This page teaches a buyer, or a merchandiser thinking from the buyer's side, what a costed quotation's lines must show before the price on it can be trusted. This lesson mainly teaches money: how a confirmed specification turns into a price, cost element by cost element, and what a buyer checks before accepting a number. At work, a buyer who receives only a single FOB figure cannot tell whether that price is fair, whether it will hold if the order grows, or where it might move if a fabric price changes.
Sara, the buyer at Northline Apparel, receives Delta Garments' quotation for the T-shirt enquiry confirmed in lesson 1.1: 15,000 pieces, 180 GSM single jersey, ratio 1:2:2:1. The quotation states one number, FOB USD 3.20 per piece, but Sara's own job depends on knowing what sits behind that number. A quotation that shows only a total price forces the buyer to trust it blindly; a quotation that shows each cost element lets the buyer check it against what it already knows about fabric, trims and making costs. This lesson builds that quotation line by line, from the buyer's own point of view.
You need: lesson 1.1, reading a buyer's enquiry, since this lesson starts from a specification already confirmed.
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: setting the quotation's validity, MOQ and lead time (lesson 1.3); presenting the finished quotation and handling the buyer's first questions (lesson 1.4); tracking many quotations across a full order book (lesson 1.5).
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Costed quotation | A quotation that shows the price broken into its cost elements, not just one total figure, so the buyer can check how it was built. |
| Cost element | One part of a price, such as fabric, trims, making, overhead, or profit, added together to form the full FOB price. |
| FOB price | Free on board; the price a buyer pays per piece up to the goods being loaded on the ship, before shipping and duty are added. |
| Making cost | The cost of cutting, sewing and finishing a garment, separate from fabric and trims, one of the five lines in a costed quotation. |
| Overhead | The share of a factory's running costs, such as rent, power and salaries, added to each piece's price on top of fabric, trims and making. |
| Margin | The profit a factory keeps once every other cost element in the price has been covered. |
A costed quotation states the FOB price as the sum of its own cost elements: fabric, trims, making, overhead, and profit, each shown as its own line rather than folded into one number. A buyer who receives a quotation built this way can check each element against what it already knows, ask about the one line that looks out of place, and see clearly what would change if the specification changed. A single total price hides all of this.
| What can differ | The shapes you will meet | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Export MTO order, established buyer | Northline Apparel receives a full cost breakdown for Order A: fabric 1.15, trims 0.20, making 1.10, overhead 0.49, profit 0.26, FOB 3.20, since the relationship is established and the buyer expects to see the build-up. | An established buyer checks the breakdown against past orders, so hiding a cost element damages trust even when the total price is fair. |
| Export MTO order, new buyer | A new export buyer often receives the same five-element breakdown, but with a short note explaining any element that differs from a typical order, since the buyer has no past quotation to compare against. | Without past history to check against, a new buyer relies entirely on the breakdown itself to judge whether the price is reasonable. |
| Domestic MTS order, stock programme | A domestic buyer such as Cedar & Co. buying to stock its own shops often receives a simpler quotation, since the making cost and overhead are close to standard for a repeat stock style, with only fabric and quantity varying between styles. | The buyer trusts a simpler quotation faster once a stock programme's own cost pattern is established across several styles. |
| Hybrid order, mixed quantity commitment | A buyer combining an MTO order with an MTS top-up, such as a trading company reselling to several retailers, often asks for the cost breakdown at two different quantities, to see which cost elements shrink as quantity grows. | Only some elements, mainly overhead, fall meaningfully with quantity; fabric and trims per piece barely move, so the buyer needs to see both to judge a volume discount fairly. |
Delta Garments sends Northline Apparel a costed quotation for the confirmed specification: 15,000 pieces, 180 GSM single jersey, Ne 30/1 combed cotton, ratio 1:2:2:1. The quotation states fabric USD 1.15, trims USD 0.20, making USD 1.10, overhead USD 0.49, and profit USD 0.26, summing to FOB USD 3.20 per piece. Sara checks the fabric line against the known market fabric price of USD 5.60 per kg and Order A's own fixed 0.205 kg per piece consumption, and finds the two figures agree.
| Cost element | Quoted (USD per piece) | Sara's check |
|---|---|---|
| Fabric | 1.15 | Matches 5.60/kg x 0.205 kg |
| Trims + making + overhead | 1.79 | Consistent with a basic single-jersey T-shirt |
| Profit | 0.26 | About 8% of the FOB price, a normal margin |
The fabric line checks out exactly, so Sara accepts the quotation as consistent with the specification, rather than accepting the FOB total on trust alone.
