Knitted Bag Supplier Questions: Twenty-Four to Ask, in Five Blocks, Before You Send a Brief

How to Use These Twenty-Four Questions

Send all twenty-four in one document and ask for written answers, because the point of a question list is not any single reply but the pattern across the replies: a programme that measures answers all twenty-four with figures, and one that does not answers them with reassurance.

The list is split into five blocks for a reason. Blocks A and B are technical and decide whether the goods can be made to the specification at all. Block C decides whether a dispute later is settled by a rule or by an argument. Block D decides whether the shipment enters the destination market. Block E decides who owns what and who pays for what. A buyer who runs them in that order spends the least time on the questions that matter least.

Two practical notes. First, ask for the answer in the unit the question was asked in: a GSM question wants g/m², not medium weight, and a tolerance question wants millimetres, not about a centimetre. Second, ask every shortlisted programme the identical list on the same day. Answers collected a week apart are not comparable, because yarn prices and bed slots move inside a week.

Block A: Structure and Specification, Questions 1 to 5

The first five questions establish whether the structure you have drawn can be knitted at the gauge you want, and the answer to question 3 decides the cost of everything that follows.

1. At which gauge will this run, E7, E12 or E14, and is the body knit to shape or knitted flat and joined?
2. What yarn count and fibre, in denier, with what tolerance, and is the recycled content certified by lot?
3. What finished GSM does the structure run at after conditioning, and what is the tolerance band?
4. Is the handle integral to the body or joined afterwards, and what is the join method and its tested strength?
5. What is the achievable dimension tolerance on width, height and depth, in millimetres, on a production run?

Question 3 is the one that decides the price. On a packable piece at 260 g/m² in 300D, moving to 320 g/m² adds material and machine time at once, and the two together move the unit price more than a season of negotiation recovers. Question 5 is the one buyers skip and later regret, because a dimension tolerance that is not stated cannot be enforced at goods-in, and a knitted panel relaxes after steaming in a way a woven panel does not.

Block B: Sampling and Correction, Questions 6 to 10

Sampling questions decide whether a launch date survives contact with reality, and question 8 is the single most useful one on this entire list.

1. How many working days from an approved digital file to a first sample, and what exactly does the clock start on?
2. How many correction rounds are included in that window, and what does a third round cost in days and in money?
3. If one dimension is changed, can that be made as a parameter edit, or does the shape file have to be re-programmed?
4. Who signs the approved sample, and does the bulk window start at that signature or at receipt of the written specification?
5. What happens to the bed slot if the sample fails twice, and is the slot stated as a week number?

Question 8 sounds pedantic and is not. A bulk window of 30 days that starts at a verbal approval and a bulk window of 30 days that starts at a written specification are different commitments, and the gap between them is where launch dates are lost. On one programme the written specification went out seven days after the call, by which time the yarn had been booked against the verbal version and the week 22 bed slot had been released.

Sampling window

7 working days from an approved digital file, correction rounds stated

Bulk window

30 days from handover of an approved sample with a frozen specification

MOQ basis

100 pcs per style and per colourway, each shade its own yarn set-up

Capacity

7 production lines at about 200,000 pcs per month, booked by week number

Reference structure

E14 packable tote, 300D recycled polyester, 260 g/m² finished

Term

FOB Xiamen under the ICC Incoterms 2020 rules, CIF and DDP available

Release

AQL 2.5 under ISO 2859-1, sample size and accept and reject counts stated

Block C: Release and Inspection, Questions 11 to 14

Release questions decide whether a disagreement three months from now is settled by a rule or by an argument, and the answer to question 12 should be a number from a published table rather than an opinion.

1. At which acceptance quality limit is the run released, and is the sampling plan indexed to a published standard?
2. For a lot of 3,201 to 10,000 pcs at general inspection level II, what sample size, accept count and reject count apply?
3. Who pays for a re-inspection when a first inspection fails, and what is the re-inspection window?
4. Is the inspection report issued against the same programme number that appears on the carton label?

Question 12 is worth asking verbatim, because it has a verifiable answer. Under an ISO 2859-1 plan indexed at AQL 2.5 with general inspection level II, a lot of 3,201 to 10,000 pcs carries code letter L, a sample size of 200, an accept count of 10 and a reject count of 11. A programme that knows its sampling tables answers that in one line. A programme that answers we always inspect carefully has told the buyer that the release decision is a judgement, and a judgement is not a defence in a dispute.

