Activewear Manufacturing for USA Brands
Sourcing from Asia for a US brand is not complicated, but it is detail-heavy. The three things that most often surprise a first-time importer are labelling rules, landed cost, and how much of the calendar is transit rather than production.
Labelling: what US rules actually require
US apparel must carry fibre content, country of origin, and care instructions, in the format set by the FTC. Manufacturer or dealer identification is also required. The label has to be permanently attached and legible for the life of the garment.
The common failure is a care label written to a European or Asian convention and shipped to the US anyway. It looks correct to the buyer and fails at retail compliance. Tell us the destination is the US before labels are printed, and the content will be written to that rule set.
If you sell on a marketplace, that channel layers its own requirements on top — barcode format, polybag warnings, sometimes additional labelling. Those are easier to build in than to retrofit at a fulfilment centre.
Landed cost, not FOB
FOB is the factory gate price. Landed cost adds freight, insurance, duty and any brokerage. Duty on apparel is assessed by classification and by the country of origin, and the rate is not trivial — it can be a meaningful percentage of the FOB.
Two things follow. First, always compare suppliers on landed cost, not FOB, because a cheaper FOB with worse freight terms can lose. Second, confirm the correct classification with your customs broker rather than assuming; misclassification is discovered at audit, not at import.
De minimis thresholds change and are not a strategy. Treat them as a convenience for samples, not as a basis for a commercial model.
Transit: sea versus air, honestly
Sea freight is the default for bulk. It is far cheaper per kilogram and far slower — measured in weeks, and the variance between a good and a bad sailing is larger than most buyers expect. Air is fast and expensive, and for apparel it is usually reserved for samples, reorders and launch-critical top-ups.
The planning consequence: if your launch date is fixed, work backward from the date, subtract transit, subtract bulk production, subtract sampling and approval, and see what is left. Most launch-date failures are not production failures — they are a calendar that assumed transit was free.
We quote transit separately so the trade-off is visible rather than buried in a single delivered price.
Planning around the US retail calendar
Spring product needs to be on the water well before the season, which means sampling happens in the opposite season. Working backward from a March shelf date typically puts sample approval in the previous autumn.
If you sell direct-to-consumer rather than wholesale, you have more flexibility, but the cash-flow shape is the same: you pay for production months before you collect revenue. Sizing the first order to what you can fund through that gap is part of the sourcing decision, not a separate finance question.
Working across time zones
The practical arrangement is a defined window for decisions rather than an expectation of instant replies. We confirm questions in writing, keep a single thread per order, and put dates in the schedule so that a slow approval is visible as a date moving rather than a vague delay.
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