How Australian Fashion Brands Source Linen from India: MOQ, Lead Times and Shipping

Most Australian brands asking about Indian linen want the same four numbers: what is the minimum, how long does sampling take, how long does production take, and how long is it on the water. Everything else is detail.

This post gives those numbers, explains what moves them, and is honest about the volumes where we are the wrong supplier. It is written for a brand doing its first India order, not for someone already running a programme.

Minimum order quantity, by product family

There is no single MOQ, and any supplier who gives you one number without asking what the product is has not thought about it. The minimum is driven by the fabric, not by the sewing. A cut-and-sew factory can make fifty of something. A weaving mill cannot warp a loom for fifty metres.

Two things to read carefully in that table.

Minimums are per style, and usually per colour. Three colourways of one shirt is three minimums, not one, because each colour is a separate dye lot. This is the single most common surprise for brands coming from a stock-fabric wholesaler. If your range plan has eight colourways at 150 units each, the honest answer is to cut it to three at 400 and add colours once the style sells.

"Fabric minimum applies" is the real constraint. Once you want a weave, weight or yarn-dyed pattern we do not already run, you are buying loom time. That sets a metreage floor, and the piece count that falls out of it depends entirely on how much fabric your style consumes. A wide-leg trouser eats roughly three times the fabric of a napkin.

Where we are the wrong supplier

Worth saying plainly, because it saves a month of emails.

• Under about 150 pieces per style. We can occasionally do it on an existing fabric, but the per-unit cost will be high enough that you will not like it, and you would be better served by a local maker or a stock-fabric wholesaler until volumes grow.
• Sample-only relationships. We sample readily for brands heading toward production. We are not a good fit for someone who wants twenty samples and no order.
• Performance synthetics, technical outerwear, bonded or laminated construction. Not our machinery and not our fibre. Vietnam does that better and we will say so.
• Immediate despatch from stock. We make to order. Nothing sits in a warehouse waiting for your PO. The trade-off is real and we have written about it.

The sampling timeline

Sampling is where first-time programmes lose the most time, almost always because the brief arrived incomplete. A realistic schedule from a complete tech pack:

Budget six to ten weeks from brief to approved PP sample, assuming one fit revision. Two revisions pushes it to twelve. Add courier time each way - three to six days by express air to Australia, longer if customs holds the parcel.

The single biggest lever you control is the quality of the brief. What a usable tech pack actually contains is worth ten minutes of your time before you send one.

Production lead time

Once the PP sample is approved and the PO is confirmed, bulk production on an existing fabric runs four to six weeks. Custom-woven fabric adds two to four weeks in front of that for warping, weaving and finishing, and custom dyeing adds one to two.

So a realistic worst case for a brand-new style in a brand-new fabric is roughly twelve weeks of production after approval. A repeat order in an existing fabric can be four.

Shipping to Australia

This is where the Southern Hemisphere calendar bites, so the numbers matter.

Transit times move with port congestion, vessel availability and seasonal demand, so treat these as planning figures and confirm with your freight forwarder before you commit to a launch date.

What a first order actually looks like

A realistic first programme for an Australian brand, start to arrival:

1. Weeks 0-1. Brief and costing. Swatch card ships.
2. Weeks 2-5. Proto sample, one fit revision.
3. Weeks 6-8. PP sample approved, PO raised, deposit paid.
4. Weeks 9-14. Bulk production on an existing fabric.
5. Weeks 15-18. Sea freight to Melbourne, customs clearance.

Call it four to five months from first email to stock in your warehouse for a straightforward first order. Custom fabric pushes it to six or seven. Work backwards from your on-sale date, not forwards from today - and if you are building a Southern Hemisphere range, the season calendar has its own traps.

Duty, payment and the paperwork

The good news for Australian importers is that the India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement has removed duty on the great majority of Indian textile and apparel lines. That is a genuine margin advantage over several competing origins, but it is conditional on documentation - we have covered what the agreement requires in detail.

On payment, a first order with a new supplier typically runs on a deposit against the PO with the balance before despatch or against shipping documents. Anyone offering open credit terms to a brand-new overseas customer is either very large or not being careful.

Before you enquire

Have three things ready and the first exchange will be useful rather than exploratory: the product and roughly what it should cost you landed, the quantity you can genuinely commit to per style and colour, and your on-sale date. If you have a tech pack, send it; if you do not, a photograph with measurements is enough to start.

The fastest way to know whether our linen is right for your product is to hold it. Our linen specialisation page covers the range, and we ship swatch cards to Australia.