Getting garments made
Fourteen steps, from the first costing to the carton landing at your warehouse, each on a page of its own.
How to get clothing manufactured, step by step
You have a design, a rough budget, and no idea who actually makes the thing. This guide walks the whole order, from the first costing to the carton landing at your warehouse, in fourteen steps that happen in that order whether you are making two hundred pieces or twenty thousand. Each step names the number you need, the tool that works it out, and the words the factory will use back at you. Where a figure can only come from a factory, it says so instead of guessing. None of it sits behind a form. Read it, then send a brief when you are ready.
You are buying a made garment at a delivery term, usually FOB. The price is fabric, plus trims, plus cutting and sewing, plus the factory’s overhead and margin, plus your duty and your freight. Fabric is usually the largest single line and the one this site helps you see behind. The public data on finished garments is import unit values: the declared value of shipments divided by their weight or pieces, from US, EU and UK customs. Used properly they answer comparative questions well: is Bangladesh cheaper than Vietnam in this category, and is the gap widening. Used improperly they answer “what should I pay”, which they cannot.
Rather have someone walk this road with you? The sourcing office runs exactly these steps for a small number of brands at a time: checked factories, quotes on one basis, an inspector who works for you. Describe the product and the quantity and get an honest answer on whether it is workable, before you spend anything.
Getting garments made, step by step
The garment guide’s fourteen steps in under three minutes: from the price you can pay, through the tech pack, sampling and the deposit, to the inspection and the balance.
Read it instead
A first garment order, from design to delivered. Fourteen steps, in the order they actually happen.
Almost every first order disaster is a step skipped early: no tech pack, no landed cost, no sealed sample. So here is the whole path.
Step one. Decide the product and the most you can pay the factory, worked backwards from your selling price.
Step two. Write the tech pack, the one document a factory can actually quote from.
Three. Decide the fabric and trims, or write down exactly what the factory proposes. Fabric is half the price.
Four. Fix your quantities and check them against the minimum, which is set by the fabric mill, not the sewing line.
Five. Choose the country: duty, freight, time, wages, and the rules of the market you sell into.
Six. Check the factories, then send the same tech pack, the same quantity and the same term to every one, so the quotes compare.
Seven. Cost each quote all the way to your warehouse door. Cheapest at the port is often not cheapest landed.
Eight. Sample until you can sign one. Bulk is judged against that sealed sample.
Nine. Place the order with everything in writing, including what happens if an inspection fails.
Ten. Pay the deposit the safe way: to the factory’s company account, against the pro forma, deposit only.
Eleven. Production time runs from the day the fabric is booked, not from the day you placed the order.
Twelve. Watch it while it runs. Approve the pre-production sample, and catch problems before the whole order is sewn.
Thirteen. Final inspection by someone who works for you, against the sealed sample, before anything leaves the factory.
Fourteen. Pay the balance against the documents, clear customs, count what arrived, and claim inside the window.
Every step opens into detail on the guide, with the documents, the numbers and the costing sheets beside it. Free, and there is nothing to sign up to.
The words a supplier will use at you, and what each one costs you 14 terms
A garment quotation is mostly fabric, and the rest is minutes. Understanding those two lines is what lets you tell a factory that is expensive from one that is simply making a better garment.
- Fabric consumption
- How much cloth one garment eats, including the cutting waste. Usually the largest single line in the cost, often half of it or more. It is decided by the pattern, the size ratio and how efficiently the pieces are laid out, so it is the first place to look when a price seems high.
- Marker efficiency
- What share of the laid cloth ends up as garment pieces rather than offcut. A few points of marker efficiency is worth more than most of the negotiating anyone does on the making charge.
- CM, CMT and FOB
- CM is the cutting and making charge alone. CMT adds trims. FOB is the whole garment delivered to the ship’s rail, fabric and trims included. Two quotations on different terms are not comparable until this is settled, and it is the most common way a comparison goes wrong.
