Bag Factory Communication: Working With a Partner 12 Hours Away

What a Time Difference Actually Costs

Creators calculate the cost of a time difference in hours and should calculate it in elapsed days. A 12-hour offset does not delay a reply by 12 hours. It delays every exchange in a conversation by 12 hours, and most sourcing conversations are not one exchange long. They are four or five, and each one resets the clock.

Read the first and third rows together, because the difference between them is the whole point. The same five-exchange conversation takes two working days at a 3-hour offset and more than five at a 12-hour one. Nothing about the work changed. Only the number of times the message had to cross the night did, and that is the variable you can control.

There are three things that make a conversation longer than it needs to be, and they are all under your control. The first is an incomplete message, which generates a clarifying question before the real work can start. The second is a vague message, which generates an answer you then have to re-ask. The third is a multi-topic message, which gets a partial reply and needs a follow-up for the rest. Each of those turns one exchange into two, and across a 12-hour offset each additional exchange costs a working day.

The cost is not evenly distributed, and that matters for planning. It is small at the enquiry stage, where a delay of a day is an inconvenience. It is large at the approval stage, where a delay of five days pushes a 35 to 50 day production window past a campaign delivery date. And it is largest at the three points where a decision has to come back to you: the sample approval, the deposit and the inspection result. Those three should be planned around, and the rest can be absorbed.

There is one more cost that is easy to miss, which is the cost of a decision made to keep things moving. A creator who knows the next exchange takes a day will sometimes approve something they are not sure about, because asking again costs too much. That is the most expensive outcome of all, because the approval then becomes the reference the bulk is made against. It is better to take the day and ask. Our Bag Production Partner for Campaign Creators page sets the communication model inside a full sourcing programme.

The Overlap Window and How to Use It

Every offset has an overlap, and most creators never use it deliberately. With a 12-hour difference the overlap is usually a couple of hours at one end of your day and a couple at the other. That is enough for one substantive exchange, and one substantive exchange a day is all a bag order needs.

1. Find the overlap first, before anything else. Ask the partner for their working hours in your time zone and confirm the two windows where your days meet.
2. Put the substantive exchange in the overlap. Anything that needs a reply the same day goes out at the start of your window, not the end of it.
3. Use the rest of the day for preparation. Sketch the changes, mark up the photographs, measure the sample. The work that takes you an hour removes two exchanges.
4. Send the non-urgent items separately, and late. Confirmations, acknowledgements and files that do not need a reply can go at any time.
5. Say which window you will use, so both sides know when to expect the day's message.

The second item is the one that changes things most, and it is about timing within the window rather than the window itself. A question sent at the start of the overlap gets an answer before your counterpart finishes for the day. The same question sent at the end of it waits a full night. Two hours of difference in when you press send, and a full working day in when you get the answer.

The third item is the real leverage, and it is the one that makes the whole approach work. Most elapsed time in a sourcing conversation is not transit time. It is preparation time on one side or the other. If you spend your morning marking up the photographs and measuring the sample, then send one complete message in the overlap, you have removed two exchanges before they existed. Preparation is cheaper than transit, and it happens while the other side is asleep anyway.

There is a caution about the fifth item. Agreeing a window and then not using it is worse than not agreeing one, because it creates an expectation that will not be met and a small doubt about the rest. If you say you will send at 8, send at 8. A predictable counterpart is a trusted one, and trust across a time difference is built out of small reliabilities rather than large gestures.

One Thread, One Owner, One Decision

The structure of the communication matters more than the medium. Three rules cover it, and together they remove most of the failures that a time difference would otherwise amplify. One thread for one topic, one named owner on each side, and one decision per message.

The first rule is the one most often broken and the most damaging when it is. A thread that started as an enquiry about a tote and now contains a question about carton marks and a note about artwork will produce a reply that addresses two of the three, because the human brain reads the top of a thread. Open a new message with a new subject line. It takes four seconds and it is the difference between an answer and a partial one.

