Minimum order quantities

Setup costs are largely fixed per style and per color: pattern making, marker making, machine setup, fabric dyeing in minimum lot sizes. A short run carries the same setup as a long one, so the factory prices in a floor. Fabric minimums usually sit underneath and are the harder constraint.

This is why minimums are often quoted per color rather than per style: the dye lot, not the sewing line, is doing the limiting.

A buyer that needs 1,200 units and faces a 3,000 unit minimum has three options: skip the style, buy 3,000, or find a way around. Many take the second, and the extra 1,800 units are surplus created at the moment of ordering, before a single customer has declined to buy them.

Across an assortment, small overages of this kind aggregate into a meaningful share of what eventually reaches the clearance channel.

Sharing a fabric minimum across several styles in the same base cloth; consolidating colors; using a stock fabric program where the mill holds the inventory; and aggregating orders across regions or banners. All of them trade some flexibility for a lower floor, and all of them require planning earlier than most calendars allow.