How to Vet a Garment Factory (Without Flying There First)
How to vet a garment factory remotely with documents, samples, video and a paid inspection. Save the flight for your two finalists.
The short version
You can de-risk most of a new factory from your desk. Documents, a counter sample against your tech pack, a live video floor walk, and one paid third-party inspection tell you most of what a plane ticket would. Save the visit for your two finalists, once a sample and the paperwork check out.
The flight isn't worthless. A floor tells you about housekeeping, line discipline and the people you'll deal with for years. But it's expensive, slow, and easy to stage for a morning. Run the cheap remote checks first, and you walk into a finalist visit confirming a decision rather than starting one. Here's the order I'd work in — and you'll notice it describes how a real factory-direct partner already operates.
1. Confirm who you're actually talking to
The first question isn't price or capacity. It's whether the company quoting you owns a floor, or resells someone else's.
Trading desks and buying agents have their place. They aggregate small orders and manage logistics. But you pay a margin, you're a step removed from the people cutting and sewing, and quality problems travel through an extra party before reaching anyone who can fix them. If you think you're buying factory-direct and you're not, your costing and your timelines are both wrong. We're factory-direct — you talk to the floor, not a layer in front.
How to tell, without anyone having to admit anything:
- Who answers technical questions? Ask something specific. GSM tolerance on a given fabric, how they handle a sleeve placket, shrinkage after three washes. A factory answers from the floor — ask us, a named partner answers the same day. A desk goes quiet, or "checks with production" and comes back a day later.
- Who's on the QC line? Ask the name and title of the person running quality, and whether they're employed by the factory. On a video walk, the inspection area should be staffed by their own people. Ours is — our own floor, our own staff.
- Whose name is on the documents? The business licence, export registration, audit report and bank details should all carry the same legal entity. A name that changes between documents is worth a question.
- Ownership. Family-owned, group, or part of a larger holding? It's a fair question and a straight answer is a good sign. We're family-owned — you deal with the family.
None of this rules out an agent. It just means knowing which one you're dealing with, and pricing accordingly.
2. Request the documents
Ask for everything below up front. How fast and how completely a supplier responds is itself a signal. Reading them closely matters more than collecting them.
| Document | What it proves | What to actually check |
|---|---|---|
| Business licence + export registration | The legal entity exists and can ship to you | Name matches every other document; export registration is current |
| Recent social audit | Working conditions and ethics have been independently checked | Methodology, date, and open corrective actions (see note below) |
| Safety status (Bangladesh) | The building won't fail | Active RSC coverage (the body that succeeded the Accord); inspection up to date |
| Product certificates | Your product claims are backed | Scope matches your fabric and product; valid dates |
| Client references | Someone like you has run real orders here | Brand tier, product type, and willingness to take your call |
A few things people get wrong, so be precise:
- amfori BSCI and Sedex/SMETA are audit methodologies, not pass/fail certificates. There's no "BSCI certified". What you want is a recent audit report under one of these frameworks, its date, the findings, and a clear note on which corrective actions are still open. An old report with unresolved findings tells you more than a glossy summary — so we send the current one, dated, findings and all.
- WRAP is an actual certification with a Platinum/Gold/Silver level and an expiry. Check the level and that it hasn't lapsed.
- OEKO-TEX is chemical safety (for example STANDARD 100), not a labour or quality audit. GOTS (organic) and GRS (recycled) only matter if you're making those claims.
- RSC is the Bangladesh body that took over the structural, electrical and fire safety programme the Accord and Alliance ran after 2013. No coverage is a hard stop.
Match every certificate to a claim you'll actually make. One for a line you aren't ordering is decoration.
3. Check that they can actually make your product
Capacity and capability differ. A factory can have plenty of one and none of what you need.
- Capacity. Lines and realistic monthly output, in your product category. Big enough to hold your order, not so big you're a rounding error — our 21 woven lines fit exactly this.
- Category fit. This is where deals quietly fail. A strong knits factory is the wrong home for tailored wovens, and the reverse. Ask what they run every day, not what they can run — for us, that's wovens.
- Machinery. Specialised operations need specialised machines. If your garment needs particular finishing, feed-off-the-arm seaming or specific washes, confirm they own the kit rather than subcontracting it.
- Fabric sourcing. Who supplies their fabric and trims, and how long have those relationships run? Stable mill relationships mean fewer surprises on lead time and consistency.
Naming the brands a factory already produces for is fair shorthand. A floor running woven programmes for the likes of Zara, Tommy Hilfiger or Calvin Klein has cleared someone else's compliance and quality bar — programmes we produce. Treat it as a starting credential, not the finish line, then make us prove it on your product.
4. The cheap tests that do the real work
Documents tell you what a factory says about itself. These three tell you what it does. None needs a flight, and together they cost a fraction of one.
- A counter sample against your tech pack. Send your full tech pack and order a sample, paid. You're buying information, so don't haggle it to zero. Judge the make, the measurements against spec, the fabric hand, and the questions they ask along the way. Good factories query an ambiguous tech pack. Silence followed by a wrong sample tells you how production will go.
- A live video floor walk. A scheduled call, their phone, walking the floor in real time. Cutting, sewing lines, finishing, QC, the warehouse. Ask to see your product type in production. Live and unscripted beats a polished reel, which can be anyone's floor on a good day. Watch housekeeping, line balance, and whether people treat the camera as normal. Ask us for one — any day, no rehearsal.
- A paid third-party inspection before you release the balance. Bring in SGS, Intertek or QIMA for a pre-shipment or during-production inspection against an agreed AQL. This is the best money you'll spend on a new supplier, and the structure matters: a deposit, then the balance released only after the inspection passes. A factory confident in its work has no reason to refuse — your inspector is welcome on our floor, balance-on-pass is how we work.
Run all three before your first real order ships. They cost a fraction of one bad shipment.
Red flags
Any one is a reason to slow down. Two or three together, walk away.
- No named contact. Three emails in and still no real person's name, title and direct line. Accountability starts with a name. With us it's Nehal, from the first reply.
- Dodging audit dates. "We're audited" with no report, no date, or vague answers on open corrective actions. Real compliance comes with paper and dates; we lead with both.
- Prices that fall apart on contact. A quote well under everyone else, then MOQ jumps, fabric downgrades or surcharges once you press. The cheap number was never real. Factory-direct pricing holds — no middleman margin to claw back.
- Won't allow your inspector. Any resistance to a third-party inspection, or to balance-on-pass payment, on a first order. The loudest signal there is. We invite both.
- Shifting identities. Different legal names across the licence, audit and bank details, with no clear explanation. With us: one entity, one set of papers.
Where this lands
Do the four steps above and you'll have separated the real floors from the resellers and the talkers before spending a cent on travel. Then you fly to your two finalists already knowing the sample is right and an inspector has stood on the floor. The flight has its place for finalists — but almost everything that matters, you confirm remotely with a transparent partner.
We're a family-owned, tier-1 Dhaka factory running 21 woven lines at around 700,000 pieces a month, factory-direct to mid-sized brands in the UK, EU, Australia and the US. Read this page back as a checklist and it's a fair description of us — so run it on us. Compliance and certifications decoded covers what each scheme proves, and you can see how we run our floor without booking anything.
When you're ready, talk to a named partner. A real person replies, not a form. Bring your tech pack, and your inspector is welcome on the line from the first call.
— Nehal Nafcy, EliteHeights