The second rule protects you from the failure mode where information is lost between departments. When a material question goes to one person, a production question to another and a shipping question to a third, the creator becomes the integration layer, and that is a job nobody is paying them to do. A campaign bag specialist or programme coordinator who owns your order end to end removes that category entirely, and it is worth asking directly who that person is and what their name is.

The third rule is the one that saves the most elapsed days. A message that asks two things will often get one answer, because the second was below the fold of attention. Across a 12-hour offset, the missing answer costs a day and a separate message. Asking one thing at a time feels less efficient and is measurably faster. The Bag Factory Communication: Working With a Partner in Another Timezone approach is the one our programme coordinators use with every campaign, whether the offset is three hours or sixteen.

There is a fourth rule worth adding, which is about the record. Every decision that affects the product should end in a message that states it, and that message should be the one that gets replied to with a confirmation. An approval stated over a video call and never written down is an approval that exists in two memories, and across a time difference and a language difference two memories are not a record. Write it down and ask for a yes.

Writing Messages That Get Answered First Time

Most elapsed time in a sourcing conversation comes from the second round of a message that could have been answered on the first. Five habits eliminate the second round, and they take two minutes to apply.

• Lead with the question. Put what you need in the first line, not after three paragraphs of context.
• Give the numbers. Every dimension, quantity and colour reference in the message, or attached to it.
• Say what you want done, not just what you have observed. The strap feels short is an observation; shorten it by 3 cm is a request.
• Attach the file rather than describing it. A marked-up photograph removes a round-trip on its own.
• Number the items if there is more than one, so the answer can be numbered to match.

The third habit is the one that most often separates a fast exchange from a slow one. A message that says the sample arrived and the handle feels thin will receive a reply asking whether you want it changed, and that is an exchange spent on something you already knew. A message that says the handle feels thin for the intended load, please quote a 38 mm webbing with a finished edge, receives a price. One exchange instead of two, which across an overnight offset is a working day.

The fifth habit prevents a specific and common failure. An unnumbered list of four observations will get a reply that addresses three of them, because the fourth was at the bottom of a paragraph. Numbering them means the answer can be numbered too, and a numbered answer makes a gap obvious at a glance rather than after a careful re-read. It also makes it possible to reply to the gap without resending the whole list.

There is a formatting point worth making, because it matters at the other end. Short paragraphs, one idea each, no walls of text. A message that arrives as four dense paragraphs will be read once, quickly, and the nuance will be lost. The same content as eight short paragraphs will be read properly. This is not about your writing style. It is about the fact that the person reading it is doing so in a second language, at the end of their day.

And one habit that is more important than the other five together: answer the same day. Every hour you take is an hour that crosses a night at the other end, and most of the elapsed time in a delayed order belongs to the creator rather than to the production. A creator who answers within the overlap window will hit the dates. One who answers two days later will not, and no efficiency downstream recovers it.

Files, Photographs and the End of Ambiguity

Language is the largest source of avoidable exchanges in bag sourcing, and files are the cure. A marked-up photograph communicates a change more precisely than the best-written paragraph, and it does it in a way that does not depend on either side's command of English. Three file habits remove most of the ambiguity.

The first habit is the one to adopt immediately. An email saying the pocket on the left side is too small will generate a question about which pocket, and possibly a photograph request. A photograph of the sample with that pocket circled and 24 cm written beside it generates a revised sample. The same information, one exchange instead of three, and no possibility of misunderstanding which pocket was meant.

The second habit prevents the disagreement that causes the most damage, which is the one about which version was agreed. A specification that lives in an email body is a specification that can be argued with. A specification that is a dated file with a revision number, sent with every substantive message and referenced in every approval, cannot be. Make it a habit rather than an occasional courtesy, and the habit will save you an argument.

