Questions to Ask a Clothing Manufacturer

About the factory itself

• Do you own the sewing floor, or is production subcontracted?
• Can I visit, or see a video walkthrough of the floor?
• What do you specialise in — and what do you turn down?
• How many operators and lines do you run?
• Are you registered and compliant for garment manufacturing in your jurisdiction?
• Can you give me references from brands at roughly my size?

About my product specifically

• Have you made this category and construction before? Can I see one?
• What about my tech pack is unclear or unnecessarily expensive to sew?
• What would you change to reduce the cost without changing the product?
• Do you have the machines and attachments this garment needs in-house?

About quantities

• What is your minimum — per order, per style, or per colourway?
• What drives that minimum: your line, the fabric, or the dye lot?
• What are the price breaks, and at what quantities?
• What is the minimum for a reorder, and will the price hold?

About price

• Is this CMT or full package — does it include fabric and trims?
• Does it include labels, hangtags, polybags and cartons?
• What is excluded that I should expect to pay for separately?
• Is the price FOB, landed, or ex-works?
• What is the payment schedule, and what does the deposit secure?

About the calendar

• What is in-house now, and when could you start mine?
• What is your lead time from approved PP sample to shipment?
• When do you need fabric in-house, and who is ordering it?
• What is your sample turnaround per round?
• What happens to my dates if a bigger order comes in?

About quality

• Who measures against spec, and at what stage?
• Do you allow inline inspection, and third-party inspection?
• What tolerances do you work to?
• What happens if goods come back off-spec — who pays for the rework?
• Will you seal and keep an approved PP sample?

The ones people forget

• Who owns the patterns you draft for me?
• Can I take my patterns and specs elsewhere?
• Will you sign a production agreement covering spec, dates and remedies?
• Who is my single point of contact, and what happens when they are away?
• Have you ever had to tell a client their order would be late — what did you do?

How to read the answers

You are not auditing them. You are finding out whether this is a business that communicates clearly when things are normal — because that is the only predictor of how they will communicate when something goes wrong.

Vague answers to concrete questions, reluctance to show the floor, minimums that move depending on how keen you sound, and pressure for a large deposit before any sample are the four signals worth walking away over.