Register your spinning, weaving or knitting mill
For mills that spin, weave or knit and sell yarn, fibre or fabric. One form, no fee, and the checking levels said plainly.
This form is for mills that spin, weave or knit and sell yarn, fibre or fabric. It is not the factory form; if you cut and sew, the other one is the one you want. What we ask about is machinery, counts and certification, because those three decide whether we can put a real request in front of you rather than a general enquiry that wastes an afternoon. A buyer's request arrives here as a written specification with a count, a blend, a quantity, a certification and an Incoterm on it, and it goes only to mills that can actually run it.
How a buyer reaches you
A buyer's request arrives with the count, the quantity, the destination and the delivery month. Before any quote is passed on, the mill behind it is checked: capacity, machinery, certification and export record. The buyer then sees comparable quotes, the same specification, the same incoterm and the same unit, set side by side.
We hold no stock, give no credit and take no escrow. The contract and the shipment run between you and the buyer; our part is the checking and the introduction.
What a request actually contains
A request reaches you as a written specification, not a phone call, and the eight things below are the ones that decide whether you can quote it the same morning or have to write back asking questions.
What the yarn or fabric is: the count or the construction, the blend and its exact split, and for yarn whether it is ring or open end, combed or carded, with the twist if the buyer knows it. What it has to carry: the certification, named, because organic and recycled are not adjectives on a request, they are a certificate. How much, and by when: the quantity in your own unit, and the month the buyer needs it landed, which is not the month they need it shipped. Where, and on what terms: the destination port and the Incoterm, because a number is meaningless until both sides know who is paying the freight and where the risk changes hands.
Every quote that goes back is then set beside the others on the same specification, the same Incoterm and the same unit. That is the whole reason a request is written this way before it reaches you, and it is why an answer that changes one of those lines has to say so.
What the form asks a mill
One form covers every kind of supplier, but it asks you only about the areas you tick: fibre, yarn, fabric, or all three if you are vertical, and never a garment question unless you ask for one. These are its questions in a mill's own units, so you can have the answers ready before you start.
- What you make. Raw cotton or fibre, cotton yarn, blended yarn, man made fibre yarn, woven or knitted fabric, denim, terry towelling, sewing thread, non wovens, dyed or printed fabric, recycled fibre or yarn. Tick everything you actually run, not everything you could quote.
- Product detail. The counts and blends you run every week, for example ring combed 20s to 40s.
- Capacity, and its period. In your own unit: tons for a spinning mill, metres for a fabric mill. Say which, and whether it is per day, per month or per year.
- Machinery. Spindle count and makes for a spinning mill; looms or knitting machines for a fabric mill.
- Certifications. Only what you hold today and can send a valid certificate for: BCI, organic, recycled, OEKO-TEX, ISO and the rest of the list on the form. A buyer will ask to see them.
- Markets and references. The countries you already ship to, and two or three buyers who have shipped with you and are willing to confirm it. References are contacted only with your permission and never shared with other suppliers.
- A link to documents. Registration, certificates, capacity sheets and audit reports, in a Google Drive or Dropbox folder. Never send passwords or bank details.
Machinery, and why we ask what you own
Because it is the one answer that cannot be stretched. A spindle count and a machine make tell a buyer what you can run and at what quality, and they tell us which requests to keep away from you, which saves your merchandiser more time than any other line on the form. Spinning mills: the spindle count and the makes, and say plainly if the ring frames and the open end lines are different halves of the building. Fabric mills: the number of looms or knitting machines, their type and their width, because a buyer with a cutting width in mind is asking about your reed space whether they use the word or not. If a machine is on order rather than installed, say so and say when. Nobody minds a date; everybody minds finding out later. Machinery is also one of the things the second checking level asks a document to confirm, so the answer you give here is the answer a capacity sheet will be held against.
Counts, blends and what you actually run
The form asks for the counts and blends you run every week, and the word week is doing real work in that sentence. A mill that lists every count from the coarsest to the finest because it once ran a trial lot is a mill whose quote arrives late and short, and a buyer learns that on the first order. Give the range you run as routine production, the way you would tell another mill: ring combed 20s to 40s, or compact 30s to 60s, or open end 10s to 16s. Then say what sits outside that range, can still be done, and on what notice. Blends want the same honesty about the split, because a blend is a machine setting and a buyer asking for one split will not take another. And if you dye, say whether the dyeing is yours or a partner's, because a buyer reading the word dyed assumes it is under your own roof.
