What an export buyer checks before placing a garment order with a new factory

You sent a sample abroad. The merchandiser stopped replying. Before placing a first order, a sourcing team is likely to check three things ahead of price. How you answer a tech pack query shows whether you read the specification. How disciplined your first sample is shows whether bulk will match it. And how you describe lead time risk shows whether your ship date can be believed. Weak on these, a factory can be ruled out quietly, whatever it quotes. Strong on them, it is more likely to earn the price conversation.

Registrations, compliance audits and a catalogue matter too, and our post on how to get export orders covers them. This post is about what happens after the buyer has sent you a tech pack.

Why the first exchange carries so much

In many sourcing teams, price narrows the list late. Before that, the merchandiser is asking whether this factory will cost them time through rework, missed approvals or a late ship date that ends in air freight. That is the writer's reading of how a first exchange is judged, not a rule, and it is worth asking a merchandiser you know whether it matches theirs. A buyer has no history with you, so it judges you from a few emails and a parcel.

How you answer a tech pack query

The tech pack is the buyer's instruction: sketch, measurements by size, fabric and trims, construction, labels and packing. No tech pack is perfect. A sleeve length may not match the grading, a trim may be unavailable in India, a fabric composition may shrink beyond tolerance after washing.

A factory that replies "Noted, will do as per tech pack" has told the buyer it has not read it. A factory that sends a short, numbered query sheet within a day or two of receiving it looks like one that will catch problems before bulk. Each query names the page and point, states the problem, and offers a suggested fix for the buyer to accept or reject.

Keep the queries to real problems. Twenty questions about things the tech pack already answers look worse than none.

Sample discipline: what the first proto tells them

The first proto sample is an audition for bulk. The sourcing team measures it against the size chart, checks the fabric and trims against the specification, and reads what came with it.

Send the sample with a measurement sheet showing specification, actual and difference for each point. Add a note listing anything that differs from the tech pack and why: a substitute trim, a fabric that was not available in time. Attach a fabric swatch with the composition and weight. Label the sample with style number, size, round and date.

A sample that matches but arrives with no sheet leaves the buyer to do your checking. A sample with one deviation, declared and explained, earns more trust than a perfect one that cannot be traced.

Lead time, and the risks you name before they ask

"Sixty days" is not a lead time a buyer can plan against. Break it down: fabric (greige, dyeing or printing, testing), trims, cutting and sewing, finishing and packing, inspection, and the handover to the forwarder. Then name the risks that could move it. Dyed fabric lots can fail shade approval. Festival months can thin out your sewing lines when workers travel home. A trim from overseas has its own lead time.

Naming these does not frighten a serious buyer. It tells them you have run bulk before. A factory that promises a short, round number and then misses it is a story many sourcing managers have already lived through.

Before the first sample leaves

Run this check on every first sample for a new export buyer:

• Query sheet sent and every answer recorded against the tech pack
• Measurement sheet with specification, actual and difference by point
• Deviations listed, each with a reason
• Fabric swatch with composition, weight and supplier reference
• Sample tagged with style, size, round and date
• Lead time broken into stages, with named risks
• Sample cost and further rounds agreed in writing
• Courier tracking sent to the merchandiser the day it ships

For example: a dress unit in Okhla

Take an invented unit in the Okhla industrial area of Delhi making women's woven dresses for domestic brands. It is trying for its first direct export buyer, a UK online retailer that works through a buying office in Gurugram.

On its first try, the unit replied to the tech pack with "noted". The proto came back with the shoulder 1.5 cm over tolerance, a substitute button nobody had mentioned, and a lead time of "60 days" with no breakdown. The merchandiser stopped replying.

For the next buyer, a merchandising lead hired for the purpose took charge of the first exchange. The lead sent five numbered queries, including a warning that the specified viscose crepe would shrink beyond tolerance unless pre-washed. The proto went with a measurement sheet and a note on one trim substitution. The lead time was split into stages, with the Diwali weeks named as a risk and a plan for them. The buyer asked for a second round. Then it asked for a costing, which came in above its target, so the first order was a trial lot of a few hundred pieces and not a season's programme. The extra sampling round cost the unit about ₹22,000 in fabric and courier, and the pre-wash added a week the buyer grumbled about. The unit, the buyer and the figures are invented.

When this effort is not worth it

A trader asking for a rate on stock lots, with no tech pack, is not judging you on samples. Answer the rate and move on. And if a buyer wants a style your machines and skills cannot make well, no query sheet will save the bulk order. Say no early.

For buyers who are worth it, show the same discipline early. Export is one of several routes for a garment unit, and the textile and garment manufacturing page compares them with selling at home.

Rehearse on the last tech pack you received

Pull out the last tech pack a buyer sent you and write the query sheet you should have sent. Then compare it with what you actually replied. Finding those buyers in the first place is the work of export and international market development. If you want help preparing your factory for export buyers, tell us what you need.