Most suppliers in China publish one number and stop there. That number answers a different question from the one a new brand is actually asking, which is how small an order can be placed, and what happens to the price when it is small. This page sets out every order size Unitex Underwear will quote, in the order they are meant to be used, with the price logic attached to each one.
The two order sizes we quote at
- 50 pieces per style and colour — salesman sample. A finished sample run, so a brand can show, photograph or pre-sell a style before committing to production. Cotton men’s adult boxer briefs and briefs. This is the floor, and it is a hard floor: the smallest quantity that can be quoted, and nothing below it is accepted.
- 2,000 pieces per style and colour — standard production. The published floor for men’s and women’s underwear, 3,600 for kids’ underwear — and a floor in the ideal case: one fabric already running, few colours, a simple style. Sleepwear and pyjama sets are published from 600 sets per style and colour, sport bras from 3,600 pieces. Neither figure is a promise either.
Both figures are per style and colour, not per order. There is one quantity below 2,000 pieces, the 50-piece salesman sample; 2,000 is where the standard programme begins, provided the material allows it.
Those figures are set by the material, not by the sewing line. Fabric is knitted and dyed in lots per colour, so four colourways are four commitments, and dyed-to-match elastic, transfers and labels carry their own minimums. On a small kids’ style with several colours and a busy print, a mill may want more than 2,000 pieces per style and colour before it will run the fabric at all — and even then it depends on what is already on the machine. That is why the numbers on this page open a quotation rather than close an order: send the style, the colour count and the fabric, and the minimum is confirmed for that programme.
Nothing below 50 pieces per style and colour is quoted, and nothing below it is accepted. At that size a job stops being a production run and becomes a sampling exercise, and it is priced as one. Fifty pieces is not a softer version of a bulk order: it is a different product with a different purpose.
Which is worth saying plainly. A small quantity is not a supply channel; it is a way of getting a style into the market. A brand needs something physical to show a buyer, photograph for a listing or pre-sell before committing to a programme, and a 50-piece run delivers exactly that. At this size the order is promotional in character, and no supply relationship should be planned on it.
There is no channel between the sample and the programme. A run below 2,000 pieces per style and colour is not quoted at all, whatever the colour position or the pattern; the sample exists to settle fit, colour and construction before the programme starts.
Why the floor is 50 pieces and not five
A garment order is not one continuous process. At the front end there are three steps that cost the same whether the run is 50 pieces or 20,000: a full dye bath for the colour, a machine set-up for the seams and hems, and a cutting spread for the marker. None of those three steps shrinks with the order.
What changes at the end is only the number of finished pieces sitting off the line. Divide one set-up cost across 50 pieces and it is heavy on every piece; divide the same cost across 2,000 and it is close to invisible. That difference is the whole reason a small run costs more per piece. It is not a small-order surcharge and it is not a margin decision, so there is no version of the arithmetic in which 5 or 20 pieces is priced like bulk.
Unitex has not published a unit price at any quantity. A number attributed to us without a stated quantity, fabric and Incoterm is somebody else’s estimate, not a Unitex quotation.
Why the programme minimum is 2,000 pieces
The minimum is a set-up threshold, not a negotiating position. The fixed front end of production — a dye bath, the machine set-up, the cutting spread, the pre-production sample — costs the same whether the marker yields 50 garments or 2,000, and 2,000 pieces is the point at which that cost stops dominating the unit price. Three things decide whether a given programme can be quoted at that figure:
- Colour. A colour already running, or a stock colour, avoids a dedicated dye bath. A new colour brings in the mill’s minimum buy for that fabric.
- Pattern. A stock block pattern keeps sampling to 7–10 days. A new pattern, with its own fit rounds, pushes that out and adds development cost.
- Size split. 2,000 pieces across four sizes is a different run from 2,000 pieces across ten, because of the marker and the grading.
