Why Two Suppliers Quote Differently for the Same Garment

A buyer sends the same tech pack to three suppliers and gets back three numbers that do not agree by any margin that looks like ordinary negotiation. One quote sits comfortably below the other two. The instinct is to pick the cheapest, or negotiate the highest down toward it. Both moves assume the quotes describe the same thing priced differently, and that assumption is usually wrong.

Quotes on the same style rarely share a common scope. Different suppliers read the same tech pack and silently fill in different gaps: a different fabric weight where the spec was loose, a different Incoterm, a different wastage allowance, a different assumption about who supplies trims. The figure at the bottom of the page looks comparable because it sits in one currency, but it is frequently a total of different things. Comparing it directly is comparing apples to a fruit basket.

What Makes Quotes Non-Comparable?

The starting point is scope: does the price include fabric and trims, or is it a make-only (CMT) charge on materials the buyer supplies separately? A CMT quote will always look lower than a full-package quote for the identical garment, because it quietly excludes the largest cost line in the build. Confirm in writing whether the price is CMT, full-package with buyer-nominated fabric, or full-package with the supplier sourcing everything.

The same confusion runs through testing, inspection and packaging. One supplier may build pre-shipment inspection and lab testing into its number as standard practice; another may leave those out, assuming the buyer will arrange them, or not have been asked. A quote that looks ten percent cheaper because it omits testing has not saved anything; it has moved the cost into a later invoice. What belongs inside an honest quote is easier to judge once you have seen how a garment's FOB price is built up; this piece assumes that structure and asks why suppliers apply it differently.

Is the Incoterm Doing Some of the Work?

One of the most common reasons three quotes disagree has nothing to do with factory efficiency and everything to do with the Incoterm each happened to quote on. An ex-works (EXW) price covers the goods made available at the factory gate: no inland freight, no export clearance, none of the cost or risk of getting them onto a vessel. An FOB price covers all of that and hands the goods over loaded at the port. A DDP price goes further still, including freight, duty and delivery to the buyer's door.

Line up an EXW figure against an FOB figure from another supplier and the EXW number will look meaningfully cheaper for the same garment, purely because it is doing less. It is not a better price; it is a smaller scope of service dressed as one. The fix is mechanical: ask every supplier to quote on the same Incoterm and named place, and if they will not, normalise the figures yourself before comparing. The mechanics of each term are set out in our guide to Incoterms for apparel importers; the Incoterm alone can account for a large share of an apparent price gap that has nothing to do with cost efficiency.

Are the Suppliers Assuming the Same Fabric?

A tech pack can state a fabric composition and still leave room for three suppliers to price three different cloths. Yarn count, GSM, weave or knit construction, finish, and whether the cotton is certified or conventional are all points where a loose specification lets a supplier fill the gap with whatever is cheapest to source, without technically contradicting the brief.

GSM is the biggest lever, because a small drop in fabric weight reduces cost on every metre across the whole order. The mechanics of how weight moves cost and hand-feel are covered in our guide to fabric GSM. Yarn count works the same way: a coarser or open-end yarn substituted for a finer ring-spun or combed count feels and drapes differently while nominally matching the same fibre content, explained in our guide to cotton yarn counts. Certified cotton commonly carries a real premium over conventional cotton of the same specification, and a silent substitution against a spec that implied certification will look cheaper for a reason unrelated to efficiency.

The durable fix is to specify fabric tightly enough that there is no gap to fill: named GSM with a tolerance, yarn count, spinning method, finish and fibre sourcing standard, all stated on the tech pack. Where that precision is not possible before quoting, ask each supplier to state, in writing, exactly what fabric it has priced against.

Do the Quantity and Colourway Assumptions Match?

Unit cost falls as order quantity rises, largely because fixed costs (sampling, cutting setup, minimum dye lot charges) spread across more pieces. A quote built on an assumed five thousand units and one built on an assumed two thousand units will differ for a completely legitimate reason that has nothing to do with one supplier being more competitive.

Colourway count moves the number the same way. Each additional colour typically means a separate dye lot, its own minimum, and its own lab dip approval cycle, so a quote built against three colourways looks cheaper per piece than an identical quote built against eight, even at the same total quantity. If the request for quotation did not state a firm quantity and colourway split, each supplier has likely assumed the split that flatters its own number. Confirm the exact breakdown every quote was built against before treating the totals as comparable.

What Do Wastage and Consumption Assumptions Hide?

Fabric consumption per garment, how much cloth the marker uses once cutting layout and wastage are accounted for, is one of the easiest lines to understate and one of the hardest to check without seeing the marker itself. A supplier that assumes optimistic marker efficiency, or applies a thin wastage allowance for a fabric type that generates more loss in practice (checks, stripes, directional prints, delicate fabrics prone to flaws), produces a lower fabric cost line for the identical garment and identical fabric price.

This does not necessarily mean the supplier is quoting dishonestly; it may run a tighter marker. But it is also a common place for a number to be quietly optimised to win the quote, with real consumption reasserting itself once bulk cutting begins, as a price revision or a shortfall in finished pieces against the fabric ordered. Ask each supplier to state consumption per garment, marker-based, with wastage shown separately, not one blended fabric figure.

