MOQ Traps: Why a Lower Unit Price Can Cost You More

Comparing quotes on unit price alone is the most common way a small order loses money. At 100 pieces, four cost lines behave very differently from the way they behave at 1,000 — and none of them are visible on a one-line quotation.

1. Trims are bought in packs, not in pieces

Buttons, zips, interfacing, thread, labels. At a thousand pieces, trims are bought against a production plan and cost what they cost per piece. At a hundred pieces, the same trims are bought in minimum packs, plus shipping, plus the time it takes to source them in small quantity.

A button that costs very little at scale can cost many times that on a small order — not because anyone is overcharging, but because you are paying for the pack, not the button. This is a real cost, and a supplier who hides it has simply moved it somewhere else in the quote.

2. Setup costs do not shrink with the order

Pattern development, sampling, print setup, machine settings, cutting layout. These are one-off costs. Spread over 100 pieces they are heavy. Spread over 1,000 they are almost invisible. A supplier quoting you the same unit price at both quantities is either subsidising one of them or has not costed the order properly.

3. Shipping is priced on volume, not weight

Couriers bill on chargeable weight — for apparel, the volumetric figure usually wins.

This is the line item buyers miss most often. Couriers bill on chargeable weight — the greater of actual weight and volumetric weight, where volumetric weight is length × width × height in centimetres divided by 5,000.

Apparel is bulky and light, so the volumetric figure usually wins. A carton of shirts that weighs 12 kg can easily be billed as 18 kg or more. Ask for the carton dimensions and the chargeable weight before you approve a shipping quote, not after the invoice arrives.

4. Rework is charged at small-quantity prices

If eight shirts out of a hundred have a problem, that is a rework batch, and small rework is expensive per unit. At 1,000 pieces, issues are caught by in-line inspection and corrected before packing.

The question worth asking is not "do you have quality problems?" Every production line does. It is: what is the inspection process, and what happens to a defective lot? A supplier without an answer is telling you something.

How to compare quotes properly

• Ask for a costed breakdown rather than a single unit price

• Ask what the MOQ applies to: per style? per colour? per size?

• Ask whether trims are included, and whether fabric is quoted at your quantity or at a hypothetical larger one

• Ask for carton dimensions and chargeable weight

• Ask about the inspection process and how rework is handled

• Ask what the sample cost is, and whether it is amortised into the bulk order

When a low MOQ is genuinely worth a higher unit price

Landing a first order. Testing a design before committing to a season. Entering a category you have never produced before. Filling a single store. A made-to-order model where you would rather not hold stock at all.

In every one of those cases you are buying information, not units. And in those cases the right comparison is not unit price — it is the total cost of being wrong.

Send us the quotation you are comparing against. We will tell you, line by line, what is likely not included — whether or not you order from us.