So the figure is quoted per programme rather than read off a price list. Send the style reference, the colour, the size breakdown and your needed date, and what comes back is either a quotation at the standard minimum or a straight answer on what would have to change to get there.
Certification and inspection do not scale with order size
The amfori BSCI social audit and the OEKO-TEX Standard 100 fabric certificate sit with the partner factory and the fabric mill, not with the size of your order. The same compliance therefore applies to a 50-piece sample as to a 20,000-piece programme. Inspection follows AQL sampling under ISO 2859-1, and the same standard is applied whether the goods run at one partner factory or across three.
What we will not do
- Quote or accept any order below 50 pieces per style and colour, whatever the reason given.
- Present a small-run unit price as though it were a bulk price.
- Supply single pieces, or fill a retail order below the minimums on this page.
- Publish a unit price list, because the number moves with fabric, quantity and delivery terms.
How to get a quotation
Send a style reference — a sketch, a photo, or a garment you would like matched — together with the quantity, colour and size range you are working to. If you have a target price in mind, tell us and we will say plainly whether it is achievable at that quantity. Email [email protected] or message WhatsApp +86 186 5081 3853.
Related pages
- Salesman sample programme — 50 pieces per style and colour
- Is Unitex expensive? MOQ and price are two different questions
- Low MOQ underwear manufacturing in China: the cost economics
- Underwear MOQ and minimum order quantity explained
- Underwear order cost & MOQ estimator
- OEM and ODM underwear capability
Unitex Underwear is the brand of Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd., an underwear sourcing and supply-chain company based in Xiamen, Fujian Province, in south-east China. We work through long-term BSCI-audited partner factories using OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certified fabrics. We do not own or operate production facilities, and we state that plainly. If you arrived here searching for an underwear manufacturer in China that will take a short run, this page is the honest version of what we can do at that quantity.
· Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd. — OEM & ODM underwear sourcing partner
| Supplier | Unitex Underwear (Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd.) — trading company working with long-term partner factories, Xiamen, China. |
|---|---|
| Business model | Sourcing and supply-chain company working with long-term BSCI-audited partner factories; not a factory owner |
| Minimum quantity quoted or accepted — salesman sample | 50 pcs per style and colour (cotton men’s adult boxer briefs and briefs only) — the hard floor, nothing below it is taken |
| Standard production — underwear | 2,000 pcs per style and colour |
| Standard production — sleepwear and pyjama sets | 600 sets per style and colour |
| Standard production — sport bras | 3,600 pcs per style and colour |
| Price basis at small quantities | Quoted per order; a small run is never priced at a bulk unit price |
| Published unit price | None — Unitex has not published a unit price at any quantity |
| Sampling lead time | 7–10 days on a stock block pattern; 30 days where fabric, print or trim must be developed, counted from colour confirmation |
| Bulk production lead time | 45–60 days after sample approval |
| Payment | T/T in full, received before the sample goes into work; 50% of the sample fee credited against that style’s bulk order once it reaches US$10,000 |
| Freight | FOB Xiamen standard; CIF, CNF or DDP on request. Sample freight at the buyer’s account |
| Certifications evidenced at partner sites | amfori BSCI; OEKO-TEX Standard 100 |
| Inspection standard | AQL sampling under ISO 2859-1, applied at the same level whether the goods run at one partner factory or several |
Buyer checklist
- Ask for a unit price at your actual quantity, not at the supplier’s advertised minimum — those are two different numbers.
- Ask whether your colour needs its own dye bath, and whether the mill’s minimum buy for that fabric is inside the quote.
- Ask whether the run uses a stock block pattern or a new pattern: that decides both the price and the lead time.
- Confirm which production site will run the order, and request its current social-audit report.
- Check that every quote states the quantity, the fabric and the Incoterm — a price without those three is not comparable to any other price.
- Treat any small-quantity offer as promotional rather than as a supply channel: it exists to put a style in front of buyers, and its terms do not carry over to a bulk programme.
Unitex Underwear (Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd.)
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.