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As I understand your question, you plan to start a catalog business focusing on feminine apparel. To find merchandise to put in your catalog, you need to have a list of manufacturers from whom you can select and acquire your inventory. To find the manufacturers, use the following resources:

1. Trade Magazines. Trade magazines are the best source of information. Check out the articles as well as the advertisements. Trade magazines are the first place that clothing manufacturers use to advertise their business. Get a copy of Womens Wear Daily. This thread on our discussion board lists some trade magazines that you can check out http://www.powerhomebiz.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard//topic.cgi?forum=7&topic=8 

2. Thomas Register http://www.thomasregister.com  is an extremely useful site containing listings of manufacturers for any industry. Visit their web site, or go to your library to look at the latest edition of their books.

3. Contact individual companies. If you have specific clothing lines in mind, you may want to call them and inquire about the possibility of allowing you to carry their products in your catalog

4. Search the Web. Go to Google and do a search on "clothing manufacturers" or other keywords to help you find possible contacts.

We also suggest that you check out some books on how to start a successful catalog business. We recommend the book "Creating a Profitable Catalog: Everything You Need to Know to Create a Catalog That Sells" by Jack Schmid http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0658000640/powerhomebizguid 

Our Consult Your Guides service, which is free to subscribers, is only intended to steer you in the right direction, but not provide the actual information that you need. We encourage our subscribers to do the research themselves and investigate the industry that they are getting into. It is always better that you personally know what you are supposed to do.

Never go into the business without writing your Business Plan. It is your step by step guide on how you will operate your business. Without it, you will be operating your business on guesswork and dreams and you won't have a direction to follow. Before you know it, you may already have sunk so much money on it without getting your expected results.

Operating a catalog business is similar to the mail-order business. You must have realized that you must cover yourself with inventory of all the items that you publish in your catalog. Are you ready to finance that inventory? Do you have the facilities for warehousing, shipping of the goods and most important of all, how will you distribute your catalog? How about the printing and printing costs? There are a lot of questions to this project- that is why it is necessary to write the Business Plan to keep you on track of what you want to do.

At the moment, I hope the above answers maybe of help.

Good luck!

About the PowerHomeBiz.com Guide: 

Nach Maravilla is the Publisher of Power Homebiz Guides. He has over thirty years experience in sales and marketing of various products, which covered as he jokingly describes, "from toothpicks to airplanes"  He also had extensive experience in International trading and he always excelled in special promotional ideas for  retail outlets. 

The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, not of PowerHomeBiz.com. Users should not treat the Guide's response as legal, accounting, or professional advice as all answers are intended to be general in nature. Such advice can only be properly given by qualified professionals who are fully aware of a user's specific geographical areas or circumstances, such as an attorney or accountant.