The worked numberA common mistake is accepting a quotation's total FOB price without checking at least the fabric line against a known market fabric price, since fabric is usually the largest single cost element and the easiest one for a buyer to verify independently. A buyer who skips this check has no way to tell whether an unusually high or low total price comes from a real cost difference or from an error, or a deliberate padding, in one line.
This mistake costs real money when it goes unnoticed. A buyer who accepts an inflated fabric line without checking it against a known market price of USD 5.60 per kg could overpay by several cents per piece across an entire order, a difference that adds up to hundreds of dollars on an order the size of Order A. Checking the one line that is easiest to verify costs Sara a few minutes and protects the rest of the quotation's credibility.
A costed quotation shows a price broken into its parts: fabric, trims, making, overhead and profit, added together to make the final price per piece. A buyer who sees only one total number cannot tell whether the price is fair or what would change if the order changed. A buyer who sees each part can check the biggest and easiest part, usually the fabric cost, against a known market price, and ask about anything that looks wrong. Building or checking a quotation this way, line by line, protects both sides: the factory shows its price is fair, and the buyer knows exactly what it is paying for.
Delta Garments' quotation states an FOB price of USD 3.20 per piece for the confirmed 15,000-piece, 180 GSM specification. Northline Apparel's finance team asks Sara to confirm the price is correct before the purchase order is issued, since the order is worth USD 48,000.
Can Sara confirm the FOB price is correct from the fabric line alone, or does she need to check every line before answering finance? Decide before opening the answer.
Checking the fabric line alone is enough to confirm the quotation is broadly consistent, though not a full guarantee of every line. 5.60 x 0.205 = USD 1.15, exactly matching the quoted fabric line.
First, since fabric is the largest cost element and the easiest to verify independently, a match here is strong evidence the quotation was built honestly rather than padded.
Second, Sara can tell finance the fabric line checks out exactly against the known market price, while noting that trims, making and overhead are harder for a buyer to verify without its own factory-costing knowledge, so the quotation is consistent and reasonable to approve, though not independently proven line by line.
If the fabric line were quietly inflated by USD 0.10 per piece above the correct USD 1.15, the FOB price would read USD 3.30 instead of USD 3.20, with no visible reason for the difference.
Checking the fabric line against the known USD 5.60-per-kg market price costs Sara only the few minutes it takes to run one calculation, and it protects Northline Apparel from an overpayment of USD 1,500 on this order alone, a sum that recurs on every future order if the same inflated line is accepted without question.
Open the course workbook's Quotation Build sheet. For each received quotation, enter the fabric, trims, making, overhead and profit lines, and use the sheet to check the fabric line against the current market fabric price per kilogram.
Download the full working sheet, with Order A's quotation already filled in, from the link on this course's page.
1. What does a costed quotation show that a single total price does not?
2. A quotation for a 4,000-piece order states fabric USD 1.20 per piece. The confirmed fabric weight is 0.20 kg per piece and the market fabric price is USD 6.00 per kg. Is the fabric line consistent?
3. Which cost element in a costed quotation falls the most as order quantity grows, while fabric and trims per piece stay close to fixed?
| EN | AR | FR | TR | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Costed quotation | عرض سعر مفصل التكلفة | Devis chiffré | Maliyetlendirilmiş teklif | A quotation that shows the price broken into its cost elements, not just one total figure, so the buyer can check how it was built. |
| Cost element | عنصر التكلفة | Élément de coût | Maliyet unsuru | One part of a price, such as fabric, trims, making, overhead, or profit, added together to form the full FOB price. |
| FOB price | سعر التسليم على ظهر السفينة | Prix FOB | FOB fiyatı | Free on board; the price a buyer pays per piece up to the goods being loaded on the ship, before shipping and duty are added. |
| Making cost | تكلفة التصنيع | Coût de fabrication | İmalat maliyeti | The cost of cutting, sewing and finishing a garment, separate from fabric and trims, one of the five lines in a costed quotation. |
| Overhead | التكاليف العامة | Frais généraux | Genel giderler | The share of a factory's running costs, such as rent, power and salaries, added to each piece's price on top of fabric, trims and making. |
| Margin | الهامش | Marge | Marj | The profit a factory keeps once every other cost element in the price has been covered. |
You now know how a costed quotation is built from a confirmed specification. The next lesson adds the terms that sit around the price: how long it stands, the minimum order quantity, and the lead time. Back to the course map