Why We Went
For us, visibility means more than counting garments. It’s about following the broader sales flows, learning how markets operate, and understanding the people and realities that shape them. While tracking every single item is not yet possible, we focus on connecting the bigger picture of where textiles go and how they are used.
5Qs with Sukam k.
... and the realities on the ground enhance our “tailored-sorting” proficiencies. Helping us sort precisely for end customer’s needs.
Tell us about your business and how it has grown over the years.
My business, ETS SKB, has been operating for 27 years. We buy secondhand clothes from Europe and sell them both in our own shops and to retailers in Douala, Cameroon. In 2024, we received 186 tonnes from Looper in Germany, one of our main suppliers.
We focus mostly on children’s summer clothes, light winter wear, and cotton bedsheets. Most sales happen in Douala, but we also serve Garoua in northern Cameroon, and sometimes even customers in Chad, since it is a landlocked country.
Where do your garments go after they arrive?
Once the containers arrive, the garments go directly to the markets and then on to end users. We sell both wholesale and retail. In Douala, most of our sales are in Mbopi Market, where I can introduce you to some of my biggest customers so you can see how the sales process works.
How do you and your customers handle unsellable goods?
It depends on the customer, but in general resellers do everything possible to sell every last piece—it’s money. Some reduce prices for specific buyers, others hold stock for another season.
In my own case, unsellable stock is kept until the end of the year, when it is handed over to the government for tax savings.
“WE DO EVERYTHING TO SELL OUR LAST PIECE OF GARMENT”
How do you keep records of your sales?
Record-keeping is improving but still not very strict. I keep sales logs, and many wholesalers also record sales daily. But market vendors usually don’t write things down—they remember, since they sell one item at a time on market days.
How do cultural preferences shape demand?
In Cameroon, people prefer bright colours and summer clothes, since the weather is hot. If you bring oversized American clothes, people don’t buy them.
Young people now want European styles—nice, fashionable, branded clothes—not old stock or Chinese items. I always tell Elena (Looper Textile Co. Sorting Manager) what we want and what we will buy.
In the North, where many people are Muslim, short skirts don’t sell. The cultural context really shapes what moves in different markets.