By Jes­sel Brizan

A fash­ion busi­ness can sell a gar­ment at a seem­ing­ly at­trac­tive price and still lose mon­ey. The prob­lem may not be the de­sign, qual­i­ty or sell­ing price, but rather a fail­ure to cal­cu­late the to­tal cost of bring­ing the gar­ment from con­cept to con­sumer. For Caribbean fash­ion busi­ness­es, this is more than an ac­count­ing is­sue. It is a mat­ter of com­mer­cial sur­vival, ex­port com­pet­i­tive­ness, and the re­gion’s ca­pac­i­ty to build a sus­tain­able, glob­al­ly com­pet­i­tive fash­ion in­dus­try.

The re­gion’s chal­lenge is to un­der­stand its cost struc­ture rather than sim­ply com­par­ing lo­cal prices with those of in­ter­na­tion­al com­peti­tors. This is a chal­lenge I ex­am­ine in the De Gruyter Hand­book of Fash­ion Mar­ket­ing, where lim­it­ed re­sources and high pro­duc­tion costs fea­ture among the ob­sta­cles fac­ing Caribbean fash­ion busi­ness­es (Brizan, 2026, p. 183).

Be­yond the price

of fab­ric

The cost of pro­duc­ing a gar­ment be­gins well be­fore the first stitch is sewn. Fab­ric, trims, and pack­ag­ing are on­ly the most vis­i­ble in­puts. As I al­lud­ed to in the ar­ti­cle ‘The deep-root­ed is­sues with lo­cal fash­ion,’ lim­it­ed op­tions and re­sources neg­a­tive­ly af­fect the sup­ply chain, as the de­sign trade re­lies heav­i­ly on over­seas sourc­ing (Brizan, 2022).

For busi­ness­es that source ma­te­ri­als in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, the price paid to a sup­pli­er is on­ly part of the to­tal cost.

Busi­ness­es must al­so ac­count for ship­ping, in­sur­ance, im­port du­ties and lo­cal han­dling, which can sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­crease the amount re­quired be­fore pro­duc­tion starts. This sit­u­a­tion is fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed by ex­change rate fluc­tu­a­tions, which can cre­ate un­cer­tain­ty, es­pe­cial­ly when ma­te­ri­als are pur­chased in for­eign cur­ren­cies while fin­ished prod­ucts are sold in Caribbean cur­ren­cies. Dis­tin­guish­ing the sup­pli­er’s price from the land­ed cost is es­sen­tial for ac­cu­rate prod­uct cost­ing.

The re­gion­al en­vi­ron­ment presents an­oth­er con­sid­er­a­tion. ‘Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Dy­nam­ics 2025’, pub­lished by the OECD and the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB), iden­ti­fies high trans­port costs, lim­it­ed con­nec­tiv­i­ty, cus­toms pro­ce­dures and bar­ri­ers to trade as con­straints on Caribbean com­pet­i­tive­ness. The re­port es­ti­mates that lo­gis­tics costs ac­count for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 16 per cent to 26 per cent of the re­gion’s GDP, com­pared to about 9 per cent in OECD economies (OECD/IDB, 2024). While this fig­ure rep­re­sents a re­gion­al, econ­o­my-wide es­ti­mate, it un­der­scores the broad­er chal­lenges that Caribbean pro­duc­ers face.

The eco­nom­ics of small-scale pro­duc­tion

Hav­ing de­vel­oped sev­er­al fash­ion brands, I can at­test to the di­rect im­pact that pro­duc­tion vol­ume has on the cost of each gar­ment. A de­sign­er who pro­duces 20 gar­ments can­not achieve the same unit cost as a man­u­fac­tur­er pro­duc­ing 2,000 pieces. This is be­cause some ex­pens­es, such as de­sign, pat­tern­mak­ing, sam­pling, pro­duc­tion set­up, and ad­min­is­tra­tion, re­main rel­a­tive­ly fixed re­gard­less of out­put. Larg­er or­ders can re­duce unit costs but re­quire more ma­te­ri­als, work­ing cap­i­tal, pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty, and greater cer­tain­ty that the in­ven­to­ry will sell.

