Wurlin team visit multiple merchandise trade shows and factories

Managing Director, Steve Hill and Logistics Manager, Greg Depledge recently visited Hong Kong, China and Vietnam attending a multitude of trade shows to see what is hot in the world of merchandise. These trade shows are a great opportunity to meet with our existing suppliers and sourcing potential new ones too.

The factories in China who we have worked with for a number of years specialise in umbrellas, bags and metal work – all key areas for the Wurlin group. It is really important for us to visit the factories to sit down and discuss projects, and gain a greater understanding of their capabilities and also appreciate some of their constraints.

During the Umbrella factory visit, Steve and Greg were able to review the whole process, from cutting out of fabric, processing print (done offsite), sewing of panels and then sewing the canopy to the frame, as well as testing and packing of umbrellas for international dispatch. It was also a great opportunity for Steve and Greg to discuss the development of new products for the Umbrella Workshop.

Visiting the Bag factory, Steve was particularly keen to look at different construction and design features we can incorporate into our bags, along with print and decoration elements. Steve was impressed with the updated facilities since his last visit and seeing the setup and how the factory incorporates a number of different work stations for different sewing elements of the bags, eg cutting of fabric, handle fixing, piping, lining, seam and edge painting. Onsite they have a printing facility, which was very interesting to see both screen printing as well as digital fabric printing. This really helped to highlight the importance of these visits to fully understand the capabilities and improvements available at the factory.

The Metal Work factory who we have been working with for over 10 years, from making advertising jewellery for Adidas (hashtag#mygirls), to making pin badges and keyrings for many high street brands. We also use the factory for making custom zip pulls and metal work badges for bags and other projects. They take our sketches and 2D designs and create 3D designs to create brass moulds to forge the metal elements. This is cut out using water jets lasers and computer controlled lathes. It was really useful to revisit this factory and further cement our longterm relationship with them.

Steve Hill and Gregory Depledge crammed in a lot on this short but very valuable and productive visit.  Coming away with many new innovations and ideas from the trade show visits but fundamentally confident that the factories are still who we want to continue to work with.