, 2020 at 10:27 am
Venkat, thanks for your detailed feedback & yes i agree to your thought that it should come a disclaimer text rather than care with symbols. Service & Care the two eyes for the success of textile/apparel business.
MahendraSep 03, 2020 at 10:24 am
Good article, thanks for sharing.
Ramesh.gSep 03, 2020 at 10:57 am
thank you mahendra....
AnbuSep 02, 2020 at 14:55 pm
Hi Mr.Ramesh Very useful article, Making customer understands about wash care is not as stringently followed in western countries , even there it is followed with less care by some customers, following right wash care to our second skin, customer can save nature resources too
Ramesh.gSep 03, 2020 at 13:47 pm
yeah anbu you are perfectly right we can definitely save more resources when we follow the CARE instructions. thanks you for your valuable inputs.
ParasSep 02, 2020 at 11:31 am
TEXPERT (textile expert)
Ramesh.gSep 03, 2020 at 13:44 pm
that's a lovely compliment paras, i always believed you are one of the expert of our industry in your domain. thank you
ParameshSep 01, 2020 at 10:38 am
Ramesh, good article and its indeed needed that we should take care our apparel too. thanks for sharing the awareness.
Ramesh.gSep 02, 2020 at 10:15 am
thank you paramesh, happy that you liked it.
NandagopalSep 01, 2020 at 07:44 am
Hi Ramesh Very valid points! Absolutely right, I use to elaborate care instructions to the consumer.. For funny, if consumer gets too much knowledge ,the gap purchase period may get little long..ha ha ha But to retain the customer for long time yes of course we have to creat that cognizance!! Rgds Nandagopal
Ramesh.gSep 01, 2020 at 14:38 pm
hey nandu, thanks for acknowledging my views, yes the more we create awareness to consumers the better the bond between buyer & seller. yeah we need to give them a feel that we really CARE for them & their spending.It's the only way to retain them as a loyal customer for ages.
BALAJI KMAug 31, 2020 at 20:17 pm
Most relevant topic as often consumers ignore the wash care instruction and loss their attraction of their high paid costumes.. brands also can think to educate providing knowledge to consumer awareness in some other additional ways to the care label
Ramesh.gSep 01, 2020 at 14:35 pm
you are absolutely right balaji, it should be part of the awareness initiatives by brands how they do the marketing activity for the promotion & discounts to consumers. thank you .
VISHAL GANERIWALAug 31, 2020 at 19:59 pm
Hi Ramesh, You have really bought out the Care aspect so well. Explored all its dimensions. A very Nice Read indeed. Keep enriching us.
Ramesh.gSep 01, 2020 at 14:31 pm
Hi Vishal ji, happy to have your positive feedback here, sure will do my best to share the required & relevant contents through this forum.
Lakshmi kanthanAug 31, 2020 at 19:43 pm
Un touched topic which is very use full for current scenario. Really help for the care awareness .thank you sir
Ramesh.gSep 01, 2020 at 14:29 pm
thank you lakshmikanthan for taking your time & sharing your thoughts. Much appreciated.
Vadapalli MohanAug 31, 2020 at 18:38 pm
Good article. Yes most of the customer complaints received are due to lack of CARE knowledge by the end users.
Ramesh.gSep 01, 2020 at 14:28 pm
yes mohan you are on dot, it is the equal responsibility of sellers to create that awareness to customers. if you remember in olden days most of them use to have one shop for their regular shopping needs as they service to them with CARE in which they cover such aspects like this please use starch for this saree, wash this before wearing it to manage the shrinkage etc., now a days that touch of CARE is missing.
Venkata rajAug 31, 2020 at 11:37 am
Good Topic Ramesh, Good to see fashion industry experts speaking about care lables. Many of the time i have seen the care lable on the designer garments have minimum relevance or no relavance. End of the day CUSTOMER who suffer.
Ramesh.gAug 31, 2020 at 13:06 pm
VR your point is valid, yes there are several instances where the care labels have been just attached as a formality mainly on the goods sold from an unorganized segment & even organised players tends to ignore the importance of providing right care labels which suits for the specific product. this is where i feel the the lack knowledge about various fabrics, their properties,behaviors & application of the same is missing from the QA & Product teams of brands/retailers. unless the back end gets strengthen on this it takes ages for consumers to get an awareness related to care labels. thanks for your great inputs & much appreciated your support on sharing your thoughts on this.
K S KarunakaranAug 30, 2020 at 07:20 am
Another good article. All the best. Let us learn to Care though it's not a simple task...
Ramesh.gAug 31, 2020 at 13:08 pm
thank you Mr. Karunakaran for your feedback, yes it is not simple. but somewhere it has to start for minimizing our spending & have a better product cycle.
LoghuAug 29, 2020 at 19:58 pm
Hi Ramesh. G First of all your topics all eager to read us for curiosity & Catchy. As you said most of us least bother about the wash cares indeed we should. But this is much tedious and resources will increase the consumptions for our domestic purpose. We practically segregate by visualizing Light colors VS darker. This is an article which seems to be a serious about to re evaluate our routine laundering PROCESS. thks
Ramesh.gAug 31, 2020 at 13:37 pm
Hey Loghu, Thanks a ton for your positive feedback & that's the best compliment to have. Happy to know that the topics are catchy & creates curiosity. I agree that it is tedious, the way we look at is our second skin also requires a special treatment like our body how the same has been treated by specialists according to the type & requirement.