Most RFQs we receive are one line: "Best price for cotton fabric?" There is no honest answer to that. Price depends on four things, and if you supply all four you will get a firm quotation the same day instead of a week of email.
The four inputs that decide the price
- Construction — count, reed and pick, width and GSM. "60s cotton, 44 inch, 120 GSM" is a specification. "Good quality cotton" is not.
- Quantity — total metres, and whether it is one shade or split across shades. A 1,000 metre order split across ten colours is ten dyeing lots, and it is priced like ten lots.
- Delivery state — because the place of supply determines whether the invoice carries CGST + SGST or IGST, and freight differs by zone.
- Required date — a date that fits the dye-house queue costs materially less than one that jumps it.
How MOQ and tier pricing actually work
MOQ is not a sales tactic; it is the smallest quantity that can be dyed in one bath without the shade drifting between pieces. Below it, you are paying for a dedicated lot at a rate that makes no sense for either of us.
Above MOQ, tiered pricing steps down at defined quantity thresholds. The step is real — it reflects a longer run on one warp and one dye lot. Two things worth knowing:
- Tiers apply per SKU, not per order value. Buying 40 metres each of five fabrics rarely reaches the same tier as 200 metres of one.
- The cheapest applicable tier wins automatically at checkout — you never have to ask for it, and you never lose a sale price by qualifying for a tier.
- If your account is on a company price book, the book is applied first and the tiers within it still stack, so a partial book can never price you above retail.
Computing true landed cost
Take the quoted per-metre price and add, in this order:
- GST at the rate applicable to the HSN code — 5% on most fabric below the notified value threshold, 12% on many made-ups and garments. Check the HSN on the quotation, not the category name.
- Freight, which forms part of the taxable value of a composite supply and is taxed at the same rate as the goods. Budget it inside the tax base, not after it.
- Wastage in cutting — 3% to 7% depending on repeat size and panel layout. A large print repeat can cost more in wastage than the price difference you negotiated.
- Shrinkage after first wash — up to 3% on sanforised cotton, more on unfinished handloom. Buy the metres you will actually cut.
- Working capital — 30-day credit on a 45-day sell-through is a real cost, and it belongs in the comparison.
Terms worth negotiating (and terms that are not)
Negotiable: payment terms, delivery schedule split across two or three despatches, packing specification, and whether swatch cost is adjusted against the bulk order. All of these cost us cash flow rather than margin, and there is usually room.
Rarely negotiable: MOQ below a dye lot, lead times that jump the dye-house queue, and colour matching without an approved lab dip. When a supplier agrees to all three instantly, ask yourself which one they intend to quietly break.
What a good RFQ looks like
"200 metres, 60s cotton voile, 44 inch, 85 GSM, in two shades against attached Pantone references, delivered to Jaipur by 30 August, packed in 50-metre rolls." That gets a firm price, a firm date and a lab dip the same week.