There is a related discipline about measurements. Give every dimension in centimetres, with a tolerance, and take the measurement the same way each time. Measuring a bag across its widest point at the base is not the same as measuring it at the top, and a 2 cm discrepancy between two people's measurements of the same bag is entirely normal. Say where you measured, and if it matters, photograph the tape in position.

One caution about files that is practical rather than structural. Send them as attachments in the message that needs them, not as a link to a folder that may not open at the other end. A file that cannot be opened is worse than no file, because it produces a reply about the file rather than about the product. Our Tech Pack for Bags: 12 Sections Every Creator Completes page shows the document format that travels well.

The Four Conversations and When to Have Them

A bag order runs on four conversations, and each one belongs at a particular point. Having them at the right time is what keeps the total number of exchanges low, because each conversation happens when the information for it exists.

1. The specification conversation, at the enquiry stage, before any price is given. One exchange, with the complete brief attached.
2. The revision conversation, after the sample arrives. One consolidated marked-up list, in a single message.
3. The approval conversation, after the revision. One written approval against a named revision, with the tolerance stated.
4. The progress conversation, during bulk. A weekly note each way, with a percentage complete and any open question.

The second of those is where the most exchanges are usually spent, and the fix is consolidation. A creator who notices five things about a sample and mentions them as they occur will have five separate conversations, each with a reply, and each crossing a night. The same five things, consolidated into one numbered message with photographs attached, is one conversation with one reply. The elapsed time difference across a 12-hour offset is around a week.

The third is the conversation that should be shortest, and it is the one most often left unwritten. An approval should be one message: sample revision 2 approved, with the stated tolerance, against the attached photographs. That is it. A long message discussing the approval invites a long reply, and a long reply invites a discussion, and a discussion costs exchanges. Short, specific and complete is the form.

The fourth is the one to arrange before it is needed. Ask for a weekly note at the deposit stage, in the same message that confirms the slot, and it will happen as a routine. Ask for it in week four and it becomes an exception that has to be negotiated. Across a 35 to 50 day window with nothing visible happening, that note is what tells you the order is progressing and, more usefully, what question the floor is waiting on.

There is a fifth conversation that most creators do not plan for and then need, which is the post-mortem. After the goods arrive, one short exchange about what you would change next time is worth having, because it is the input to the re-order. The defects you found, the things backers mentioned, the packing that worked. It costs one message and it makes the second round better. Our Bag Campaign Post-Mortem: 10 Lessons From Failed Projects page covers the wider version.

Decisions, Not Discussions

The distinction between a decision and a discussion is the single most useful idea in this article, and it accounts for most of the elapsed time in a slow order. A decision is a message that can be answered with a yes or a number. A discussion is a message that invites a response that then needs another response. The two look similar when written and behave completely differently in transit.

The pattern in that table is that the discussion version asks the other side to guess what you want, and the decision version tells them. Asking for a quotation for a specific change is a request that can be answered in one line. Asking for an opinion about a change is a request that must be answered with a question. Three such exchanges across an overnight offset is most of a working week.

This is not an argument against asking for advice. Production teams have useful opinions and you should ask for them, particularly about material selection and construction. The discipline is to separate the two kinds of message. Ask the open question in one message and give the instruction in another, and you will get a thoughtful answer to the first and a fast execution of the second, instead of a hesitant answer to both.

There is a specific case where this matters most, which is the sample revision. A creator who sends four observations and one instruction will get a reply that discusses four things and one price. A creator who sends four numbered instructions, each with a measurement and a photograph, will get four prices. Across a 12-hour offset the first costs four exchanges and the second costs one. Our Custom Bag Sample Feedback: Notes That Get Read page covers the format in detail.

Escalation and the Urgent Case

Something will eventually need an answer today, and the handling of that case should be agreed before it happens. Three things make the urgent case work: a named channel, a stated response expectation, and a defined list of what counts as urgent.

