There are a lot of details that go into running a clothing business. Every item at Franc is ethically made in Canada. We’re happy to bring you quality basics and an honest, inside look at the details behind our clothing.

Overstock

We always do our best to order appropriate amounts so there is no overstock. However, there’s often a random size or sporadic colour that’s leftover. We’ll keep these items on the site at a discount until they sell out. Before COVID, we donated any overstock, damaged returns, and samples to Sistering—a shelter in Toronto for marginalized women. If we have a style that doesn’t sell as well as we hoped, we usually won’t restock that style. The biggest challenge with overstock is that there is a cost to hold inventory. After an extended amount of time, it’s not beneficial to hold onto stock—which is why most companies get rid of their stock.

Although it’s rare to have damages, it happens. If a customer returns an item without a tag, we cannot put it back into stock. We have a strict rule to not accept returns without a tag, so there is a return fee when this happens. If an item gets ruined during the shipping process or if there’s a defect that wasn’t caught in quality control, these also qualify as damaged returns. We do our best to be eco-friendly and will have our factory fix damaged items whenever possible. This is more costly for us, but it’s better for the environment.

Samples

There are samples with every season—whenever we develop or update a style. If you’re curious about the process from concept to garment, check out our Founder Insights here. Our factory keeps the sample as a reference for sewing, unless there are multiple samples per style. Sometimes a single style requires many updates and that means more than one sample. In this case, we donate these, gift them, or wear them ourselves.

Scrap Fabric

It’s no surprise that when you’re in the business of making clothes, there’s a lot of scrap fabric left over. We try to use up as much of our scrap fabric as possible by tying bundles of garments together in storage and donating larger pieces of usable scraps to other brands who upcycle fabric. We recently used up all of our scrap fabric to make non-medical face masks, donating 100% of the profits to the food bank of Canada. In the future, we would love to recycle all our scraps. We’re always looking for local textile recycling capabilities.

Customer feedback is at the heart of FRANC. We are a people-focused brand, and we base everything we do on your feedback—from waitlists to general reviews, colour preferences and style favourites. Your feedback leads us in the right direction, and we are so grateful for you!