Con­sid­er Phlye Style, a small fash­ion busi­ness based in Trinidad and To­ba­go, pro­duc­ing a lim­it­ed run of 4 batik dress­es for a new col­lec­tion. The cost of each dress in­cludes fab­ric and trims ($700), labour ($250), pack­ag­ing and fin­ish­ing ($20), pat­tern­mak­ing ($150), sam­pling ($350), and over­heads ($280), bring­ing the to­tal pro­duc­tion cost to $1,750. At a re­tail price of $2,200, the gross prof­it per dress is $450, ex­clud­ing sell­ing ex­pens­es, pay­ment pro­cess­ing, mar­ket­ing, and oth­er costs.

This pos­es a dilem­ma for emerg­ing Caribbean brands. Small-scale pro­duc­tion lim­its un­sold stock but rais­es unit costs, where­as larg­er pro­duc­tion may im­prove man­u­fac­tur­ing ef­fi­cien­cy but in­creas­es in­ven­to­ry risk. The so­lu­tion is to iden­ti­fy the pro­duc­tion mod­el that best aligns with the busi­ness’s de­mand, ca­pa­bil­i­ties, and cash flow. Pre­orders, made-to-or­der pro­duc­tion and shared pro­duc­tion ser­vices can help, de­pend­ing on the prod­uct and cus­tomer needs. The key fac­tor is not the size of a col­lec­tion but whether it can be sold prof­itably.

The labour cost that is of­ten over­looked

An­oth­er chal­lenge aris­es when busi­ness own­ers do not pay them­selves a re­al­is­tic wage for their work. For in­stance, a de­sign­er might de­vel­op con­cepts, source ma­te­ri­als, cre­ate pat­terns, su­per­vise pro­duc­tion, man­age so­cial me­dia, and ful­fil or­ders. If the time spent on these tasks is not in­clud­ed in prod­uct cost­ing, the fi­nal price may ap­pear prof­itable when it is not. Un­paid labour does not elim­i­nate these costs. It trans­fers them to the busi­ness own­er. It can al­so make the busi­ness ap­pear more com­pet­i­tive than it would be if em­ploy­ees were paid to per­form the same work.

A cred­i­ble cost mod­el must there­fore ac­count for the work re­quired to de­liv­er a prod­uct, re­gard­less of whether that work is done by the own­er, em­ploy­ees, or con­trac­tors. The own­er should un­der­stand the eco­nom­ic val­ue of the labour and whether the busi­ness could re­main vi­able as it grows.

The cost of reach­ing the mar­ket

A well-priced gar­ment can still be­come un­prof­itable if the busi­ness mis­un­der­stands its route to mar­ket. Sell­ing prod­ucts di­rect­ly to cus­tomers in­volves a dif­fer­ent cost struc­ture than sell­ing through re­tail­ers. Whole­sale or­ders typ­i­cal­ly re­quire low­er unit prices, but brands must still cov­er pro­duc­tion, pack­ag­ing, de­liv­ery, and ad­min­is­tra­tive costs. E-com­merce in­curs ex­pens­es such as pay­ment pro­cess­ing, ful­fil­ment, cus­tomer ac­qui­si­tion, and re­turns, while ex­port­ing en­tails freight, doc­u­men­ta­tion, com­pli­ance, and dis­tri­b­u­tion costs.

A price that works for di­rect sales may not be suit­able for whole­sale dis­tri­b­u­tion. Busi­ness­es con­sid­er­ing in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pan­sion must as­sess whether their prof­it mar­gins re­main sus­tain­able af­ter ac­count­ing for the ad­di­tion­al costs of en­ter­ing the new mar­ket.

Can the Caribbean change the cost equa­tion?

Some pro­duc­tion costs are unique to in­di­vid­ual busi­ness­es and can be man­aged through ef­fec­tive plan­ning, sup­pli­er ne­go­ti­a­tions, pro­duc­tion sched­ul­ing, and in­ven­to­ry man­age­ment. Oth­er costs are in­flu­enced by the broad­er en­vi­ron­ment and can­not be mit­i­gat­ed by a de­sign­er alone.