• The urgent channel. A messaging application rather than email, agreed at the start, with the person's name on the other end.
• The response expectation. What same-day means in their working hours, and what it means in yours.
• The list of what is urgent. A material substitution, a failed first-piece check, a specification question from the floor. Not a request for a photograph.
• The fallback for silence. If the channel goes quiet, who else is contacted and after how long.
• The decision you have pre-made. For the three or four things that could go wrong, what your answer will be, decided in advance.

The fifth item is the one that saves the most time, and it is entirely about preparation. There are a small number of urgent questions a bag order can produce: a specified fabric is unavailable, a print registration is out of tolerance, a hardware component is delayed, a carton specification is rejected by the fulfilment channel. For each of them, decide now what your answer will be. Then when the message arrives at 3 in the morning, the reply is already written.

The third item exists because urgency is expensive and should be rationed. An operation where everything is urgent is an operation where nothing is, and the creator who escalates a photograph request will find their material-substitution question answered with the same energy. Reserve the urgent channel for the four or five things that genuinely stop the order, and the response on those will be immediate.

There is a cultural point worth stating plainly. In many production cultures a direct no is considered impolite, and a non-committal answer is the polite form of it. If you receive an answer that says it should be fine or we will try, treat it as a no and ask the question differently, or ask for the specific thing you need, such as a date. Learning to read the soft answer is one of the more useful skills in this trade, and it saves a great many exchanges.

The Tools That Work and the Ones That Do Not

Tool choice matters less than the three structural rules, but it matters. The principle is simple: use the tool that the other side will actually check, not the one you prefer. A sophisticated system that goes unread is worse than an email that gets answered.

The practical arrangement that works best is a split. Email for everything that constitutes a record, meaning the specification, the revision, the approval and the inspection result. A messaging application for the urgent case and the quick confirmation. A shared sheet only if both sides will genuinely maintain it, which in practice they often will not, and an email with the current revision attached is a reliable substitute.

The video call has a specific and underrated use, which is the relationship itself. One call every few months, with no agenda beyond the next two orders, does more for responsiveness than any amount of process. It puts a face to the name at the other end, and it is the reason your urgent message gets answered on a busy day. There is a related value in asking for a live walk of the production floor with the schedule board visible, which tells you more about capacity than any document.

One tool note that is worth more than it sounds: put the revision number and the date in the file name of every specification you send. It is not a system, it is a habit, and it removes an entire category of exchange. Our Bag Sourcing Process: RFQ, Sample, Contract, Production page shows where each of these tools belongs in the sequence.

A Communication Schedule for a 50-Day Order

Everything above becomes practical with a schedule. A 50-day production window contains a small number of planned exchanges, and planning them means the unplanned ones have somewhere to fit. Nine touchpoints, and none of them is a meeting.

The fourth point is the one that saves the most calendar, and it costs one line. When the sample ships, send the date on which you will review it. That single line converts the largest avoidable delay in the whole process, which is a sample sitting unexamined for five to fifteen days, into a scheduled appointment. It also commits you, which is the harder half of the problem.

The eighth point is the one that saves the most anxiety, and it is the cheapest to arrange. A short weekly note with a percentage complete, one photograph and any open question takes a production coordinator a few minutes. Across a 35 to 50 day window in which nothing is visible, it is the difference between a managed order and an anxious one. Ask for it at the deposit, not in week five.

The ninth point is the one that pays for itself on the re-order. An inspection report with the defect counts by category and photographs tells you what to tighten next time. A report that says pass tells you nothing. Ask for the photographs at the point where the inspection is arranged, and the request costs nothing. Our Kickstarter Bag QC Reports: Read One in 10 Minutes page covers reading the result.

And a closing practical point about all nine. Every one of them is an exchange you initiate, not one you wait for. The communication schedule works because it front-loads the questions, and front-loading is what converts a 12-hour offset from a week of elapsed time into a day. Our campaign bag specialists run this schedule on every order, and it is the reason a 6 to 10 working day sample usually stays one.

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