12 questions to ask a textile auxiliary supplier before you buy

Why the price list is not enough on its own

The first column anyone reads in a quotation is the price per kilo. It is the only figure that compares directly, so it takes the weight of the decision.

What a mill actually pays is a different number. Two products that do the same job run at different dosages, and one of them drifts from batch to batch. The cheaper drum gives the saving back on a single re-dyed lot.

Sourcing is an information problem before it is a price problem. The twelve questions below are written the way you would put them to a supplier by email, with a short note on why each one matters and what a solid answer sounds like. Ask for the answers in writing. A verbal answer has nothing behind it six months later.

Who are you actually buying from?

1. Do you manufacture this product yourselves?

The difference between a manufacturer and a trader surfaces on the day something goes wrong. A trader cannot change a formulation and cannot reach the batch record, and there is one more link between you and the person who wrote the recipe.

Ask where the plant is and which product families come out of its own reactors. Most catalogues mix own production with bought-in items. Saying so is not a weakness; refusing to say so is.

A good answer gives an address and draws the line clearly. Derin Kimya has manufactured in the İkitelli industrial zone in Istanbul since 2005.

2. Can I buy a whole process stage from one supplier?

In pre-treatment the wetting agent, the sequestering agent, the stabiliser and the enzyme meet in the same bath. Buy the four from four suppliers and an incompatibility becomes four conversations, with each party pointing at the others.

For an importer it runs worse: four suppliers mean four shipments, four sets of documents and four customs files for one process stage.

Judge a catalogue by how many steps of your process it covers, not by how many codes it lists. The Derin Kimya range holds 148 products in ten categories and thirty-nine families; the product catalogue is ordered by process step.

What do you get on paper?

3. In what language are the TDS and SDS, and when were they last revised?

The TDS says what the product is and how it is applied. The SDS says how it travels and how it is stored. Customs, auditors and your own archive all ask for them.

Language is not a courtesy question. A supervisor translating a recipe out of a second language misreads one figure and the batch is lost. Ask for it in the language of the person who will read it.

Then look at the date. An SDS with no revision date, or one untouched for years, will not defend you when local rules change. A good answer sends a file carrying a revision number and a date before the order.

4. Will you tell me the active content and whether the product is concentrated?

If two products carry the same price per kilo and different active content, you are not paying the same price. The diluted one runs at a higher dosage and the difference reaches the invoice through consumption.

Some suppliers treat the figure as confidential. Even where no number is given, you can ask where the grade sits inside its family: economy, standard, concentrate or raw material.

A supplier that will not place the grade in its family has closed the comparison. Dosage and working conditions belong on the TDS, and the firm figure settles only after a trial on your own process.

Is every batch the same, and what proves it?

5. How do you measure batch-to-batch consistency?

What wears a dyehouse down is not a bad product but one that differs from last time. When a new drum shifts a settled recipe, the fault gets hunted on the machine for days.

Put the question concretely. What is measured at batch release, what are the acceptance ranges, and is the result recorded. Appearance, pH, density and viscosity belong in that list.

The batch number on the label is the backbone. With a number a complaint can be traced backwards; without one it cannot. An answer that lists the measurements is worth having; get the certificate of analysis confirmed in the same exchange.

6. Which documents do you send on request for a brand's restricted substance list?

A mill producing for a brand defends its chemicals against the brand's restricted substance list (RSL/MRSL), not against its own opinion. Once the auditor is in the room there is no time to start asking a supplier for paperwork.

The question is not whether a supplier holds a certificate. It is when the file arrives. Which documents exist, which are issued in your company name, and do they travel with the order or follow weeks after a request.

What you want back is document names and timing. At Derin Kimya the TDS, SDS, certificate of origin and certificate of analysis travel with the order file.

How do samples and trials work?

7. Who selects the sample, and on what information?

A product chosen from a catalogue page may not work in your mill. Water hardness, machine type and the fabric itself move the result, which is why the decision is made on a trial and not on a datasheet.

Write the process down before you ask. Machine, liquor ratio, fibre, the recipe you run today and the result you want. A sample requested without that information is a grade the lab picked by guessing, and the trial is wasted.

A good answer puts a technical data sheet next to the sample and agrees the trial conditions in writing. Filling in the process fields on the sample request form raises the odds of hitting the right grade in the first round.

8. Who gives technical support, and in what language?

A sales contact quotes a price; the person who builds a recipe is someone else. Where they are the same person, technical questions end in "try it and see".

Two things measure support: whether the lab runs a trial on your own fabric, and what language the correspondence runs in. For a buyer outside Turkey the second one decides the first.

If nobody will name who looks at it, nobody will name them during the trial either. Derin Kimya publishes its site and technical documents in seven languages and corresponds in the same ones.

How and when do the goods arrive?

9. What pack sizes do you fill?

Packing follows your dosing layout. A plant with automatic dosing wants IBCs; a plant running small lots would rather move drums.

The second half of the question is discharge. A viscous product changes the pump decision, and a drum stored cold does not pour easily. Learning this after the container lands is expensive.

A good answer states which filling forms exist and what changes by product. Derin Kimya fills drums and IBCs, and the options depend on the product.

10. What is the lead time, and what is held in stock?

Mills order late. When a lead time stretches by two weeks the machine stands empty, and no difference in chemical price covers that.

Ask for the worst case rather than the average. How long does a non-stock item take to produce, and what does an export shipment take once customs is counted in.

An answer that gives a range and names the stock items is usable. Port, packing form and monthly volume are what turn a range into a date; the export page sets out those items.

How should a quotation be read?

11. Are you comparing price or cost?

Price per kilo on its own means nothing. The comparable figure is what a tonne of fabric costs: dosage times price, then liquor ratio and the number of baths on top.

A product that does the job at a lower dosage looks expensive and lands cheap. Water, steam and an extra rinse belong in the same line. A concentrate also ships less volume, which matters over distance.

A good answer does the arithmetic with you. Take dosage from the TDS and the firm figure from the trial, and ask for price and dosage range side by side in the quotation.

12. What happens when a batch causes a problem?

This is the question buyers skip and the answer that earns the most. Every supplier ships a difficult batch eventually. What separates them is what happens the following week.

Concretely: who receives the complaint, can it be traced back by batch number, is a retention sample kept, and will the formulation be rebuilt for your water if it has to be.

An answer that describes a process beats one that reaches for the fabric. Your own records matter as much; part of what looks like a chemical fault comes from a skipped step such as enzyme deactivation.

With the answers in front of you

Lay the twelve answers side by side and see which of them are in writing. An answer that is not written down is an intention.

No supplier answers all twelve perfectly. What you are looking for is consistency rather than perfection: a firm that says it does not know produces fewer surprises than one with a ready answer for everything.

When two candidates look alike, let the trial decide. Place a small first order, run the second batch on the same recipe, and compare the two certificates of analysis. The real answer is written on the second drum.