Question 14 is the quiet one and catches more mismatches than any other. A report issued against a programme number that does not match the carton label means either the report or the cartons belong to a different run, and in a dispute that discrepancy is the first thing an insurer finds.

Block D: Compliance and Documentation, Questions 15 to 19

Compliance questions decide whether the shipment enters the destination market, and question 17 is the one that separates a document that means something from a document that means a site was once audited.

1. Which destination market is the certificate issued for, and which standard is named on it?
2. Is the certificate a scope certificate for a site and product group, or a transaction certificate for this lot?
3. Will the transaction certificate carry this quantity and this recycled content, and when is it issued?
4. Which test reports exist for colour fastness, abrasion and restricted substances, and under which methods?
5. Which four documents travel with the goods, and which stay on file at the production base?

Question 18 should be answered with method numbers rather than with test names. Colour fastness to rubbing is AATCC 8 or ISO 105-X12; abrasion is ISO 12947-2 on a Martindale; colour fastness to light is ISO 105-B02; restricted substances sit under ECHA REACH Annex XVII for the European market and under California Prop 65 for California. A report that says passed colour fastness without a method number cannot be repeated by another laboratory, which means it cannot be checked.

Block E: Commercial and Contractual, Questions 20 to 24

The last five questions decide who owns the programme file, who carries the risk at the port, and what happens when either party wants to stop.

1. Which Incoterms rule and which named port or place, and which edition of the rules applies?
2. Who owns the knitting machine file, and is it assigned to the buyer or retained with an exclusivity clause?
3. Who owns the design and the artwork, and may the physical sample be photographed or shown at a fair?
4. What is the quotation validity period, and what happens to the price if yarn moves after it expires?
5. What is the cancellation and rework position if the buyer changes the specification after bulk has started?

Question 20 should always be answered with an edition. The ICC Incoterms 2020 rules set out which party bears cost and risk at which point, and FOB without a named port is not a term at all. Question 21 is the one buyers forget until they want to move a programme, at which point they discover that the machine file is the tooling and that tooling usually stays where it was built unless it was assigned in writing at the start.

The Six Answers That Should End the Conversation

Six answers are disqualifying, not because they are dishonest but because each one describes a party that cannot hold a tolerance, a date or a claim.

The counter-pattern is equally fast to read. A programme that answers GSM in g/m², sampling in working days from a defined trigger, inspection in sample sizes from ISO 2859-1, compliance in method numbers, term in an Incoterms edition with a named port, and capacity in a week number has answered all twenty-four questions with measurements. Those are the programmes worth 100 pcs of a buyer's money and a season of their floor space.

How to Ask: One Document, One Responder

Send the twenty-four as one document with a named responder on each side, and ask for written answers inside three working days; a buyer who does this gets a comparable picture of three programmes in a week and a buyer who asks across ten emails gets no picture at all.

The responder point matters more than it appears. A question that has to be approved by three people inside the buying organisation before it can be answered takes as long as the slowest of them, and that interval is invisible from outside. Naming one person who may answer technical questions during the window removes it. On the answering side the same is true: a single named technical contact, rather than a general mailbox, is the difference between answers in three days and answers in nine.

• One document, not ten emails, with every question numbered and answerable in the unit asked for.
• One named responder on each side, with authority to answer technical questions without escalation.
• A stated deadline of three working days, and all shortlisted programmes asked on the same day.
• A request for written answers, because a verbal answer cannot be checked against a delivered carton.
• A follow-up round limited to the six disqualifying answers, if the first round produces hedging.

Buyers who run the list this way usually find that the decision makes itself by question 12. By then three of the four programmes have revealed whether they measure, and measuring is the one capability that cannot be added later with a clause. For the scoring version of this list, see knitted bag partner scorecard.

Frequently Asked Questions

People Also Ask

Ask in Writing, Ask Once, Ask All of Them

The twenty-four questions are not an interrogation. They are a way of finding out, in three working days and without a site visit, whether a programme measures what it makes. A programme that measures can hold a tolerance, a date and a claim.

Send them once, in writing, to every shortlisted programme on the same day, and read the pattern rather than any single reply. For the scored version of this list, see knitted bag partner scorecard. For the full sourcing framework, see knitted bag sourcing guide.