Folker Stachetzki
Marketing Manager Brother Internationale Industriemaschinen GmbH
Automation is easier in non-apparel segment
Brother Internationale Industriemaschinen GmbH is a Germany-based company that specialises in the manufacturing and distribution of industrial sewing machines and related accessories. With a strong focus on innovation and customer satisfaction, Brother has become a leading brand in the industry, offering a wide range of products for a variety of applications. The company has a global presence, with operations in Europe, Asia, North America, and other regions, and is committed to providing high-quality products and services to its customers. In a talk with Fibre2Fashion, Marketing Manager Folker Stachetzki discusses sewing machines, textile printers, trends and latest machines that are to be showcased at ITMA 2023.
How big is the global market for industrial sewing machines? What is the share of Brother Internationale in it?
It is hard to estimate the global size of the market, but we can say it represents around $5 billion. The market of industrial sewing machines can be divided into two big groups: the low-end brands and the top-class brands. Considering top-class brands, Brother has around 30 per cent of the market share. In our territory EMEA, our market share is around 35 per cent.
Likewise, by segment, we can split the market into two: apparel and non-apparel. Apparel represents around 65 per cent of the total market size.
What solutions does Brother offer in industrial sewing machines?
We have a wide range of products covering the apparel market’s needs. Brother is leading in sustainability and environmentally friendly products: lower power consumption, long time use of machines, in line with most strict regulations and rules.
We have products that meet the needs of apparel manufacturers from knitwear to classic wear, womenswear, uniforms and jeans. For the jeans market we have partnership with SIP-ITALY offering the most automatised full solution for jeans production.
In non-apparel, we have a limited range of products, but this segment is growing in our business. Our automated sewing machines are in leading position and are well-known as the most robust machines in the market.
Tell us about your direct to garment printers’ business.
We are active in this field for more than 15 years. Our sales area is the entire EMEA region – from Finland to South Africa, and from Iceland to Pakistan, we distribute our direct to garment printers and solutions through a network of certified dealers.
We have various models on the market – from printers for individual short runs to industrial mass production, we have solutions for all business models.
How do you differentiate your products from those of your competitors?
Our range of products— from the printhead to the inks and the hardware—are all developed and manufactured in-house. This allows us to develop products that meet the demands of the market and have a high-quality standard.
In addition, our printers are very flexible due to their compact size and the wide variety of printing plates. This has proven to be a great advantage for our end customers, especially in recent years.
We are also ahead of many competitors in terms of the quality of our prints.
What marketing channels have been most successful for promoting your products?
This is relatively difficult for us to measure in a binding way, as we distribute through a worldwide dealer network. But, I think, we have had the greatest success after we started parallel campaigns. Press campaigns in combination with social media has generated a good reach and thus also increased sales. The important aspect here is to find the right channels for the right actions.
What are the latest trends in textile and garmenting industry? Which of your machines are in more demand?
We see three major trends in this area at the moment.
The first trend is the personalisation of textiles of all kinds—from the classic T-shirt to jackets and jeans. More and more customers are demanding professionally finished clothing that not everyone else has.
The second major trend is the digitalisation and automation of productions and the connectivity of printers to the internet—not only for mass production, but recently even for small and medium-sized businesses. Placing orders in an online shop, automatic creation of print files through to shipment, the new digital solutions are getting better, simpler and cheaper by the day.
The third and ongoing trend is the demand for sustainably produced textiles. This need includes the whole production chain and therefore also the finishing of the textiles. Sustainable inks, low consumption and even the demand for vegan finished textiles have practically become a standard in the last few years. Those who do not adapt their production accordingly will sooner or later lose important orders and customers.
Can you describe your marketing strategy for Brother’s sewing machines and textile printers?
For sewing machines, our approach is to convince customers to go for high quality machines, and not look just to cheaper models with shorter lifetime.
We are strongly encouraging the recent trend of reshoring, i.e., bringing some productions to Europe and countries around, minimising environmental impact. Many European brands are looking to produce closer to their demand markets. We realised several projects of Made in EU garments and non-apparel products (leather, automotive, upholstery etc).
The high-quality standard of our products, as well as the high quality of the prints, the flexibility of our direct to garment range and the closeness to our customers are the core of our direct to garment strategy. Thanks to our own development department and our own production, we can react quickly to changing markets and to the requests of the producers.
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
