From sample to first lot

Your first private label order is decided long before the lot is made: in the tech pack, the labels and the sample you sign. This is the sequence from first sample to first reorder, and what to check at each step.

What is a private label order?

It is an order for garments made to your specification and finished with your brand’s labels and tags. Unlike ready stock, it is produced for you, so every decision about fabric, fit and finish is yours to make and approve.

That brings more steps than buying ready stock: a tech pack, samples, label artwork and approvals. Each step exists to stop a costly surprise in bulk, and each is cheaper to get right than to correct once the lot is cut and sewn.

The terms are used loosely. Here, private label means garments made to your specification; putting your label on ready stock is a simpler job, often called white label.

We produce private label through partner units: we handle the sampling, sourcing and approvals with you, and the units make the garments. The steps below apply whoever makes yours, and our private label clothing page sets out how we run them.

What should you decide before sampling?

Your price, your channel and your range, because each shapes the sample. A unit can make almost anything; the useful question is what can be made, labelled and packed at a cost that leaves you a margin at your selling price.

• Selling price. Work back from the price your customer will pay to the cost per piece you can afford, before choosing fabric and trims.
• Channel. Marketplaces, your own storefront and wholesale buyers each ask for different labels, tags and packing.
• Range. Fewer styles in more depth are easier to sample, check and reorder than a wide first range.
• Sizes and colours. The size run and colours you will actually stock, with quantities for each.
• Timing. The season or sale date you are aiming at, and how much slack you have if a sample needs another round. If you are aiming at Diwali or a marketplace sale event, our guide to festive sale planning helps you work back from the date.

Write these down with the first enquiry. They let the unit propose fabrics and trims that fit the cost, rather than sampling something you then cannot afford to make.

If the brand itself is still taking shape, with no name, channel or price point settled, start with our guide on how to start a clothing brand in India.

What goes into a tech pack?

A tech pack is the written specification a garment is made from: drawings, measurements, materials and finishing instructions. For a first order, a short, complete tech pack serves you better than a long one with gaps.

• Flat sketches. Front and back, with seams, pockets, closures and any print or embroidery positions marked.
• Measurement chart. Each point of measure, such as chest, length, sleeve and waist, for every size, with the tolerance allowed.
• Fabric. Composition, construction, weight and finish, with a swatch or a reference.
• Trims. Thread, buttons, zips, elastic and drawcords, each with its size and colour.
• Artwork. Print and embroidery files, with dimensions and placement.
• Labels and packing. Every label and tag, its position, and how each piece is folded and packed.
• Colours and quantities. Each colourway, with quantities by size.

If you have no patterns yet, a garment whose fit you like is a fair starting point: it can be measured to begin the chart. Number and date every version of the tech pack, so everyone works from the same one.

The measurement chart matters most. Fabric and colour are visible at a glance; a sleeve two centimetres short is not, until customers start sending pieces back. Give every point of measure a tolerance, so a check has a clear pass or fail.

Which labels and hangtags do you need?

At minimum: a brand label, a size label, a care label giving fibre content and washing instructions, and a hangtag or pack carrying the declarations your sales channel requires. Order them early, because a finished lot cannot be packed without them.

• Brand label. Woven for durability or printed for softness, sewn at the neck or the side seam.
• Size label. Separate or combined with the brand label, and matching the measurement chart.
• Care label. Fibre composition and care instructions, sewn where it will survive washing.
• Hangtag. Brand, style code, size, colour and MRP, plus a barcode where your channel requires one.
• Pack. Polybag or box, with any sticker that carries the retail declarations.

Use the same size names on the label, the hangtag, the size chart and the listing. A piece labelled L that the size chart calls 40 is a return waiting to happen.

For packaged goods sold online, Legal Metrology rules require declarations on the pack: MRP, net quantity, the name and address of the manufacturer, packer or importer, month and year of manufacture or import, consumer-care details, and country of origin for imports.

Marketplaces ask for the same on the listing, apart from the month and year.

