MOQ, Lab Dips and Lead Time: A Buyer's Checklist Before You Place a Fabric Order

A fabric order has four clock-starts: the enquiry, the lab dip approval, the bulk approval, and the shipment booking. Every delay downstream is usually traceable to one of the first three, and almost all of them are avoidable with a written checklist.

1. Understand what MOQ is really made of

Minimum order quantity is not one number. It is the sum of three separate minimums: the minimum run per colour, the minimum per print design, and the minimum that makes the loom or the dyeing machine economical.

• Dyed fabric: usually quoted per colour, because the dye bath has a minimum volume.
• Printed fabric: quoted per design, because each colour needs a screen.
• Wide-width fabric: often higher, because wide looms are fewer and changeover takes longer.

This is why a "3,000 m MOQ" can still mean 9,000 m for a three-colour programme. Ask for the MOQ broken down by colour and design before you build a range plan around it.

2. Lab dips and strike-offs are not paperwork

A lab dip is a small piece of fabric dyed to your colour standard; a strike-off is a small piece printed to your artwork. Both exist so that you approve the real thing on the real substrate before 20,000 m are produced. Approving a colour on screen, or on a different fabric, is the most common cause of a rejected bulk shipment.

Approve under the light your customer will see the product in — D65 is the usual standard for retail. And keep the approved sample: it is the only reference that settles a dispute six months later.

3. How lead time actually adds up

A "25-day lead time" normally counts from approval, not from enquiry. End to end, a first order realistically takes 45–60 days including sampling and shipping. Plan the retail launch backwards from that, not from the production figure alone.

4. The ten questions worth asking before the order

1. Can you state full width and usable width in writing?
2. What is the GSM tolerance, and how is it tested?
3. Is the greige woven in-house or bought in? (This decides how much control the mill really has.)
4. Which dyeing or printing method will you use for my design, and why?
5. What is the MOQ per colour and per design, separately?
6. Can I have a running sample in the production width?
7. Who inspects the fabric, against what standard, and can I see the inspection report?
8. What happens if the bulk shade falls outside tolerance?
9. Which lab tests can you issue, and who performs them?
10. What is the actual ship date, and what could move it?

5. Red flags

A quotation with no specification attached. If the price arrives without construction, width and tolerance, it is not comparable to any other quote.

Reluctance to send a physical sample. Photos are marketing; samples are evidence.

Vague answers on width. "About 280 cm" means the mill does not want to commit to a usable width — and that is exactly the number you need.

A lead time quoted from enquiry rather than approval. It sounds faster and it is always wrong.

We quote with a written specification sheet, send running samples in the production width, and state lead time from approval. If a requirement falls outside what we can do well, we will say so at the quotation stage rather than after the deposit.