Two quotes our team in Shenzhen received this fall for a small apparel label: an embroidered cap at 35 yuan, about $5.25, with a minimum of 100 per color, and a washed and printed T-shirt at 72 yuan, about $10.80, from 50 pieces per color. Not long ago a brand that size would have been told that China was for big orders and that small runs belonged in Portugal or Turkey. That advice deserves a second look.
Nearshoring has been the standard advice for years. In 2021, 71 percent of the 38 apparel sourcing chiefs McKinsey surveyed planned to raise the share they buy from nearby countries. It did not happen at scale. In McKinsey’s reading of Eurostat data, the share of European Union apparel imports from nearby non-EU countries fell from 29 percent in 2019 to 25 percent in 2023, while China’s share slipped only from 29 to 28 percent. The firm had already warned that nearshoring was “hampered by limited raw-material supply and hefty price markups.”
Most of what has changed since is on the factory side. The United States ended duty-free entry for low-value parcels from China and Hong Kong in May 2025 and for every other country that August. In 2025 China’s exports to the United States fell 20 percent in dollar terms while its exports to the EU rose 8.4 percent, according to Chinese customs data.
The European Central Bank finds that the rise in China’s exports to the EU predates the latest tariffs and that weak demand inside China “appears to be the missing link” behind it. One Chinese business outlet reports that buyers who once had to order 500 to 1,000 pieces now ask for 100 to 200. Many factories still find such orders barely worth taking. Factories in Shein’s network have adapted to them: in Guangzhou’s Panyu district alone, more than 1,000 garment factories work for the company, whose first order for every new style is only 100 to 200 pieces. In the quotes we collected this fall, 100 per color or per design was the usual minimum.
Europe has changed on the buyer’s side as well. Since July 1, every parcel worth up to 150 euros (about $170) sent from outside the EU directly to a consumer pays a flat customs duty of 3 euros (about $3.35) per item category. On Nov. 1, a handling fee of 2 euros (about $2.25) per item category was added, whatever the parcel’s value. In the first months of the duty, parcel numbers fell by about half in Belgium and the Netherlands, and Dutch customs say more companies appear to be switching to bulk imports stored in EU warehouses. A micro-brand that drop-shipped from a platform now has a reason to hold its own small batch. Every small batch starts with a sample.
Here is the part that usually gets left out. For a brand like this one, Guangdong is not faster, and its minimums are no longer unique. One Portuguese supplier, in an Enterprise Europe Network listing that ran until July, offered 150 garments per color and samples within five working days. Our samples in China took one to two weeks, and courier freight from China adds another one to two. What China still offers a small brand is price, and a supplier base that now takes small runs. That advantage is easy to lose at 100 pieces. It is usually lost on the European side before anything is cut, and three decisions settle it.
First, fix fabric weight and wash before the first sample. The washed T-shirt fabric first offered for one client was 360 grams per square meter, about 550 grams a shirt. He wanted 250 at most, so the quote started again. Weight also travels. On the only courier line to that client’s market, the freight quote worked out at roughly $29 a kilo, so a 550-gram shirt would carry about $16 of freight on its own. Write the weight in grams per square meter and send a physical swatch for the wash. A phrase like “vintage fade” is open to interpretation. A swatch is not.
Second, send measurements instead of size letters. China’s national sizing standard codes tops by height and chest girth plus a body-type letter, as in 170/88A, so a factory’s L is its own. The simplest size chart is a garment that already fits your customers: the same client simply asked for the measurements of an existing tee. Placements belong in centimeters too. His swim shorts drawing fixed the logo at 8 centimeters long, 4 from the side and 5 above the hem. Even with thread color codes agreed, the first sample came back embroidered in black instead of off-white. Budget for a second round.
Third, price freight and samples before you approve anything. That client sells on a small island market, and the warehouse we ship from could offer only one courier line. Two thousand paper shopping bags, quoted at 2.30 to 2.80 yuan each (about 35 to 42 cents), fill nine cartons weighing about 170 kilos. The freight quote was 32,795 yuan, about $4,900, or more than 16 yuan (about $2.45) a bag: some six times the price of the bag itself. Small items hide a second trap. A plastic keychain cost 2.40 yuan (about 36 cents) at 100 per design, but the sample fee was 480 yuan (about $72) per design and was not credited against the order. The sample cost twice the run. Some makers do credit it: a Croatian supplier on the same EU network listed its sample fee of 250 euros (about $280) as deductible from the order. Ask before you approve, and put freight per piece next to the unit price. At 100 pieces it can change which products are worth making at all.
None of this argues against nearshoring. A brand that wants to visit its sewing room by train, or reorder every few weeks, has good reasons to stay in Portugal or Turkey. But for a micro-brand counting every cent, 100 caps or 300 pairs of shorts is now an ordinary request in Guangdong. The factory no longer turns a small brand away. It still charges for every decision left until after the first sample.
Ruqiao Fan is the founder and CEO of Equilinq, a sourcing and hardware engineering company registered in Hong Kong and run from Amsterdam, with a team in Shenzhen. Equilinq handles sampling and small-batch production in China for European small and medium-sized companies and brands.