Decide with your adviser whose name and address go on that declaration, whether yours, the unit’s or both, before the tags are printed. Check your brand name for trademark conflicts before you order labels in quantity, too: renaming after printing is expensive.

In what order should you approve?

Fabric and colour first, then fit, then a size set, then the pre-production sample with real labels and trims, and only then bulk. Each approval is in writing, against the current version of the tech pack.

1. Fabric and colour. Approve the fabric swatch, and the colour on a lab dip: a small dyed sample matched to your colour reference.
2. Fit sample. One piece in your base size, tried on a person or a form and measured against the chart.
3. Size set. One piece in each size, measured to confirm the grading between sizes.
4. Pre-production sample. The garment as it will be made, in bulk fabric with real trims, labels and packing. This is the reference the lot is checked against.
5. Bulk. Production starts only once the pre-production sample is signed.

Give feedback on each sample in one written list, against the points of measure and the tech pack, with photographs. Mark each sample approved, approved with changes, or rejected, so nobody has to guess whether the next step can start.

Keep a signed pre-production sample on each side. Changes after this point cost time, and sometimes fabric, so make them before you sign rather than after. Our sampling and sourcing work runs this sequence with you in Delhi.

The pre-production sample is the promise the lot is checked against.

What quality checks happen before packing?

At least two: one early in production, while faults can still be corrected, and one on the finished lot before it is packed, against the pre-production sample and the measurement chart.

• Early check. The first pieces off the line: measurements, stitching, label placement and print position.
• Final check. A random sample drawn across sizes and colours, checked for measurements within tolerance, workmanship, stains and loose threads, correct labels and tags, and the right assortment in each pack.

Defects are usually graded critical, major or minor, and an AQL (acceptable quality limit) table sets how many pieces to inspect and how many defects of each grade a lot may carry. Agree grades and limits in writing before production, not at the final check.

Agree, too, what happens to pieces that fail: reworked, replaced or credited. Ask for the inspection report with photographs, and keep it with the tech pack for the reorder.

What a first order costs beyond the pieces

More than the per-piece price. Sampling, label and tag runs, packing materials, inspection, freight and GST each appear somewhere, and some carry minimum quantities of their own.

• Sampling. Samples and revisions may be charged, and on some terms adjusted against the bulk order; ask which.
• Fabric. Fabric is often sold in minimum runs, so a small first order can pay for more fabric than it uses.
• Labels and tags. Woven labels and printed tags come in minimum runs too, which can exceed what a first order needs.
• Packing. Polybags, stickers, boxes, and the marking of bales or cartons.
• Inspection. Checks during and after production, and who carries out and pays for each.
• Freight. Quoted separately; ours reads “Freight to be confirmed”.
• GST. On its own line, at a rate that follows the sale value of each finished piece. Our article on GST on readymade garments explains the split.

Ask for every one of these on the quotation, and request our wholesale garment rate card to compare like with like.

When should you plan the reorder?

Before the first lot sells through. A repeat takes time to make even when nothing changes, so set your reorder point from your rate of sale and the time a repeat takes, not from the day stock runs out.

• Keep the tech pack, signed samples, label artwork and fabric references on file.
• Approve the shade of each new fabric lot against the original; dye lots vary.
• Adjust the size ratio from what sold and what came back.
• Fold returns and customer feedback into a new tech pack version, numbered and dated.
• Ask whether the minimum quantity for a repeat differs from the first order.

If the range sells online, the tech pack is also the source of your size chart and product details. Good catalogue and listing content starts from the same measurements, and a D2C storefront lets you sell the range under your own name.

How we run a first private label lot

We take a private label lot from tech pack to packed, labelled pieces, produced through partner units, with sampling and sourcing handled in the same conversation. You approve each stage in writing, and the packed lot is handed to your transporter.

That holds for brands anywhere in India: sampling and sourcing happen in Delhi, and your transporter carries the lot to your city, whether Bengaluru, Kolkata or Chennai.

Tell us what you want to make, in what fabric and roughly what quantity, and we will come back with the questions that shape the first sample. Read about our wholesale garments, or send us your brief.