Supplier mornings go better when the plates are already marked

Apparel buyers in Tbilisi still take supplier meetings with a spreadsheet opened on a phone. The representative has a better printout. The sitting then becomes a defence of last season’s jackets rather than a look at what the till recorded.

A buyer chart session is closed. No representative. Last month’s plates, grouped the way the weekly briefing already groups. Buyers mark four or five lines to cut and two to defend. The marks stay on the copies they take into the later meeting.

We rarely attend that later meeting. Our presence turns the plates into a performance. The owner can hire us for that theatre; most do not, and we prefer it.

If the extract arrives late, we do not invent last month. We move the session. A half day spent on a guessed month teaches the representative nothing, and teaches the buyer the wrong courage.