Once you can read a cost structure, you stop asking "why is theirs cheaper?" and start asking "what did they leave out?" The cost of a finished garment breaks down into roughly five parts:
1. Fabric: the biggest line — and the most elastic
On the same dress pattern, plain polyester and real silk can differ five- to tenfold in fabric cost. Fabric is more than its composition: it is also GSM, yarn count and dyeing method. Two "chiffons" 20 GSM apart drape and sheer out like two completely different materials. If a quote says only "chiffon" with no composition or GSM, ask for the spec.
2. Trims: small money, but they decide how premium it feels
Zips, buttons, lining, woven labels, hangtags, shoulder pads, elastic — a few cents here, a few units of currency there, yet together they can account for 10–20% of cost. Cheap quotes save money right here: a thin lining instead of a proper one, a plastic zip instead of metal. When a garment "feels off but you can't say why", it is usually the trims that have been downgraded.
3. Stitching time and workmanship: the core of the price gap
This is the most common reason three factories quote three different prices. Here is how a set of typical operations affect stitching time per unit:
| Operation | Impact on unit cost | What skipping it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| Plain lockstitch sewing (flat machine) | Baseline | — |
| Full lining + pressed-open seams | +30–60% stitching time | Rough interior, snagging when worn |
| Hand beading / hand embroidery | Tens to hundreds of RMB per piece | Cheap-looking decoration, beads falling off |
| 3D cutting / moulding & shrinking (blocking) | Needs senior pattern-makers; stitching time doubles | Poor fit, loose silhouette |
| Piece-by-piece pressing + 100% final inspection | +10–20% | Creases at dispatch, loose threads, defective units shipped |
The "savings" at a low-price factory almost always come from the right-hand column of this table.
4. MOQ: scale spreads everything
Cutting 500 pieces in a single pass versus 50 pieces across ten passes changes fabric utilisation and machine changeover time completely. A 50-piece run costs more per unit — that is the law of scale, not a greedy factory. Conversely, if a factory quotes you a 1,000-piece price on a 50-piece order, be wary: they are probably making the money back somewhere else (fabric, workmanship).
5. Hidden costs: what a cheap quote never mentions
- Communication and rework: no direct line to the pattern-maker, a fee for every revision — and the back-and-forth eats all your time.
- Quality cost: without PP sample approval and first-piece approval, bulk production goes wrong far more often, and you pay the return freight.
- After-sales cost: on a cheap quote with no written after-sales terms, one bad batch is a 100% loss.
- Compliance cost: export fabric with no test reports gets held at customs for random inspection, and the loss dwarfs whatever you saved.
Next time a quote looks "expensive", take it apart first: where was the fabric upgraded, where is the extra workmanship, where do the lines of responsibility sit. Once it is open, you'll find expensive has its reasons — and cheap has its price.