Re­gion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion can help ad­dress some of these chal­lenges through col­lec­tive pro­cure­ment of ma­te­ri­als, shared equip­ment, spe­cialised pro­duc­tion ser­vices and stronger re­la­tion­ships with re­gion­al sup­pli­ers. Ag­gre­ga­tion could help par­tic­i­pants achieve pur­chas­ing or pro­duc­tion vol­umes that in­di­vid­ual busi­ness­es can­not at­tain on their own.

How­ev­er, col­lab­o­ra­tion does not guar­an­tee low­er costs. It re­quires re­li­able part­ners, mu­tu­al­ly agreed qual­i­ty stan­dards, ad­e­quate trans­port, and suf­fi­cient de­mand to be vi­able. Re­gion­al trade al­so rais­es prac­ti­cal ques­tions about cus­toms pro­ce­dures, doc­u­men­ta­tion, and the move­ment of goods be­tween ter­ri­to­ries.

The OECD and IDB ar­gue that deep­er re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion can fos­ter spe­cial­i­sa­tion, economies of scale, and greater par­tic­i­pa­tion in in­ter­na­tion­al val­ue chains (OECD/IDB, 2024). For Caribbean fash­ion, the task is to turn these ad­van­tages in­to prac­ti­cal strate­gies that re­duce costs and boost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty for busi­ness­es.

Gov­ern­ments and in­dus­try or­gan­i­sa­tions can al­so help by im­prov­ing ac­cess to in­for­ma­tion, sup­port­ing tech­ni­cal train­ing, strength­en­ing in­fra­struc­ture, and col­lect­ing more re­li­able da­ta on the sec­tor.

Cost­ing is a strate­gic ca­pa­bil­i­ty

Caribbean fash­ion busi­ness­es can­not con­trol every freight charge, ex­change rate fluc­tu­a­tion, or in­ter­na­tion­al trade de­ci­sion. How­ev­er, they can im­prove their un­der­stand­ing of costs and use that knowl­edge to make more in­formed com­mer­cial de­ci­sions.

Every busi­ness should be able to cal­cu­late the to­tal cost of pro­duc­ing a prod­uct, de­ter­mine the prof­it mar­gin at dif­fer­ent sell­ing prices, dis­tin­guish be­tween fixed and vari­able ex­pens­es, and eval­u­ate the fi­nan­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty of pro­posed or­ders or ex­port op­por­tu­ni­ties. These cal­cu­la­tions should be re­viewed when­ev­er ma­te­r­i­al prices, pro­duc­tion meth­ods, sales chan­nels, or mar­ket con­di­tions change.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, the goal is not to make Caribbean gar­ments cheap­er than im­ports. It is to build busi­ness­es that un­der­stand their eco­nom­ics, de­liv­er prod­ucts cus­tomers val­ue, and gen­er­ate suf­fi­cient re­turns to rein­vest in in­no­va­tion, tech­nol­o­gy, qual­i­ty, peo­ple, and pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty.

Cre­ative tal­ent can es­tab­lish a fash­ion busi­ness, but com­mer­cial sus­tain­abil­i­ty de­pends on un­der­stand­ing the true cost of pro­duc­tion.

Ref­er­ences:

Brizan, J. (2022) The deep-root­ed is­sues with lo­cal fash­ion. Avail­able at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ deep­root­ed-prob­lem-lo­cal-fash­ion-jes­sel-brizan-de­sign-group/

Brizan, J. (2026) ‘Caribbean Fash­ion Mar­ket­ing: Defin­ing Caribbean Fash­ion’, in Mit­ter­fell­ner, O. (ed.) De Gruyter Hand­book of Fash­ion Mar­ket­ing. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 151–198. Avail­able at:

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111564876-009

OECD/IDB (2024) Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Dy­nam­ics 2025. Paris: OECD Pub­lish­ing. Avail­able at:

https://doi.org/10.1787/a8e79405-en