From brief to a number you can defend.

Start with one. The founders who lose money in this category are the ones who order six SKUs before they know which one their audience wants, then pay to store the other five. Add the second SKU when the first has consistent sell-through and repeat customers, and let the colour, size or accessory your customers ask for tell you what it should be.

Six things, and the brief is better than a first email because it forces the answers to come back in comparable form: the product type or model, three quantity tiers with a unit price at each, whether you want a public or private tool and who owns it, the material grade you will accept, the certificate pack your market requires, and your sampling and lead-time expectations. Which lines come back blank tells you more than the ones they answer.

We can route you and tell you what the paperwork requires, but the classification is yours to confirm. Most silicone devices enter the US under HTS 3926.90.9990, while a device whose primary character is the motor may fall under Chapter 85 — and the code drives the duty rate, so confirm it with a licensed customs broker rather than a supplier's forwarder. Anything with a lithium cell needs UN38.3 to fly.

Sampling is the leg that moves: three to five working days from a stock platform, longer if a colour or a mould is being developed. Bulk production then typically runs 25 to 35 days after sample approval, and freight is on top of that. The honest planning number for a first private-label order is two to three months from brief to delivery, and the delays almost always happen in the leg founders assumed would be quick.

By late August if you want stock for the December peak. Google Trends shows the category peaking in December with secondary peaks in April and July, and Black Friday–Cyber Monday is the sharpest single week. The replenishment cycle is long: 25–35 days of production, 25–38 days of sea freight and about a week of marketplace check-in — two to three months end to end. Set a reorder trigger at 6–8 weeks of remaining stock and add two weeks of safety stock. An October order is a salvage operation, not a plan. Also plan around Chinese New Year, which stops the factory for weeks. Our MOQ pricing guide covers the cost side of that cycle.

Landed cost is what a unit actually costs by the time it is sellable: unit price plus freight, insurance, duty, customs fees, local delivery, and the cost of inspection, defects and rework. It replaced unit price as the number procurement teams manage because tariff rates can move in weeks while a purchase price locked in months earlier cannot. Two suppliers quoting the same unit price can differ substantially at the border — one packs efficiently onto a fast routing, the other adds dimensional weight and a higher duty classification. Ask every supplier to quote on the same Incoterm so you are comparing like with like, and treat the cheapest quote as a hypothesis rather than a result.

For a first order with a supplier you have not verified, 30% is the conventional ceiling and 20% is commonly negotiated; a deposit is normal and is not itself a signal. What is a signal is a large deposit demanded by a weakly verified supplier — practitioners repeatedly describe 50% to 70% upfront followed by slower replies once production starts. That pattern is not proof of bad faith, but it raises the verification burden, because once the deposit is wired the buyer has very little room to react. Verify before the deposit rather than after it, and use staged milestones: a deposit, then the balance against inspection or shipping documents.

A bank account held in a different name from the company you are buying from. That mismatch is behind a large share of lost-deposit accounts and it is free to check: request the business licence, confirm the legal entity matches the bank beneficiary, and stop if it does not. Related flags are pressure to move the conversation off-platform, refusal to use any escrow or trade-assurance mechanism, urgency framed as a price that expires today, and a registered address that maps to an office rather than a plant.

It depends on whether the calendar leaves room for one production run or two. If there is room for two, the first order can sit at the factory's entry minimum and the second can be placed against real sell-through — which is usually cheaper in total cash even at a worse unit price, because the second spend is on inventory already proved to sell. If there is only room for one run, the first order has to cover the whole season, and that is the moment buyers accept a quantity they cannot afford. Work back from the shelf date first and let that arithmetic set the quantity, not the other way round.

Sea, unless a genuine deadline says otherwise — ocean freight is dramatically cheaper per unit, and defaulting to air because a booking was late is one of the most expensive habits a brand can have. Air is the right call only for high-margin goods or a real window such as a peak-season restock where a stockout costs more than the freight. The better fix is calendar discipline: book ocean space before production ends rather than paying for speed after it slips, and treat freight as the line most often missing from a first quote.

The importer of record is whoever is named on the customs entry, and it is the factory only if the factory holds a legal entity in the destination country. That party owes the duty, has to be able to produce the entry, and is the one a regulator contacts when a consignment is stopped. A supplier who quotes DDP without an entity where you are importing is usually having a broker enter the goods under someone else's name. Read that name off the paperwork before the first container ships, because it is the name any penalty is addressed to.

If you are the importer or the declarant into the EU or the UK, yes: an EORI is the identifier every customs declaration is filed under, and a consignment cannot be cleared in your name without one. It is issued to a business established in that customs territory, it is free of charge, and it is a different number from your VAT registration. Ask the supplier for theirs when they claim DDP — a duty-paid quote from a seller with no EORI in your market means the entry is being made for you, not by them.

DDP allocates the cost to the seller: they deliver cleared for import with duty and import VAT paid. It does not move the customs debt on its own. If the entry is lodged in your name, the authority can pursue you for an underpayment even though your invoice said duty-paid, and you then recover from the seller separately. So the three things to write into the contract are who files, whose name sits on the entry, and what happens if the classification is revised after the goods have landed.

