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A roll of 600D polyester holds roughly 50 metres. A 15.6 inch laptop bag uses about 0.7 square metres of shell, so a roll covers around 100 bags before cutting waste, and that single fact explains most minimum order quantities you will be quoted. A manufacturer of custom laptop bags is balancing material batches against line time, and the lead time moves with the same arithmetic. Here is how the two numbers connect.
MOQ Is A Material Number Before It Is A Policy
Buyers tend to read MOQ as a sales threshold that a factory sets to protect its margin. Mostly it is arithmetic on three inputs.
The first is the roll. Fabric is sold by the roll, and a roll is not divisible. If your bag uses 0.7 square metres and the roll gives 100 bags after waste, an order of 120 leaves 20 bags of fabric that may not match the next roll's dye lot.
The second is the dye batch. A custom lining colour or a non-stock shell colour is dyed in a batch, and a batch has a floor, commonly 300 to 500 metres. On a lining that uses 0.4 square metres per bag, 500 metres is about 1,250 bags of lining, which is why a custom lining can push the MOQ far above the shell.
The third is line time. A sewing line needs a run long enough to cover setup and changeover. Below a certain quantity the setup is a larger cost than the sewing, and the unit price rises for reasons that have nothing to do with material.
Those three inputs are why MOQ varies by colourway, by material, and by construction, and why a supplier quoting one flat number across every option is quoting an average.
The MOQ Ladder And The Lead Time At Each Band
We quote in three bands on laptop bags, and each band has its own lead time behaviour.
300 to 499 pcs: stock colours only, 10 to 18 days material lead time, scheduled into a gap between bulk runs
500 to 999 pcs: stock or semi-custom, material lead 12 to 20 days, a fixed slot but not a fixed line
1,000 pcs and above: custom colours possible, material lead 18 to 30 days for a made-to-order fabric, a fixed line and a fixed date
The counter-intuitive part is that the largest band often has the longest material lead time, because a custom colour takes longer to dye than it takes to sew the bags. Buyers who order 2,000 units in a new shell colour and expect a faster date than a 500 unit order in black are usually surprised.
Production time itself barely moves across the bands: 25 to 30 working days once material is on site. What changes is queue position and material availability, and those two account for most of the difference in delivery dates.
Why Small Orders Wait
An order in the 300 band is not scheduled by itself. It goes into a gap, which means its start date depends on when a gap appears.
That is an honest limit rather than a negotiating position. A 300 unit order takes about three days of line time, and moving a line for three days costs the factory half a day of changeover on both sides. A factory that promises a fixed date for a 300 unit order in its peak month is either reserving a slot it cannot profitably reserve or planning to disappoint you.
What we do instead is tell the buyer two things: the week the order is likely to run, and the cut-off date after which it moves to the next gap. Buyers who accept the second date get a reliable delivery. Buyers who insist on the first get a date that slips by a week or two and a supplier who stops volunteering information.
Colourway splits are the quiet MOQ trap
Four colourways of 300 units each is not a 1,200 unit order. It is four orders of 300, each with its own material pull, its own cutting ticket, and its own changeover, and it prices accordingly.
On a program with four colourways we usually recommend two colours at 600 units each. The material pull is the same total, the changeovers halve, and the unit price drops by roughly 6 to 9 percent at the same overall quantity. Buyers who need four colours for a shelf usually find that two colours and a display unit perform the same at retail.
What A Manufacturer Of Custom Laptop Bags Quotes In Each Band
Our quotation states the band explicitly, and four numbers move with it.
MOQ per colourway, stated separately from the total order quantity
Material lead time for the specific shell and lining, not a general figure
Production window in working days, with the scheduled week named
Sample fee refund condition, usually at 1,000 pcs
The scheduled week is the line that changes how buyers plan. A production window of 25 to 30 days is a duration and says nothing about when it starts. A statement that the order will run in week 38 is a commitment that can be checked.
We also state the material position at quotation. If the shell is a stock 600D we hold, material lead is days. If it is a made-to-order colour, we name the mill batch date, which on one recent program was 22 days out and moved the whole schedule. That is information a buyer can plan around, and it is usually absent from a quotation that only lists a unit price.
Where MOQ cannot bend
Two requests we decline rather than negotiate. The first is a genuine custom colour at 200 units, because the dye batch minimum makes the material cost per bag higher than the bag itself. The second is a fixed delivery date on a small order inside a peak month, because we would be selling a date we do not control.
We will build a 200 unit order in a stock colour, and we will build a custom colour at 500 units. What we will not do is take a small custom order at a standard price and recover the difference later in a substitution, which is what an agreeable answer usually means.
What the buyer sees when the MOQ meets the calendar
From your side, the MOQ question is really a launch question. A 300 unit first order in black can be on a shelf in about ten weeks from approval. A 300 unit order in a custom navy takes about twelve, and the extra two weeks sit with the mill rather than with the factory. Knowing which of those two you are ordering is the difference between a plan and a hope.
An MOQ And Lead Time Sheet
Put these lines in the enquiry so the quotation answers the real question.
Target quantity per colourway, and the total including all colours
Number of colourways, stated separately from quantity
Shell material: stock colour or custom dye
Lining: stock or dyed to match
MOQ at the quoted band, per colourway
Material lead time for the named shell and lining
Production window: 25 to 30 working days after material and approval
Scheduled week, named rather than implied
Changeover effect: 4 colourways against 2 at the same total
Sample fee and the quantity at which it is refunded
Price at 300, 500, and 1,000 units for comparison
Cut-off date after which the run moves to the next slot
That three-price comparison is the most useful line on the sheet, because the curve flattens in a specific place and buyers are often surprised by where it does.
Send The Quantity And The Colour Count
Tell us the quantity per colourway, the shell and lining you want, and the retail date you are working to. We will quote the MOQ, the material lead time for those specific materials, and the week the order can run, so the launch date is built on a calendar rather than on a duration.
Contact [email protected] or visit www.tianqinbag.com to request samples, get a factory quote, or start an OEM/ODM project with Quanzhou Tianqin Bags Co., Ltd. Sampling lead time is 7-15 working days. Seventeen years of bag manufacturing in Quanzhou, exports to more than 50 countries, MOQ from 300 to 500 pcs per colourway depending on material.
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