Now, I’m not picking on Hanes, but they’re clearly one of the biggest innerwear (undershirts, underwear, socks) manufacturers on the planet.
This isn’t exclusive to Hanes either.
Anyone who sells undershirts or t-shirts for a few bucks (Costco, Fruit of the Loom, Gildan, Harriton, etc.) would fall into this category.
Look at this email I received recently:
Subject: Basic T-Shirts 100% Cotton GSM 140
White T-Shirts
100% Cotton GSM 140
MOQ 50,000 pcs
Price US $ 0.85 per pc FOB Karachi (Pakistan)
300,000 pcs per month for next 5 months period at same price.
Sizes Small – 2XL
Please advise if interested. Best Regards, Darren
So, if this plant in Pakistan can offer lightweight t-shirts at $0.85 each, with a minimum order quantity of 50,000 pcs, how much do you think it costs the big guys to manufacture undershirts of roughly the same (or lighter) weight?
Even at 300,000 pieces per month, that’s only 3,600,000 t-shirts per year.
Considering how many people there are in the world, and how many t-shirts/undershirts each person buys on average, our friends over at Hanes, Fruit of the Loom, Gildan, Costco, etc. have to be making boat loads of t-shirts and/or undershirts.
$0.85 per t-shirt. Wow.
Just came across the site and it’s just what i was looking for. Personally, a t should serve a few purposes like sweat control, not baggy or fitted under dress shirts – but the most important is to avoid DINGY COLLAR! Men wear $800 suits, $100 dress shirts, and $300 shoes. Having a t shirt or collar that isn’t absolutely pristine screws the entire thing up. They are just a few bucks each – less than a cup of coffee.
heya darren, thanks for stopping by my site and sharing your thoughts!
i totally agree with you — in fact, i’m pretty sure i wrote something similar a while back talking about how much money we spend on our outer clothes, but have a hard time spending a few bucks on our inner clothes.
in my opinion, we should be ok spending a little more on our innerwear since it’s the closest thing to our skin and is a critical (probably the most important) factor in whether or not we stay comfortable.
Hey Tug,
Those Adidas undershirts you told me about, Adidas told they discontinued the style.
So I went to try the Alfani a-shirts, I LOVE THEM!!!
Thanks!!
heya shawn! good to hear from you buddy!
i hadn’t heard that adidas discontinued those clima cool (or clima lite) a-shirts/tank top undershirts. so, thanks for sharing the news.
exactly which alfani a-shirts did you purchase? do you have any specifics like product sku or a link to the product page for reference? i’d love to keep that information handy so i can share with other readers in the future.
Hey Tug,
I have the link for you:http://www1.macys.com/shop/product/alfani-mens-underwear-tank-top-4-pack?ID=532530&CategoryID=52138
Let me know if you can see this link. Thanks alot. I will be in touch.
Shawn
Yep welcome to retail/wholesale prices.
As a note you also have to include shipping (not just to the US but to your store or location),buying licence, taxes, storage etc. If you want to add personal details like branding its more.
The Big guys might get bulk discounts but roughly this rate too maybe a few more cents off but not much more. They just buy a TON (literally, tons) of them and all the above issues (shipping , taxes etc) are already in place.
heya tony — yeah, definitely need to add-in all those other costs related to getting product into the united states and to their final destination.
i just recently learned that gildan makes a half-a-billion t-shirts per year. that’s 500,000,000 (five hundred million), or 41,666,666 per month. at that volume, their cost to make a t-shirt has to be really, really low.