Put the quotes on one basis
Take out the yarn content, which is calculable to the gram, and land the rest by weight.
The fabric costing template takes out the yarn content, which the weight maths gives you to the gram, and what remains, conversion, finishing and margin, is the number worth comparing between mills rather than the headline price.
Now the whole sum, on a real order. One of the six worked cases is a fabric purchase and it stops at this step: a Jeddah importer buying fifty thousand metres of cotton poplin out of Karachi, costed line by line to the warehouse door, before Saudi VAT and the SABER conformity cost.
Worked case 4: A Jeddah importer buys cotton fabric by the metre The Gulf. Costed to the warehouse door, every line shown. Opens here.
“50,000 metres of cotton poplin for thobes. Duty is five per cent, isn’t it? And SABER?”
Combed cotton poplin, 110 gsm, 150 cm wide, plain weave, heading 5208, from Karachi to Jeddah. The Gulf charges duty on the CIF value, and Saudi Arabia collects it at its own rate at the first point of entry.
That total is 8 lines. $5,430.47 of it comes from the duty rates, border charges and freight index the site holds, each printed with the day it was read; the other $61,500.00 is round placeholders you replace with your own quotes. The full case shows every line, what it was worked out from, and what the site cannot tell you.
Open case 4 in full, line by line or see all six cases side by side.
Tools for this step
- Fabric costing template Excel
Cost a woven or a knitted cloth from the construction up, with the yarn consumption computed for you, so you can see whether the quote and the construction agree.
- Fabric weight calculator Excel
Type counts, ends, picks, width and crimp and read the GSM, the ounces per square yard and the grams of yarn a metre will eat.
- Freight reckoner Excel
Turn the box rate you were actually quoted into the cents per kilogram that belongs in your costing, at the load you will really achieve.
- Box rate to cents per kilo
Read your quoted box rate down the side and your realistic load across the top, and take the freight cost per kilo off the grid.
- Cost of payment terms
Put the deposit, the days and your own borrowing rate in and read what the term costs you in interest, so two quotes on two different terms compare on one line.
Every tool for this guide, grouped by what you are trying to do, is on the tools page.