Mills, one brief, quotes

Two things happen here and they are one motion: find out who can actually make the product, and send all of them the same brief on the same day.

Find out what the mill owns. This matters more in home textiles than in garments, because weaving, wet processing and stitching are frequently three separate companies, and the one quoting you may own only one of the three. That is not disqualifying on its own, plenty of good product is made that way, but it changes who controls your shade, your shrinkage and your delivery date, and you need to know before you commit rather than after a delay. Ask directly: which of the three steps do you own, and who does the other two.

Check the ordinary things too, and check them yourself: company registration, export record, the certificates on the quotation verified on the issuing scheme's own website rather than taken as a PDF, and a reference from a buyer in your own market. A certificate number that does not resolve on the scheme's checker is the single cheapest fraud to detect and one of the most common.

Send one brief, to three mills, with one deadline. The identical specification, the identical size grid, the identical quantity table, the identical delivery term and the identical date for the reply. Ask each of them to quote per piece, to state the minimum per colour, to state the sample charge and turnaround, and to state the lead time from order to ex mill. If you vary the brief between mills you have not collected three quotes, you have collected three different products.

One delivery term, always. FOB means the goods are loaded at the mill's port and everything after that is yours. A quote on any other term is not comparable until it is converted, and the conversion is step 8.

What a bad answer looks like: “we are fully integrated” with no name for who weaves, dyes and stitches, or a quote that carries a price but no minimum per colour, no sample charge and a lead time described as “our usual” rather than counted from order to ex mill.