Garment Wholesalers in Nepal: Season Buying, Size-Colour Stock and Retailer Credit

Garment wholesaling in Nepal is three puzzles at once. The calendar decides what sells: festival wear before Dashain and Tihar, warm wear before winter, uniforms before the school session, formal and ethnic wear in the wedding months. The catalogue multiplies every style into sizes and colours. And retailers buy a season's worth on credit and pay as they sell. A wholesaler who keeps these three in step buys less of the wrong thing and collects more of what is owed. This guide is organised around the season, because that is how the money moves in this trade.

The garment year at a glance

Exact timing differs by region, altitude and the lunar calendar each year, so treat this as a rough planning frame and adjust it to your own sales history.

Period (approx.)	What retailers want	What the wholesaler should be doing
Shrawan to Bhadra	Early festival stock	Confirm festival ranges, set credit ceilings, book orders
Ashwin to Kartik	Dashain and Tihar clothing	Fast replenishment of top sizes, daily stock checks
Kartik to Poush	Winter wear	Jackets, sweaters, thermals; watch sizes, not just styles
Mangsir to Falgun	Wedding season wear	Formal and ethnic ranges, larger orders from city shops
Chaitra to Baisakh	School session, light fabrics	Uniforms for institutions, summer basics
Jestha to Asar	Quieter months	Collections, clearance, plan the next festival range

Two habits matter more than the table itself. Plan each peak six to eight weeks before it arrives, and review slow variants at the middle of every season, not at the end.

Building a SKU matrix you can read

A style is not one product. A kurta in four colours and five sizes is twenty stock lines. If the team names them differently, counts break down within a month.

Agree on one naming pattern and use it everywhere, for example style code, colour, size:

SKU name	Category	Note
KT-104 Maroon M	Women, festival	Fast size
KT-104 Maroon XL	Women, festival	Slow size, order fewer
JK-220 Black L	Men, winter	Fast size
SU-11 Navy 32	Uniform	Institution order

In gamitrack, each line is its own SKU, grouped by category such as men, women, kids and uniforms. Stock levels by branch show the size curve for each style, and low-stock levels on the fast sizes trigger reorders before the shelf goes empty. Do not combine sizes into one SKU to save typing; the size curve is exactly what you need to see.

Selling from samples: the retailer visit

Most garment orders are taken from samples, a catalogue or the retailer's memory of last season. A visit that works well looks like this:

• The salesperson checks in at the shop. The visit is GPS-verified against the shop's geofence, with a photo of the display.
• They note what the retailer still holds from the last delivery and which sizes went first.
• They book the mixed order in the app. Prices come from the retailer's list: a party override beats a party-type list, which beats the default. VAT at 13% applies only to taxable lines.
• If the retailer does not order, the salesperson records a reason such as waiting for the new range. A cluster of those reasons tells you when the range is late.
• New shops met on the road can be added with their GPS location and go to the manager for approval before they become active.

Visits that are outside the geofence, too short or missing a photo are flagged for review, so the manager knows the route was actually covered.

Season credit: decide before you dispatch

Garment credit is longer than FMCG credit because retailers need time to sell. The danger is a big pre-season order from a shop that has not cleared last season.

A worked scenario

Suppose a retailer in a district market orders a large Dashain range. Before dispatch, the wholesaler opens the party ledger and aging report. It shows that part of last winter's invoice is still open beyond the agreed due days. The wholesaler offers a smaller first dispatch now, with a top-up once the old balance is cleared, and puts a dated follow-up on the weekly collection plan. The retailer gets enough stock for the early weeks; the wholesaler limits exposure. All amounts here are hypothetical; the point is that the decision is made from the ledger, not from memory.

In gamitrack, payment due days are counted from dispatch, payments by cash, eSewa, Khalti, Fonepay, bank or cheque are allocated to the oldest invoices first, and advances are recorded against the party. Weekly collection plans give each salesperson a named list.

Mid-season review: clear slow variants early

At the midpoint of each season, list the variants that have barely moved. Then work through them in order of cost:

1. Transfer them to a branch where that style sells. Transfers are recorded as stock movements, so the trail stays intact.
2. Offer them to retailers who bought the same style before, using a party override price for a set period.
3. Bundle slow sizes with fast ones in a scheme for dealers or sub-wholesalers, with a clear end date.
4. Mark down only what is left after the first three steps.

Waiting until the season ends usually means deeper discounts and less choice about who buys.

School uniforms and institutional orders

Uniform orders behave differently from retail. A school or institution confirms styles and sizes in advance, wants the full quantity together, and often pays on its own schedule. Enter the order with exact sizes, check stock in every size before dispatch, and remember that dispatch is all-or-nothing per order, so a missing size holds the whole order until you split it deliberately. Payment due days still start from dispatch, which keeps institutional aging honest.

Defects and returns

Garment returns are mostly defects: a stitching fault, a colour bleed, a wrong size packed. Agree with retailers what can come back and within how long. In gamitrack, returns are raised with a reason, reviewed by a manager and approved into a branch with a credit note. Reviewing returns by reason each month shows whether a supplier, a style or your own packing is the problem.

Questions wholesalers ask

We sell through sub-wholesalers in other towns. Can we see their stock? Yes, through a monthly dealer stock report that compares expected closing stock with their count, by SKU.

Can we set targets for the festival run-up? Officers get monthly targets by amount or kg with daily pace, and dealers get quarterly or annual targets on the Nepali fiscal year. Commissions and month-end pay can follow from them.

Will the app work in markets with weak signal? The location trail is stored on the phone and synced later, but orders, visits and payments need a connection to save.

Your first 30 days

• Week one: agree the naming pattern; create SKUs for your top twenty styles by size and colour.
• Week two: enter retailers with opening balances and price lists; set credit rules for the coming season.
• Week three: run one market route with display photos and no-order reasons.
• Week four: do a mini mid-season review on those styles and make one transfer or one targeted offer.

Related reading and next step

Related reading: footwear distributors, collecting payments on time and Dashain and Tihar stock planning.

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