Certification
Only what you hold today, and only what you can send a valid certificate for. BCI, organic, recycled, OEKO-TEX and ISO sit on the form as tick boxes because that is how a buyer filters a long list, but a tick is a claim and the certificate is the answer. Three things make a certification useful rather than decorative. It has to be current, so check the expiry before you tick it. It has to cover the product the buyer is asking about, because a scope certificate for one blend does not cover another. And it has to be verifiable with the body that issued it, which is exactly what the third checking level does, so a certificate that cannot be looked up will not move you up a level however genuine it is. If something has lapsed and is being renewed, tick it and say so in the notes: a pending renewal costs you nothing, and a lapsed certificate found by a buyer costs you the order.
The optional detail, and why it is worth the ten minutes
Those questions above are the whole registration. Under them the form carries three panels that open more detail, all of it optional, and all of it there for one reason: when the list runs to hundreds of mills, a buyer filters it, and a mill that answered only in general terms is not in the result.
- Fibre. Cotton by programme and standard, not just cotton: conventional, BCI, Cotton made in Africa, the US Trust Protocol, organic under GOTS or OCS, Fairtrade, regenerative, recycled, the Primark cotton programme, extra long staple. Wool, linen, jute and silk sit in the same list. Then man made fibre, virgin and recycled polyester, nylon 6 and 6.6, acrylic, elastane and the rest, and regenerated cellulose: viscose, modal, lyocell, cupro, acetate. Separately, the origins you actually run, because that is a buyer's first filter.
- Yarn. The spinning system, which is the question a buyer really asks: carded or combed, compact or not, open end, vortex, air jet, siro, core spun, two for one twisted, gassed and mercerised, and on the filament side POY, DTY, FDY and air textured. Then the blends you spin, from all cotton through CVC and TC to melange and recycled.
- Fabric. The loom or the machine: air jet, rapier, projectile, water jet, dobby, jacquard, rope or sheet dyed denim, terry. Knitted by machine as well: single jersey, interlock, rib, fleece, tricot, raschel, flat knit, seamless. Non wovens too. And what the cloth is for, which is how most buyers ask for it: shirting, bottomweight, denim, workwear, uniform, outerwear, activewear, home textiles.
- Brand approvals and nominations. The single most useful line you can give us. A mill already approved by Inditex, H&M, Primark, Levi's, Next, Marks and Spencer or any of the others on the list has passed that brand's own audit, and a buyer sourcing for them can shortlist you in one step. Tick only an approval that will stand up, because we check it before repeating it.
What happens after you send it
A person reads it, not an automated system, and you get a reply within one working day. That first reply is not a request for a quote. It is a document request, and it asks for the same things the form asked about, in file form: your registration, the certificates you ticked, a capacity or machinery sheet, and the names of the buyers you offered as references. References are contacted only with your permission, so nothing is sent to them until you say go.
What comes back decides your level, and nothing else does. A registration and a working contact make you Listed. Documents that match what you claimed about capacity, machinery and range make you Checked. Certifications validated at the source that issued them, an export record confirmed and buyers who have shipped with you willing to say so make you Verified.
Then you wait, and this part is worth being blunt about: you hear from us when a request matches what you make, not on a schedule, and we would rather say that than promise a volume of enquiries nobody can promise. A mill that ticked the areas it genuinely runs and filled in the optional detail hears from us more often than one that ticked everything and described none of it.
How far the checking goes
Registering is not the same as being listed as verified: how far the checking goes decides which of four levels you sit at, from Listed to Inspected, and we will not describe you as verified until we have seen the evidence. All four are written out in full, with what moves you from one to the next, on the four checking levels, which is the one place on this site they are defined.
What registering costs
Nothing. There is no listing fee, no subscription and no charge for being introduced to a buyer. We take a success fee from the supplier only when a shipment actually happens, so our interest and yours point the same way: at orders that ship, not at a long list of names.
A person reads every registration, not an automated system. Expect a reply within one working day.
Common questions
Why do you ask what machinery I own?
Because a buyer wants to know whether the yarn is spun by you or bought in, and because the machines you own decide the counts you can actually run. A mill that owns its frames gets a different class of request from one that trades.
I have no certification yet. Is it worth registering?
Yes. Certification moves you up a level, it is not the entrance fee. Plenty of requests that come through this desk do not ask for one, and being on the list with an honest record beats waiting until the paperwork is finished.
How many requests will I get?
Only the ones your machinery, counts and certification can actually run. We would rather send you a few requests you can quote than many you cannot, because a mill asked the wrong question stops opening the emails.
What does registering cost?
Nothing. There is no fee to register, no listing to subscribe to and no annual charge. We are paid a success fee by the supplier, and only when a shipment actually happens.