How Fabrito Is Solving Supply Chain Woes For Indian Garment Makers

With fashion apparel and accessories taking the second spot in the country’s high-octane ecommerce space (expected to surpass the $112 Bn mark by 2030), there is a reason why everyone — from international brands to homegrown players — wants to ride this tide. 

Besides growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25%, the long-term prospects in the space, too, continue to remain solid on the back of a growing middle class, rising disposable incomes, and the increasing influence of social media on fashion trends. 

However, while everything appears flashy on the consumer end of the table, the supply side of fashion in India has several loose ends. For starters, the Indian fashion market is highly unorganised and relies heavily on small-scale manufacturers, who are often seen grappling with inefficiencies in production and inconsistent fabric quality. Further, rising transportation costs and labour shortages make it difficult for manufacturers to meet demand in a timely and cost-effective manner.

It is precisely this challenge that the trio of Mayank Narain, Pushpendra Singh, and Naresh Dhaka are trying to solve with Fabrito. Founded in 2022, Fabrito is a B2B fabric marketplace that simplifies fabric sourcing for brands & garment manufacturers.  

The startup does this by making available a wide variety of fabric options to apparel manufacturers, ensuring fast turnaround times and accommodating even small order quantities. The founders’ proactive approach helps smaller brands keep pace with market demands and swiftly evolving fashion trends.

According to the founders, Fabrito was able to garner more than INR 6 Cr in sales in its first fiscal of operations. As simple as it sounds, the inception story of Fabrito starts with Dhaka’s keen observation of the state of fabric supply chains in India.

It is pertinent to mention that Dhaka comes with a decade-long experience in the fashion industry. He has headed supply chain, customer care, and various other functions at Chennai-based fashion ecommerce platform eShakti. He has also worked with B2B marketplace Fashinza. 

During his stints at these startups, he noticed that fashion brands were often required to launch new collections within a month or 45 days but faced issues with existing fabric supply chains. 

He also found that traditional supply chains were reluctant to handle low order quantities and incapable of offering fast turnaround times and a wide range of fabric options. The realisation became the bedrock for the inception of Fabrito, which today boasts of addressing the fabric supply chain challenges in a unique fashion. 

“For customers who require a fast turnaround, low order quantities, and a wide variety of fabrics, we aggregate surplus fabric that is available across the country. Many mills produce export-quality fabrics that remain unused, and we bring these onto a single platform. We also provide a mobile application to fabric suppliers, allowing them to easily upload photos and fill in key details such as fabric content, width, and weight. This helps them swiftly find manufacturers looking for fabric,” Dhaka said.

How Is Fabrito Helping Smaller Fashion Brands?

Currently, Fabrito targets a diverse range of customers within the fashion ecommerce segment. However, the startup’s focus is not just specific to fashion brands and manufacturers that sell through online marketplaces like Myntra and Ajio. 

The startup’s customer base also comprises D2C fashion brands, small to medium-sized retailers, and even larger brands that frequently launch new collections in response to changing consumer trends.

“Essentially, any fashion brand looking to adapt quickly to market demands, minimise inventory risks, and enhance their fabric sourcing capabilities would be a potential customer for Fabrito. We also support those who may not have established supply chains to cater to changing trends in the fashion industry,” Dhaka added.

However, beyond this, the startup is toiling to assuage small manufacturers from the trouble of minimum quantity order (MQO).

With this approach, the startup has helped many small and medium manufacturers reduce the risk of excess inventory.

Sometimes to monitor the sales performance of certain styles, brands have no option but to resort to the strategy of ordering smaller quantities per style. In such cases, brands are often hit with the barrier of minimum order quantities when sourcing fabrics. 

However, Fabrito allows brands to order fabric in smaller quantities. This flexibility enables brands to experiment with styles and reduce the risk of overproduction, the founder said.

Fabrito’s Key Offerings

Currently, Fabrito offers a large collection of ready-made fabrics on its platform. Customers can order as little as 100 metres of fabric, which is enough to produce about 40 to 50 pieces for most brands.

The platform also offers “never out of stock” fabrics from various mills across the country. If a customer wants a custom print on base fabric, Fabrito delivers that within a week.

Hence, it caters to both ready-to-order fabrics and custom-made requirements. In terms of ready-to-order fabrics, Fabrito claims to have a large collection of nearly 3K fabrics on the platform.

For custom or “made-to-order” fabrics, the startup works with printing and weaving units to whom it regularly provides orders. Fabrito has around 40-50 suppliers, including both traders and mills. Of these, 10-15 are specifically for made-to-order fabrics, while the rest provide ready-made fabrics.

Fabrito’s Future Outlook

As of now, Fabrito’s expansion plan involves increasing its fabric offerings on the platform. It has set its eyes on featuring 3,000 fabrics by the end of the month to nearly 10,000 by next month.

On the demand side, the company has collaborations with 60 brands and 40-50 garment manufacturers in India. 

Now, Fabrito wants to onboard small brands from the UK, the US, and Dubai. In its first financial year, it achieved over INR 6 Cr in sales, with a net loss of around INR 1 Lakh. Although the founder did not reveal the revenue projection for FY25, he expects the revenue run rate to grow 4-5X.

Fabrito is capitalising on the growth of India’s fashion industry to scale up its fabric sourcing business, but it faces challenges like complex supply chain management, uniformity in fabric quality, and competitive pricing pressures. 

It is due to these demons that Fashinza, a B2B marketplace in this space, failed to sustain and returned most of its funds ($152 Mn) to investors earlier this year. 

Other major players in the fabric sourcing and apparel manufacturing sector include Genie Mode, Groyo, and Zyod, as well as smaller startups like Fabriclore and Locofast.

“In this space, Fabrito has differentiated itself by setting up its fabric supply chain that brands and manufacturers can directly access. Instead of merely facilitating apparel production, the company offers ready-to-use fabrics directly through the platform,” Dhaka said.

All in all, the Indian fashion industry is growing at 6% year-on-year, while fashion ecommerce is experiencing a remarkable 30% annual growth. This rapid expansion creates a need for more sources to support the evolving demands of online fashion retail.

This is where Fabrito fits perfectly in providing brands with easy access to a diverse range of fabrics and enabling them to launch smaller collections quickly.

[Edited by Shishir Parasher]