No. A proforma invoice is a seller offer issued before payment, listing the proposed goods, quantity, price and terms. A commercial invoice is issued against the actual shipment and is what a customs authority uses to assess duty. They can carry different totals legitimately; a supplier who sends only one document for both jobs usually means the entry will be filed on numbers nobody has checked.

At minimum the reference model, the exact quantity tier, the unit price at that tier, the material grade, the certificate pack, the packaging specification and the tooling-ownership clause. A purchase order that only says a quantity and a price silently drops everything the brief was written to fix, and the contract is then the first place those terms reappear — too late to change cheaply.

Physical structure: carton and pallet counts, units per carton, net and gross weight, dimensions and shipping marks. A forwarder and a customs officer use it to reconcile the cargo with the entry. An invoice answers what was sold and for how much; a shipment can be perfectly invoiced and still be held because the carton count on the pallet does not match the list.

Because a bill of materials describes what a device is built from, while an approved component list says which specific parts and which named alternatives are permitted. Without the second document a factory can substitute a cell, a connector or a resin that looks identical and keep the same BOM description, while the test report on file no longer covers the product that ships.

No. Tooling buys a physical object — a mould, a jig, a printing plate — whose ownership and storage can be negotiated. Non-recurring engineering pays for one-time development work such as programming, firmware setup or a test fixture design, and there may be nothing to take to a second factory. Ask for the two as separate lines; a single blended setup fee hides what you would own.

It is the one part whose supplier minimum or production queue sets the whole schedule — often a specific cell, motor or custom-coloured resin. The assembly run can be short and still wait six weeks for that part. Whoever accepted the delivery date without asking which component has the longest clock owns the delay, so ask for the longest lead time as its own line in the quote.

Against a percentage of completion, not a date on a calendar — commonly 20 to 30 percent of the run. Booking it by date means the inspector can arrive before the line has settled or after the whole lot is finished, and neither visit catches drift while it can still be corrected. Put the trigger, the sampling level and who pays for a re-inspection into the purchase order.

It samples a finished lot against an agreed acceptance level and says whether that lot may ship. It does not prove that every unit is good, that the components match the approved list, or that the next lot will be the same. For those you need the component-level records and the signed reference sample; a passed inspection is a release decision, not a quality certificate.

In the proforma invoice, as separate lines, before any deposit is sent. A sample credit promised in a chat message is unenforceable once the bulk invoice is raised, and price breaks quoted only for the first tier give no way to price the second order. Write the credit, each tier and the validity date into the same document the finance team will approve.

Rarely. The first minimum is set by tooling, setup and custom packaging; a reorder on an existing tool can be smaller, or larger if the factory books a full production slot. Ask for both numbers in the brief. A buyer who budgets the second order at the first order minimum either overstocks or discovers the factory will not run the quantity they planned.

It is the measured colour difference a production lot is allowed to show against the approved sample. Writing a number turns a colour argument into a checkable test; without it, two people can look at the same box under different light and both be sincere. Agree the light source and the number together, and reference both in the purchase order.

Six: a signed reference sample with its tolerance, a written specification with an approved component list, a proforma invoice with payment terms and sample credit, a purchase order repeating the brief, an agreed inspection trigger, and a confirmed bank beneficiary matching the contracting entity. None costs anything to produce; all six are expensive to reconstruct after money has moved.

A pre-production sample is built to your written brief before the run starts, so it proves the specification was understood. A production sample is pulled from the actual run, so it proves what is in the cartons. Approving the first and shipping against the second are two different decisions; a stock sample proves neither.

Because the box is part of the specification. A sign-off that approves only the device leaves artwork version, insert card, barcode, retail-box fit and finish free to change later. Record the version, the stated exceptions and the date in one approval file, so a later revision cannot be mistaken for the approved one.

No. A single unit shows what a factory can make on a day when someone was paying attention; it says nothing about unit one thousand. Batch consistency needs a sampling plan, an agreed acceptance level and a dated inspection report. Ask for the protocol, not for a second identical sample.

Spelling, the exact logo version, the colour reference, imprint size and placement, and the product colour underneath it. A proof is a contract for what will be printed, not a preview to browse on a phone. For a custom colour ask for a physical swatch as well, because a screen proof hides colour drift.

The buyer does, in writing, with the factory agreeing before production. Without that list two inspectors grade the same carton differently and a failed report becomes an argument about adjectives. Put the definitions, the sampling level and who pays for a re-inspection into the purchase order.

Because a device can pass every bench check and still arrive in a crushed box. Carton dimensions, board grade, inner fit and drop behaviour decide whether the retail pack survives the journey, and they also set freight cost. Approve the packed unit, not the loose device.

Measurements with tolerances rather than adjectives, a named reference sample, the acceptance level, and a rule for what happens on failure. An inspector who has to call the buyer to interpret the document will make the decision themselves instead. Write it so a stranger can apply it without asking.