What Belongs in the Trims and Packaging Line?

Trims and packaging are individually small and collectively significant, an easy place for a quote to look tidier than it is. Whether the price includes main labels, care labels, hangtags, the approved button or zip, polybags, cartons and any retailer packaging requirements should be stated explicitly. A quote that lumps trims into one round figure has often left something out, to be itemised as an extra once the order is confirmed.

Are Testing, Inspection and Payment Terms Priced In?

Two further items rarely appear as separate lines on a first quote, and both change the real cost of a relationship. The first is testing and inspection: whether lab testing and pre-shipment inspection are included, billed separately, or not budgeted at all. A mill test report confirming a bulk fabric lot matches the approved specification is not optional on any programme that matters; how to read one is covered in our guide to mill test reports.

The second is payment terms, a genuine cost of money, not a formality. A quote assuming a smaller advance and a longer credit period before the balance falls due is, in effect, asking the supplier to finance more of the order, and that cost is either absorbed into the price or shows up as pressure elsewhere. Comparing quotes without confirming both priced against the same payment structure is comparing figures that never answered the same question; the trade-offs across instruments are set out in our guide to payment terms in textile trade.

How Do You Normalise Quotes Before Comparing Them?

The practical answer is to force every quote onto the same basis before the numbers go anywhere near a comparison sheet.

Variable	Why it moves the price	What to ask the supplier
Scope (CMT vs full-package)	Full-package includes fabric and trims; CMT does not	Is this CMT, or full-package including fabric and trims?
Incoterm	EXW omits freight and export handling; FOB and DDP add progressively more	What Incoterm and named place is this price quoted on?
Fabric GSM and construction	A lighter or coarser fabric costs less for the same nominal composition	What exact GSM, yarn count and construction have you priced against?
Fibre sourcing standard	Certified cotton typically carries a premium over conventional	Is this cotton certified (organic/BCI/recycled) or conventional?
Order quantity	Fixed costs spread thinner over larger runs	What total and per-style quantity is this price based on?
Colourway count	Each colourway adds a dye lot and its own minimum	How many colourways, and at what split?
Consumption and wastage	Optimistic marker efficiency understates real fabric cost	What is the consumption per garment, and the wastage percentage?
Trims and packaging	Easily lumped into one figure, then itemised later as extras	Which specific trims, labels and packaging are included?
Testing and inspection	Often excluded and billed separately, or simply skipped	Is testing and pre-shipment inspection included, against what standard?
Payment terms	Financing cost shifts between buyer and supplier	What deposit, balance timing and instrument does this assume?

Working through this table with each supplier is slower than eyeballing three numbers on a spreadsheet, but it is the only way to know whether the comparison means anything. A buyer running a full-package programme needs every one of these lines pinned down; a buyer running contract manufacturing against its own nominated fabric can drop the fibre and consumption rows but still needs the rest confirmed.

What Does a Suspiciously Low Quote Usually Mean?

Once scope, Incoterm, fabric, quantity, wastage, trims, testing and payment terms are held constant, a low quote left standing is worth taking seriously; it may reflect real efficiency or a factory hungry for the order at a fair margin. But a quote that stops being competitive once every assumption is pinned down was never cheap. It was a thinner offer wearing the same total.

A suspiciously low number that survives no scrutiny usually resolves into one of three things: a lighter or lower-grade fabric than the one the buyer believes was approved, a construction shortcut that reduces the work content without the buyer noticing until the garment is handled, or costs left off the quote that reappear later as claims, chargebacks and rework. None show up as a line item at quoting stage. They surface months later, in a quality report or a returned order, well after the saving has been spent several times over covering them. This is the dynamic set out in our piece on the true cost of chasing the cheapest quote; normalising the quote properly is how to catch it before the order is placed, not after.

A supplier confident in its own number generally welcomes this level of questioning. One who resists itemising scope, fabric, consumption or payment assumptions is telling you something about the number, even if it never says so directly.

A Short FAQ

One quote is thirty percent lower than the others. Should we just take it? Not before normalising. A gap that size is more often explained by scope, Incoterm or a lighter fabric than by one supplier being more efficient.

Is it reasonable to ask a supplier to itemise a quote instead of giving one figure? Yes. A supplier confident in its pricing usually does this without resistance; reluctance to itemise fabric, trims and payment assumptions is itself useful information.

Should every supplier quote on the same Incoterm to be comparable? Ideally. If they quote differently, convert every figure onto one common basis, commonly FOB, before comparing.

What is the single biggest driver of quote spread on the same tech pack? Fabric assumptions and scope, what the price does and does not include, account for most of the gap, more than genuine differences in factory efficiency or margin.

The Practical Takeaway

Three quotes on the same tech pack are rarely three prices for the same thing; they are usually three different sets of assumptions about scope, Incoterm, fabric, quantity, wastage, trims, testing and payment terms, each expressed as a single confident number. Comparing them properly is not negotiation, it is normalisation: pinning every variable to the same basis before the totals sit next to each other. Done properly, this closes most of an apparent price gap and leaves behind the part that is real, which is the only part worth negotiating on.