In brief
In apparel, a minimum order quantity is usually a stack of separate minimums: the mill’s per fabric and per color, the trim suppliers’, and the factory’s per style and per color. They exist because setup and learning time cost money. Brands can often work within them by reducing colors, sharing fabrics and using stock materials. SBS Fashion’s website does not list a minimum, so ask its New York team about your program.
Why factories have them
A minimum is a factory telling you where the style starts to make sense for them. Setting up a style on a sewing line takes time. Operators have to learn the garment, and output in the first day or two sits well below where it will settle, so a small order can finish before the line has ever reached its efficient pace. A few hundred pieces tie up the same planners, supervisors and cutting table as several thousand and earn the factory a fraction as much.
Several minimums, stacked
The mill’s minimum is set per article and per color, since a dye lot or a knitting run has a natural size. Trim suppliers have their own, and custom woven labels, zip pullers and printed packaging come in quantities that dwarf a first order. The factory then adds its own, per style and often per color.
Follow the numbers through your order. These are an illustration. A factory may be happy with 300 pieces per color. If a style comes in four colors and the mill wants 1,000 meters per color, you are buying 4,000 meters of fabric for 1,200 garments that might use 1,800. The factory’s number was never the one stopping you.
Making the numbers work
Cut colors first. Two colors that sell beat five where three don’t, and each color you drop helps at the mill, the trim supplier and the factory at once.
A factory built around long runs will not become a good small-run producer because you negotiated well.
Share fabric across styles. One fabric used in a shirt, a dress and a pair of pants pools the yardage against a single mill minimum, provided it suits all three. Use stock where you can. Available stock fabric and stock trims with your own woven label can take a minimum out of the picture altogether, with these limits. Save the custom elements for what customers will notice.
Ask about a surcharge. Many mills and factories will go under their minimum for a price. Compare that surcharge with the cost of carrying stock you don’t need, and paying more per unit can turn out to be the cheaper decision.
Processes have minimums too
A garment dye runs in machine loads. A laundry, a printer and an embroidery shop each have setup charges, and a screen print needs a screen for every color. Testing is charged per style or per fabric however small the order is, and it weighs far more heavily on 300 pieces than on 30,000. None of that appears in the factory’s minimum. All of it belongs in your cost per unit.
Keep the forecast straight
Inflating a forecast to get a factory’s attention works once. They have held capacity for you that won’t be used, and next season they will plan around you accordingly. A credible plan to grow gets you further, and a factory that believes in your second season may well take a chance on your first.
Pick a factory your order matters to
A factory built around long runs will not become a good small-run producer because you negotiated well. They may agree to the order, and your order will then run in whatever gap appears between bigger customers, sewn by whoever is available. Go to a factory for whom your order is a meaningful size, even at a higher price per unit.