- SMV, the standard minute value
- How many minutes of sewing the garment takes. Multiply by the factory’s cost per minute and you have the making charge. When a factory says it cannot meet a price, this is the number to ask for, because it is checkable and it is where a fair conversation happens.
- Line efficiency
- What share of those minutes the line actually achieves. A factory running at fifty per cent and one running at seventy are different businesses at the same wage.
- Stitch types
- Lockstitch for seams that must not stretch, chainstitch where a little give is wanted, overlock to join and neaten a knit edge, coverstitch for hems that must stretch, bartack where a seam takes strain. The stitch type is a design and durability decision, not a factory preference, and it belongs on the specification.
- Stitches per inch
- More stitches means a stronger, neater seam and more thread and more minutes. Too few is the most common corner cut and it is visible on the seam.
- Trims and interlining
- Thread, labels, buttons, zips, elastic, interlining. Small money that causes large problems: an interlining that bubbles after washing, or a zip that fails a pull test, sinks the whole garment. Nominated suppliers exist for exactly this reason.
- Grading and the size set
- How the pattern scales across sizes. Approve a size set, not just a sample in one size, because a fit that is right at medium and wrong at extra large is a whole size curve of returns.
- Sealed sample
- The physically approved garment, signed by both sides, that bulk is judged against. Nothing else settles an argument. A photograph does not, and an email saying "approved" does not. Getting to one is a stage rather than a formality: sampling is charged, it is normally more than one round, and each round is a shipment and a review before anyone cuts bulk. Budget it as a line and as a period of weeks, and ask the factory for its own sample charge and turnaround in writing, because both belong to that factory and no published figure covers them.
- Tolerance
- The plus or minus allowed on each measurement in the size chart. Without it, every measurement is a matter of opinion.
- AQL and final inspection
- A statistical sampling standard: how many faults in a sample size mean the shipment is rejected. In apparel the common levels are around 2.5 for major faults and 4.0 for minor ones. Agree the level and who inspects before production, not after.
- Wash and finish
- Enzyme, stone, garment dye, garment wash. A finish applied to the made garment changes shade, hand, shrinkage and cost, and it is the stage where consistency across a shipment is hardest to hold.
- Compliance and testing
- Needle detection for any garment that has been near a broken needle, restricted substance testing, flammability where it applies, and correct care and fibre labelling for the destination market. These are legal requirements in the selling country, not factory paperwork, and they are yours as the importer. Which ones apply is decided by the product and the destination, not by the factory: childrenswear, sleepwear and protective clothing each carry extra rules that ordinary adult outerwear does not, and those are the ones that stop a shipment at the border. Find out which apply to your product from the regulator in the country you are selling into, before the technical pack is finalised, because several of them change the garment rather than the paperwork.
What to put on the order for a garment
Every line below is one you can be given a straight answer on. A supplier who will not put one of them in writing is telling you something, and it is usually the most useful thing you will learn in the negotiation.
- A full technical pack: measurements with tolerances, construction, stitch types and stitches per inch, and a bill of materials.
- The fabric specification in full, or the nominated fabric supplier.
- Nominated trims where a trim failure would be expensive, with the supplier named.
- An approved size set and a signed sealed sample, before bulk cutting.
- The wash or finish, with an approved standard for it.
- The AQL level, the inspection standard and who carries out the final inspection.
- The testing required, the laboratory, and who pays for it.
- The delivery term, so the quotation means one thing: CM, CMT, FOB, LDP or DDP.
Stitch types follow the standard numbering used across the trade. Final inspection is normally by a recognised sampling standard at an agreed acceptable quality level. The above is standard practice compiled for orientation; the numbers that bind are the ones in your own contract and technical pack.
These are standard trade definitions and typical published ranges, compiled by VeriMills for orientation. They are not a specification, they do not replace a test report, and where a figure here differs from your contract, your contract is the one that binds.
Open the step you are standing on
Each step is a short page of its own: what it needs, the detail, the outside sources and the tools for that step, with the next step one tap away at the foot.
