How to Run an Apparel Tender That Gets Comparable Quotes
By The Velocity Wear Team
An apparel tender only produces comparable quotes if every supplier is pricing the same thing: the same blank, the same fabric weight, the same decoration method, the same placement and the same size spread at the same quantity. Send a loose brief and you receive three prices for three different products, and the cheapest will usually be whoever quoted the lightest garment.
Most Tenders Are Lost Before They Are Sent
A brief that says "400 branded polos, please quote" invites every respondent to make their own assumptions about fabric, decoration and finishing. Each of them will choose the assumption that makes their price look best. That is rational of them and useless to you.
The fix is unglamorous. Decide the product first. The tender then becomes a pricing exercise rather than a design exercise, and you have removed the main reason apparel tenders end in disappointment.
Write the Specification, Then Ask for Prices
Your specification does not need to be long, but it must be unambiguous: garment style and fabric weight, colourway, decoration method, logo dimensions in millimetres, placement measured from a fixed seam, and the size spread you expect. If you already keep a uniform specification document, the tender pack is largely a copy of it.
Where you genuinely want supplier input, say so and ring-fence it. "We are open to alternative fabric weights. Please quote our specified garment first and any alternative separately" gets you a comparable baseline plus the benefit of their experience.
Ask for Quantity Breaks and a Reorder Price
A single-quantity quote hides the shape of the pricing. Ask for three quantity levels, and separately for a reorder price at your likely top-up volume. This matters because setup is absorbed once and then not again, so the supplier who looks expensive on the first run can easily be the cheapest across three years.
Bulk discounts on apparel are substantial, reaching up to around 40% as quantities rise, so where the breaks sit relative to your real volumes changes the answer materially. Modelling that properly is the difference between a tender and a guess.
Separate Setup From Unit Cost
Ask every respondent to itemise setup. Screen printing carries a setup cost per colour, which makes a four-colour design behave completely differently at 50 pieces than at 500. DTF carries no per-colour setup and handles detailed, full-colour artwork, which makes it strong on shorter runs. Embroidery has a digitising step paid once and reused on every later order of that logo.
If setup is buried inside the unit price, you cannot see any of that, and you will misjudge every reorder you place afterwards.
“"A quote you cannot take apart is not a quote. It is a number with a supplier's name on it."”
What Belongs in the Tender Pack
Keep it to what a supplier needs in order to price accurately and what you need in order to compare fairly.
- Vector artwork, or the best files you hold, plus a clear statement of your brand colours and any thread references already in use.
- Garment specification: style, fabric weight, colourway, cut options and the full size spread with quantities against each size.
- Decoration detail: method, logo dimensions in millimetres, and placement measured from a named seam rather than described as centred.
- Volumes at three quantity levels, plus expected annual reorder volume and typical reorder size.
- Delivery requirement, including whether garments ship to one address or several sites, and the date the kit has to be on site.
Score Things You Can Verify
Price, minimum order quantity, sampling process, size range and whether the supplier will hold your artwork for reorders are all checkable. Vaguer criteria tend to reward whoever writes the most confident prose. On lead times, note that credible suppliers give qualitative guidance rather than promises, because production starts at artwork approval and not at order placement.
Sample Before You Commit the Volume
Order a small live run from your preferred supplier before awarding everything. Not a swatch, an actual decorated garment in your actual colourway. This is where you find out whether the embroidery digitising coped with your small text, whether the print colour reads as your brand colour, and whether the fabric feels like what you thought you specified. A free Design Studio preview is a good sanity check on layout, but it is not a substitute for holding the finished piece.
Award Without Painting Yourself Into a Corner
Long exclusive commitments rarely serve apparel buyers well, because requirements change more often than contract terms do. Award the volume, keep the specification document under your own control, and make sure your artwork files remain yours. Switching later then becomes an inconvenience rather than a project.