Buying fabric

There is no free public price index for fabric, anywhere. Not ours to fix, and we will not invent one. So this guide does the other thing: it builds a fabric price from the parts, and shows you which part to argue with.

What you are buying, and what sets its price

Fabric is the one thing in this chain with no free public price index. Cotton has one, yarn has a producer price series, garments have customs unit values. Cloth has none, anywhere, and we do not publish one either.

That is a fact about the world, not a gap in this guide, and it changes what a fabric buyer should do. You cannot look up the price. You build it, and then you compare your build against the quotation. That is a stronger position than a price index would give you, because it tells you which line of the quotation to argue with.

A fabric price is four things: the yarn in the cloth, the conversion cost of weaving or knitting it, the wet processing, and the freight. The yarn part is calculable to the gram from the construction. The other three are the mill’s own numbers, and the whole method below is about making the residual visible so you can compare it between mills.

The bridge is arithmetic and it is on the learning page. Turn the construction into a weight, turn the weight into kilograms of each count, price those counts from the yarn sections of the dashboard, and you have the yarn content of the cloth. What is left when you subtract that from a quotation is conversion, finishing and the mill’s own return, and that residual is the number worth comparing across suppliers rather than the headline price.

A worked instance: the 20s twill on the learning page, at 108 ends and 56 picks in a 63 inch width, needs about 330 grams of yarn per metre, of which 221 grams is warp and 109 grams is weft. Ten thousand metres is therefore about 3.3 tonnes of 20s. Price that tonnage and you know the fibre and yarn content of the order before anyone quotes you. Two mills quoting the same cloth are quoting the same 3.3 tonnes, so any difference between them is entirely in the other three lines.

The steps, spoken

Buying yarn and fabric: the same thirteen steps

3 min 17  ·  narrated, with captions  ·  8.0 MB

Read it instead

Buying yarn and buying fabric run on the same thirteen steps. Here they are, in the order they actually happen.

A thirty count combed compact and a thirty count carded rotor are both called thirties, and they are not the same product or the same money. That is why the spec leads.

Step one. Write the spec. For yarn, the count, the spinning system, the blend and the twist. For cloth, the construction, weight, width, finish, and the tests it must pass.

Two. Decide where to buy from: the duty into your country, the payment terms you can carry, and which country is actually deep in what you need.

Three. Read the market: the cotton under the yarn, the yarn inside the cloth, the supplier’s currency, and the freight on your lane.

Four. Ask three to five mills, and send every one the same spec, quantity and term, so the quotes compare.

Five. Get quotes, samples and test reports, and judge them against the spec, not against each other. Three quotes for three slightly different things is the oldest trick in the trade.

Six. Put the quotes on one basis, landed with freight, duty and the cost of the payment term. For cloth, take out the yarn content first. It is calculable to the gram.

Seven. Negotiate: price, validity, tolerance, the delivery schedule, the minimum per colour, and how claims will be handled.

Eight. Place the purchase order with every spec line on it, and for cloth, the sealed sample attached. That sample is the referee every later argument goes to.

Nine. Inspection before it ships: cones drawn before loading, or cloth scored on the four point system. The inspector is paid by you and reports to you.

Ten. Collect the documents, with the proof of origin if a duty preference depends on it.

Eleven. Clear customs. The rates into Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and China are on the duty page, dated, beside the schemes that can take them to zero.

Twelve. Check the delivery against the contract, and run a trial before committing the lot. Faults found in the trial are a claim. Faults found in bulk are your cost.

Thirteen. Pay the balance and record the mill’s performance: what it tested, how it ran, whether the dates held. That record is your leverage next season.

Both processes, step by step with the tools beside them, are on the guide. Free, and there is nothing to sign up to.

Before the steps

• The levers The nine things that move a fabric price Most of them are yours to move, and none of them would appear in a price index even if one existed. Mechanisms, not percentages: how much each is worth depends on the mill, the loom, the run length and the shade, and a number here would be a guess wearing a decimal point.

The 13 steps, in order

Each step is a short page of its own: the detail, the tools for that step and the next step one tap away at the foot.

1. Step 1 of 13 Write the cloth spec Construction, weight, width, composition, finish, colours, the tests it must pass, the quantity per colour, and the dates.
2. Step 2 of 13 Decide where to ask Which country is actually deep in that cloth, and which origin keeps the duty preference for the garment’s destination.
3. Step 3 of 13 Read the market The yarn inside the cloth, the cotton under the yarn, and the freight on your lane.
4. Step 4 of 13 Ask three to five mills Spec, colours, lab dips, packing, term, payment and dates, the same to every mill.
5. Step 5 of 13 Get quotes, hangers, lab dips and a bulk sample Test at a laboratory, against the tests the spec names.
6. Step 6 of 13 Put the quotes on one basis Take out the yarn content, which is calculable to the gram, and land the rest by weight.
7. Step 7 of 13 Negotiate Price, the minimum per colour, tolerances, the shade band, inspection and claims.
8. Step 8 of 13 Purchase order with the sealed sample attached The approved sample is the referee every later argument goes to.
9. Step 9 of 13 Production, with in-line and final inspection Woven cloth is inspected on the four point system: defects score points, and the contract caps the points per hundred square metres.
10. Step 10 of 13 Collect the documents Bill of lading, invoice, packing list, and the origin proof if a preference depends on it.
11. Step 11 of 13 Clear customs Woven cotton is 5208 and 5209, synthetic filament cloth 5407, knitted cloth 6006; the inbound rates are on the duty page.
12. Step 12 of 13 Check metres, width, weight and shade; cut a trial Then claim or accept, and pay.
13. Step 13 of 13 Record the mill’s performance for next season Shade consistency, claims and dates, per mill. Cloth is bought seasonally, and the record is what carries between seasons.

What we cannot tell you

• We publish no fabric price index, live or historic. Nothing on this site tells you what a metre of cloth costs.
• The conversion, dyeing and finishing costs are not here. They are the mill’s own numbers and they vary with shade, width, machine and run length.
• The GSM calculation uses crimp and waste allowances that are planning figures, not specifications. The mill measures its own on its own looms.
• A greige weight and a finished weight are different numbers for the same cloth, and a quotation that does not say which it means is not yet a quotation.
• We publish no lead time figure, and nobody publishes one free. It depends on the mill, the loom type, the season and how full the order book is. It is the first thing to ask for in writing, and on a tight delivery the answer is worth more than the rate.