You have a design, a brand, and a sales plan. What you don't have is a clear map of how a sketch becomes 300 finished pieces on a pallet. This guide walks the route a custom activewear order actually takes — from the files you send us to the boxes that ship to your warehouse.
Two kinds of numbers appear in a buyer's first order. Production numbers — capacity, tolerances, pass rates — are printed here, because they describe the floor itself. Commercial numbers — the order minimum, sample fee, and lead-time windows — are policy, so we keep them in exactly one place, the FAQ, and this guide points there once instead of repeating figures that could drift out of date.
What this guide covers in about 7 minutes
Five decisions shape your first run: which production path you choose, what you put in the tech-pack, how the sample comes back, what bulk costs in time and minimums, and how quality is measured. We cover each in order, the same order your project moves through.
Read it once before you write your brief. It will save a round of back-and-forth emails and shorten the gap between inquiry and approved sample.
OEM vs ODM: which path fits your brand
OEM means cut-and-sew from your own design. You own the pattern, the fabric spec, and the construction. You send a tech-pack; we build exactly what it describes. This path suits brands with a defined aesthetic and the design resources to document it.
ODM starts from one of our proven blocks. You change the fabric, color, logo, and trims, but keep a pattern that already fits and ships. It reaches market faster and skips most of the pattern-development risk. Newer brands often start ODM, then move to OEM as their line matures.
Neither path is cheaper by default. OEM gives you full control; ODM gives you speed. Tell us which one you want in your first message and we route your inquiry to the right team.
The tech-pack: what you send before sampling
A tech-pack is the instruction set for your garment. At minimum, send a flat sketch or reference garment, your target fabric (composition and weight), measurements or a size to grade from, and your logo and trim placements. The more complete the file, the closer the first sample lands.
Missing a tech-pack? It is not a blocker. Our pattern and tech-pack service builds the pattern, size grading, and full documentation from your sketch or a sample you mail in. First-time founders are not stopped at the starting line.
One thing to decide early: your fabric. Stock fabric moves fast; a knit or dye developed to your spec adds time at both the sample and bulk stages. Flag custom fabric in your brief so the timeline is set correctly from day one.
Sampling: the gate everything else waits behind
We make samples one piece at a time, quoted by design complexity. You get a physical garment to check fit, fabric hand, color, and print before any bulk commitment, and most brands run one or two sample rounds before they approve. The current sample pricing and turnaround — along with the per-style order minimum and bulk windows — are maintained on the FAQ; quote those published figures back to us when you order, and we honour them.
One nuance worth knowing: when the fabric has to be knitted or dyed to your spec, that development happens before the sample is even cut, so custom fabric stretches the sampling stage more than anything you do afterwards can claw back.
Approve the sample in writing. That approved piece becomes the reference our QC team measures bulk against, so what you sign off on is what the production line copies.
Bulk production: how the floor schedules your order
Your order enters a single 8,500 m² facility with no subcontracting: twelve production lines — five cut-and-sew, four sublimation, three team-set — each staffed by 22–24 operators with 2–3 inline QC, turning out roughly 380,000 pieces a month. The cutting floor moves about 15,000 panels per shift, which is why a single purchase order of 50,000 to 100,000 pieces fits without crowding out your restocks.
Scheduling runs off a 7:45 a.m. whiteboard meeting every production morning, sequenced by ship date rather than by order size — a small first run does not sit behind a large account's restock. The deposit-to-shipment window for your category is published on the FAQ, and our rolling 12-month on-time delivery rate against those windows is 92.4%.
We share production milestones during your order, so you can set launch and restock dates against real checkpoints rather than a single promised ship date.
Quality and tolerances you can hold us to
Quality control starts before your garment exists. Fabric is inspected within 4 hours of arriving at the facility, and any roll reading beyond ΔE 1.0 on the spectrophotometer is rejected back to the mill — a stricter gate than the finished-garment color tolerance, because shade problems caught at the roll cost days while shade problems caught at packing cost the order. A 32-person QC team works inline on every line, backed by 8 lab technicians running the in-house test bench.
Every order is then inspected pre-shipment to AQL 2.5. Our rolling 12-month pass rate is 98.5%, and inspection happens before the goods leave, not after they reach you.
The numbers we build to: fabric weight within ±5% of spec, color within ΔE ≤1.5 of your approved standard, and finished measurements within ±0.5 cm of the size chart. Those tolerances are what "matches the approved sample" means in measurable terms.
On compliance: the factory has run since 2017 and carries five audited certifications — the registry numbers, scores, and audit reports all live on our about page, and copies go to your buyers at the RFQ stage so they can verify before they order.
Start your project
Send your tech-pack, target quantities, and any reference images. If you only have a sketch, send that — we will tell you what is still needed and quote a sample. You will hear back within one business day.
The fastest path from idea to approved sample is a clear brief plus the production path you want. Pick OEM or ODM, attach your file, and we take it from there.