The written specification with its approved component list, checked against the bill of materials and the signed sample. A swapped cell, connector or resin can look identical while the test report on file no longer describes the product. Ask which named alternatives are permitted and require a written notice before any change.

It keeps part of the money tied to evidence rather than to a promise. A 30/70 structure means the larger payment falls due only after production, so the buyer still has leverage when an inspection says no. It does not make the deposit safe; it limits how much is exposed before any unit exists.

No. Both decide who holds the money and on which documents it is released; neither says whether the goods are right. An escrow release against a supplier photograph is the same unprotected wire with extra paperwork. Name the inspection report as the release document, and commission the inspection yourself.

Because two quotes with the same factory price can differ once packaging, carton size, freight, duty, insurance and inspection are added. Asking every supplier for the same shipping term and the same packaging assumptions makes the numbers comparable. A DDP quote puts all of it in one column.

Because the first minimum pays for setup and the second one does not. If the reorder floor stays high after the tool is amortised, the buyer has financed an asset that does not lower the next order. Ask for both numbers in the brief and put the second one in writing with the tooling agreement.

Not as a category claim, and this is the question that gets a brand into trouble fastest. Dragon Skin is a platinum-cure silicone made for special effects and prosthetics; the material family is the same one body-safe products use, but a body-safe claim depends on the full formulation, the cure, the pigment and the post-cure, not on the trade name.

Three things to ask for before it goes near a finished product: the technical data sheet from the maker, the cure ratio actually run on the line, and a finished-article test report rather than a raw-material one. A supplier who answers "it is platinum silicone, so it is body safe" has answered a different question. The material class is described in the Wikipedia entry "Silicone".

One figure is not a measurement, it is a claim. A decibel number means nothing until it names the meter, the distance and the room: a calibrated meter at 30 cm in a quiet room is the convention this site measures under, and the same device reads several decibels lower at one metre. Two consequences for a spec sheet.

Ask for the distance with the number, because 35 dB at 30 cm and 35 dB at 1 m are different products. And ask for the ambient floor, because a meter cannot read below the room it sits in, so a 28 dB claim made in a 32 dB room is a claim about the room. The unit is explained in the Wikipedia entry "Decibel".

Because the cure is a different chemistry with a different bill. Peroxide cure is a free-radical reaction that leaves by-products the manufacturer has to drive off, it cannot be safely cast against some mould materials, and it is harder to control batch to batch. Platinum cure is an addition reaction: no by-product, tighter dimensional control, and the ability to cure deeply in a closed mould, which is what makes a seamless, fully enclosing surface possible at all. The premium is in the platinum catalyst itself and in the tighter process window, not in marketing. The chemistry is outlined in the Wikipedia entry "Silicone" under the curing section.

The entity that puts the product on the EU market under its own name — which, for a private-label brand, is you and not the factory. This is the single most common document defect in the category: the factory issues a declaration naming itself, the brand ships the goods, and the declaration then describes a different economic operator than the one a market surveillance authority will look for. Ask for a draft declaration with your legal entity, your address and your contact details in the responsible-person field before the artwork is signed off, and keep the technical file that backs it. The marking itself is described in the Wikipedia entry "CE marking".

It excludes the three things that carry the setup cost: a new mould, a new colour compound and a new print run. A low minimum is real when the offer is an existing platform plus your logo, an existing colourway and a stock box or a digitally printed label. It stops being real the moment the shape changes, because tooling is amortised over the order and 300 units will never amortise a mould, and it stops again at the packaging, because a custom box has its own print minimum that is often several times the unit order. Ask which of the three is included and which is quoted separately, in writing, before treating the number as a minimum order.

It applies to the customer, not to your address. Two triggers reach a non-EU seller: offering goods or services to people in the EU, and monitoring their behaviour — which a standard analytics and retargeting stack already does. In practice that means a lawful basis for the email list, a privacy notice that names it, a processor agreement with every tool that touches customer data, and a deletion path that actually deletes. The category adds one more: order history and purchase data are sensitive in the ordinary sense, so a breach is a reputational event before it is a legal one. The regulation is described in the Wikipedia entry "General Data Protection Regulation".

Two things a spec sheet can actually show: whether the controls can be operated at arm length while the device stays in place, and whether the shape is neutral enough to be used from more than one side. A solo device optimises for one hand and one angle, so the buttons sit where the holding hand already is and the profile is asymmetric.

A device built for two has to survive a second person reaching for it mid-use, which means a control you can find without looking, a shape that does not dictate who is where, and a noise floor low enough that adding a second person does not add a reason to stop. Everything else on such a page is marketing.

The responsible person, for ten years after the last unit is placed on the market, and that file has to be producible on request rather than reassembled. It is the one deliverable in the whole project that a factory has no reason to keep for you: it describes your product under your name, and the factory may well have made a near-identical file for a different brand.

Ask for a complete copy at handover, in a form you can store, not a portal login that expires with the account manager. Then check that it contains the test reports by article rather than by material, the risk assessment, and the label artwork as shipped. A file that takes three weeks to obtain from a supplier is a file you do not have.