What should I check before buying a clothing manufacturer or cut-and-sew factory?

A cut-and-sew factory sells skilled hours and reliable delivery to apparel brands. What you are buying is a trained floor, a set of customer relationships and a way of running orders through it. The checks below cover what is particular to making garments, alongside the general review a manufacturer needs.

Who the work comes from

Ask for the list of brand clients and how long each has sent work. Find out whether one or two labels carry most of the floor, and whether orders cluster in a few seasons. Ask what the factory does in the slow weeks. A fair question for the seller is whether the clients know the business may change hands, and how they might react.

The people and the know-how

Skilled sewers and cutters are hard to replace, so meet the supervisors and ask how long operators have stayed. Find out who makes the patterns and grades the sizes, and whether the owner does it personally. Ask who owns the pattern and sample library, since some belong to the brands. Clarify that before you assume they come with the business.

Stock, quality and the flow of the line

Walk the floor and watch how work moves from cutting to sewing to pressing and packing. Look for bottlenecks and piles of unfinished goods. Count the fabric and trim on hand and ask whose it is: many brands supply their own materials. Ask how often garments come back for defects, and who pays when a brand issues a chargeback or rejects a shipment.

• Brand-client list, order history and seasonal pattern
• Operator tenure and who holds the pattern-making skill
• Ownership of patterns, samples, fabric and trim
• Chargeback and returns records for recent orders

For the machinery side, see how to check industrial sewing machines, and for the general factory questions, what to check before buying a contract manufacturer.