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.
PERSON: the sourcing officeTOOL: free registersDOCUMENT: the enquiryDEFINITION: incoterms, CMT and FOB
A factory worth your order has a real address, runs your product every week, has the capacity free, and holds certificates that check out at the issuer, not on a PDF. The free registers under this step let you check certificates and barred suppliers yourself.
Then send one brief: the same tech pack, the same quantities, the same delivery term, to every factory. Quotes on different bases cannot be compared: CMT is the cutting, making and trims charge with the fabric yours; FOB is the whole garment, fabric included, on the ship. A CMT quote beside an FOB quote tells you nothing until you convert one into the other.
This step is the office’s whole job. It checks the factories in person, sends one specification, and returns quotes on one basis with the factory’s minimum, sample charge, lead time and payment schedule written in. The first reply, including “your target price is not real”, is free.
What a bad answer looks like: a quote with no delivery term on it, or CMT from one factory beside FOB from another, or a certificate sent as a PDF whose number does not come up on the issuer’s own checker.
Check it outside, at the source:
- OTEXA, US textile and apparel imports (opens in a new tab) monthly US import volumes and values by partner straight from Commerce, with the spreadsheet behind them
- UN Comtrade (opens in a new tab) the same flows as reported to the UN, which lets you check a partner's own mirror figures against the US ones
- US Census monthly retail trade (opens in a new tab) the clothing store inventories to sales ratio, which turns before the import data does because brands stop ordering before they stop receiving
- UFLPA entity list, US Homeland Security (opens in a new tab) whether anybody upstream of your factory is barred from the United States, which stops the container whatever the order says
- FTC guide to US textile labelling (opens in a new tab) what the label on a US bound garment must legally carry, which becomes your customs problem and not the factory’s
Tools for this step
- Start a brand sourcing enquiry
Describe the product and the quantity and get an honest answer on whether it is workable, before you spend anything.
Every tool for this guide, grouped by what you are trying to do, is on the tools page.
