Why the MOQ of Underwear Starts at a Few Thousand Pieces

Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd. is a professional underwear sourcing & supply-chain management company based in Xiamen, Fujian Province, in the Xiamen–Quanzhou–Jinjiang knitwear cluster of south-east China. Founded by Will Lin, who has worked in the apparel trade since 2004, the company has been exporting since 2009 and was incorporated in Xiamen in 2013. It runs its own liaison office in Jinjiang and works with a network of BSCI & OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certified partner factories to serve retailers and brands across Europe, the US and Australia.

As an underwear sourcing partner, we often hear questions from customers: “Why the MOQ of men’s boxer briefs underwear, men’s bikini briefs underwear and women’s bikini briefs is generally 2,000 pieces, while the MOQ of comfortable sport bra, women’s thong underwear and children’s underwear is five thousand pieces, but the MOQ for ready-made garments can be dozens of pieces in an underwear manufacturer?” If you want to answer this question, you may be able to find some of the reasons by analyzing the production process of underwear.

From the initial customer inquiry to the final delivery, an order usually goes through the following steps:

1. Customer inquiry & intention to order

2. Start to develop and design according to customer needs

It is a costly process to develop styles according to customer requirements. Designers or development merchandisers need to obtain materials from multiple material suppliers according to customer requirements and constantly select suitable materials. Underwear involves a variety of materials such as fabrics, cotton cups, lace, shoulder straps, elastics, back buttons, steel rings, wool covers, etc. The complexity of the development work and the labor cost are higher than those of ready-made clothes. In many cases, in the case of a small number of orders and no re-orders, the profit may not cover the early development costs.

3. Making samples

When the initial sample comes out, it will not be confirmed by the customer and entered into production immediately, because there are a series of subsequent pattern-making processes such as grading the sample, adjusting the fitting and so on. Compared with ready-made garments, the craftsmanship of bras is more complicated, and more sewing equipment is used. The monthly salary of an experienced underwear pattern maker is basically more than ten thousand. If the customer does not place an order after continuous pattern making, the cost of this process is borne by the factory, so it is understandable that the factory asks the customer to pay the sampling fee in advance when the customer is constantly making patterns, which affects the MOQ factor.

4. The customer confirms the sample

After the customer confirms the sample, an order is basically 50% completed, but the communication cost of this process is very high.

5. Both parties sign the contract

6. Arrange the production plan

When the order quantity is small, how to arrange the production plan is also a test for the factory. After a new product is launched, it often takes a day or two for production staff to start running smoothly. Therefore, when the order is small, the factory arranges the production plan and bears the risk of delay in the delivery of other production plans.

7. Raw material procurement

The fatal reason why small orders in the underwear industry are often not accepted may lie in the procurement of raw materials. Under normal circumstances, the production of underwear does not choose spot fabrics like the production of ready-made clothes. The MOQ of fabrics often determines the MOQ of underwear. Often, the MOQ of fabrics can produce thousands of underwear. If the MOQ is not reached, materials such as fabric, elasticband, and rubber will also be charged by the material supplier for small dye jar fees, start-up fees, etc.

8. Start production

In the production process, the biggest gap between underwear and ready-to-wear is that many types of ready-to-wear production processes are relatively simple, while the process of underwear is complex, and many types of sewing machines are used, and many employees only have a single process technology, and the underwear manufacturers needs more production employees.

9. Quality control

The quality control link is the guarantee of quality. For intimate clothing, customers have higher requirements for quality, and the factory has stricter quality control.

10. Packaging

After going through the previous production process, the final packaging process can finally be relieved, and the completion of the order is just around the corner. However, the packaging process is the part that is most likely to be complained by customers, so I dare not relax at all.

11. Inspection & Shipping

The above is the link of the entire underwear order production. Through the analysis of the important links, I believe that it can help everyone understand why the underwear order production is more demanding than the MOQ of the ready-to-wear order.

Of course, quick response and quick return of small orders have always been the direction of supply chain services that we are actively exploring. Unitex custom underwear supplier welcomes any of your trial order.

Last updated: 2026-10-21 · Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd. — OEM & ODM underwear sourcing partner

Unitex Underwear (Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd.) — OEM/ODM underwear sourcing and supply-chain partner in Xiamen, China; in the trade since 2009, incorporated in 2013. Based in the Xiamen–Quanzhou–Jinjiang knitwear cluster, Fujian Province, south-east China.