Reading a Wholesale Quote for Jackets & Outerwear
By The Velocity Wear Team
A jacket quote has three layers: the per-piece price for the garment, the decoration and finishing applied to it, and the one-off costs of the job. Comparing suppliers means comparing all three, because a low unit price with separate setup, labelling and freight lines can total more than a higher all-in figure. Ask what the unit price includes before you compare anything.
What is inside a jacket unit price?
The garment itself: fabric, cutting, sewing, lining, zips, trims and finishing, at the quantity you asked for. Jackets are quoted per job rather than from a fixed list price, since the range runs from an unlined coach jacket to a lined varsity with contrast sleeves and those are not the same manufacturing job at all. Decoration may or may not be inside the unit figure depending on how the quote is laid out, and that is the first thing to establish. The full range sits on the wholesale jackets page.
Which lines sit outside the unit price?
Typically setup for each decoration placement, the £150 sample fee, custom woven neck labels, tear-out labels, swing tags and packaging, freight, and any duty or import charges at the destination. Individual personalisation such as names is also usually separate, because it is decorated one garment at a time rather than as a batch. None of those are hidden charges; they are simply separate lines, and the useful question is not whether they exist but whether they are on the paper in front of you.
How should the quantity tiers be read?
As a ladder rather than a single price. Tiers sit at 50 to 99, 100 to 249, 250 to 499, 500 to 999 and 1,000 plus, and the discount reaches up to 35% measured against the 50-piece price. Ask for the price at your quantity and at the next tier up, because the gap sometimes makes the larger order cost little more in total. The published structure is on the pricing page, and what to do with those numbers once you have them is worked through in budgeting a bulk jacket order.
What questions close the remaining gaps?
Ask what the unit price includes and excludes. Ask how many setups are being charged and for which placements. Ask what the lead time is measured from, since 10 to 15 working days runs from artwork approval and not from the order date. Ask what the price is at the next tier. Ask what currency the invoice will be in, as invoicing is available in seven. And ask what fabric weight is being quoted, because that is where two apparently identical quotes usually diverge, a point explored in GSM explained for bulk jackets.
Write the answers down next to the quote rather than keeping them in an email thread. Six weeks later, when the invoice arrives and somebody queries a line, the note is what settles it in a minute instead of an afternoon. It is also what makes the next quote faster to read, because you already know which questions the first one left open and can ask them at the enquiry stage rather than after the numbers come back.
