Minimum order quantity is the smallest run a factory will accept, usually stated per style and sometimes per colourway. It is the first number most new brands run into, and the one most likely to send them looking for a different manufacturer.
Why minimums exist
Every production run carries fixed costs that do not shrink with quantity. Marker making, machine setup, thread changeover, first piece inspection and administrative time cost roughly the same for fifty pieces as for five hundred. Below a certain quantity, those fixed costs make the job unprofitable at any price the brand would accept.
Ranges you will encounter
- Studio and sample rooms: very low or no minimum, priced accordingly
- Small batch domestic factories: often in the range of fifty to a couple of hundred per style
- Larger domestic production: several hundred per style and up
- Overseas volume production: typically the highest minimums
Per style, per colourway, per size
Read the minimum carefully. A minimum of one hundred per style is very different from one hundred per colourway. If you want three colours, the second reading means three hundred pieces, and your inventory exposure triples.
Working with a minimum rather than against it
- Launch fewer styles in more depth rather than many styles thinly
- Reduce colourways before you reduce quantity
- Share a fabric across multiple styles so the yardage minimum is easier to hit
- Ask whether a higher price per piece can buy a lower quantity
That last question is worth asking directly. Some factories would rather run a small job at a price that works than turn it away.