- Step 1 of 14 Decide the product and the price you can pay One product, one market, and the most you can pay the factory, worked backwards from your selling price.
- Step 2 of 14 Write the tech pack The one document a factory can quote from: drawing, measurements with tolerances, fabric, trims, stitching, labels, packing.
- Step 3 of 14 Decide the fabric and trims Name the cloth and trims, or write down exactly what the factory proposes, because fabric is half the price.
- Step 4 of 14 Fix quantities and check them against the minimum Pieces per style, colour and size; the factory’s minimum is set by the fabric mill, not the sewing line.
- Step 5 of 14 Choose the country Duty and whether you qualify for a lower rate, freight, time, wages, and the rules of the market you sell into.
- Step 6 of 14 Find and check the factories, and get quotes on one basis Real address, your product weekly, capacity, certificates that check out; then the same tech pack, the same quantity and the same term to every factory, so the quotes compare.
- Step 7 of 14 Cost each quote to your warehouse door Factory price plus freight, duty, border fees, insurance and inland delivery. Cheapest at the port is often not cheapest landed.
- Step 8 of 14 Sample until you can sign one Pay the sample charge, expect two or three rounds, then sign a sealed sample and size set. Bulk is judged against it.
- Step 9 of 14 Place the order with everything in writing Price, quantities by style, colour and size, dates, payment, inspection level, packing, labels, and what happens on a fail.
- Step 10 of 14 Pay the deposit the safe way Against the pro forma, to the factory’s company account, bank transfer or letter of credit, deposit only.
- Step 11 of 14 Production runs from the day the fabric is booked The date counts from fabric booking, not from your order, and stretches over Chinese New Year, Ramadan, the Eids and the shipping peak.
- Step 12 of 14 Watch it while it runs Approve the pre-production sample; deal with problems before the whole order is sewn.
- Step 13 of 14 Final inspection by someone who works for you An independent inspector checks the goods against the sealed sample and the agreed level before they leave.
- Step 14 of 14 Pay the balance, ship, clear, receive Balance against the documents, clear customs with the right code and proof of origin, count and check on arrival, claim inside the window.
After the steps
- Reference Garment trade terms FOB, CMT, CM, LDP and DDP, with what each includes and who carries which risk.
- Reference The tools The costing templates, tables and downloads, grouped by what you are trying to do.
Also in this guide, on the fabric step:
What we cannot tell you
- A unit value is not a quotation. It is the average of every quality, every fabric and every buyer inside a customs line, and your garment can sit far from that average legitimately.
- Customs data lags. Expect to read numbers about two months behind the shipments they describe.
- A change in unit value is often a change of mix rather than of price. More basics and fewer fashion pieces moves the average without any price changing.
- We do not know your making charge, your trims, your compliance costs or your buying terms, and none of those are visible in any public dataset.
- The minimum, the lead time, the sample charge and the payment schedule belong to a factory and a contract, never to a dataset. Steps 4, 8, 10 and 11 say how to get each one in writing.
Common questions
How long does a first garment order take?
Count backwards from the date you want stock on the shelf, not forwards from today. The long pole is almost never sewing. It is fabric booking, sampling rounds and the sea leg, and every one of those is set by the factory and the route rather than by you. The guide gives the sequence step by step, and the calendar page carries the dates that move every year.
What if my order is under the factory minimum?
You have four ways out and they are all worth trying before you give up on the product: take a fabric the mill already has in stock, drop a colour, accept a longer wait so your run can share a fabric booking, or find a smaller factory that works at your size. Which one is open to you depends on the cloth.
Do I need a tech pack before anybody will quote?
You need enough of one that two factories are quoting the same garment. A sketch, measurements at one size, the fabric, the trims and the finishing are usually enough to start. Without that you get numbers that cannot be compared, which feels like progress and is not.
Do I pay for samples?
Almost always, and you should want to. A factory that gives samples away is recovering the cost somewhere you cannot see. What matters is that the sample charge is written down before you approve anything, along with whether it is credited back against the production order.