Ask two buyers for a price on the same sanitary pants, same construction, same total quantity, and the numbers will not match. Neither buyer is being played. One sent a size curve with four sizes in it, the other sent six, evenly divided, because even division feels fair. The factory prices the work, not the wish, and the work is different.
Two buyers, one quantity, two very different prices
The first curve behaves like a plan. It puts most of the volume where the product actually sells and keeps the ends thin on purpose. The second behaves like a form: every size the catalogue offers, split down the middle, with two sizes carrying a few cartons each.
Even division is the most expensive way to buy a sized garment. It forces the factory to set up for sizes that will only ever run in small numbers, and it leaves you holding stock in the sizes that move slowly. Both costs are real, and neither of them appears on the quotation as a line item.
How a cutting marker turns a size curve into a price tag
Pattern pieces are nested onto a marker, and the marker is laid across the width of the material. The nesting decides how much of each roll becomes product and how much becomes waste at the edges. Some size combinations nest well together; others leave a strip that nothing fits into.
Then comes the changeover. Every size in the curve is a separate run at the cutting table, with its own setup, its own bundle tickets and its own chance of a mix-up at packing. Setup does not shrink because the run is short. It is charged to the order either way, which is why six sizes and four sizes of the same quantity do not cost the same.
Why the size curve is a bet, not a formality
A curve is a statement about the bodies in your market. Whoever builds it is guessing, and the guess is either informed by sell-through or borrowed from somewhere else. Borrowed curves are the most common reason a first order leaves a distributor with stock in two sizes and nothing in the one that moves.
The honest input is your own record, even a thin one. If you have sold pants in this market before, the sizes that emptied first are your evidence. If you have not, take a narrower range for the first order and plan a top-up, rather than spreading a fixed budget across a range you cannot test.
Where a sanitary pants supplier in Tanzania has to push back
A sanitary pants supplier in Tanzania who accepts every curve without comment is not being flexible, only quiet. The comment belongs at quotation stage, in writing: this size will run short, this pair of sizes should be merged, this end of the range should wait for a second order.
Push-back is not a refusal to sell. It is the factory telling you where its cutting table stops being efficient, so that you can decide whether the inefficiency is worth paying for. Buyers who hear that before the deposit usually keep the supplier; buyers who hear it after delivery usually do not. That conversation is also where a sanitary pants supplier in Tanzania earns a second order.
The dead stock sits at the two ends of the range
Retail demand concentrates. The middle sizes move first, the ends move last, and the last is where cash goes to sit. That matters more than the unit price, because money tied up in slow sizes is money the next order needs.
So the shape of the curve is a financing decision as much as a product one. A curve that overweights the ends is a loan you make to your own warehouse, at your own cost, with nothing coming back.
What a short run per size really costs the factory
Material is bought in roll minimums, and the roll is consumed by the lay. A short run does not consume a short roll; it consumes a full one and leaves the remainder to be stored, counted and matched later. The factory carries that remainder until another order can use it.
There are only three honest responses to a curve that cannot be cut economically: price it higher, cut more of the slow size than you asked for, or decline the size. Each has a consequence for you, and each is better discussed before production than discovered at packing. The order rules on minimum order quantity explain why some sizes carry a floor.
Reading a size curve before you approve it
Four checks catch most of the problems, and none of them needs technical knowledge. Run them before the cutting order is signed, not after the cartons arrive.
| Check | What it reveals | What to change |
|---|---|---|
| Number of sizes in the curve | How many changeovers the factory must run | Merge sizes that sit next to each other |
| Pieces per size | Whether any single run is practical at all | Move volume towards the middle sizes |
| Weighting against your own sell-through | Whether the curve is evidence or a copy | Reweight before cutting, never after |
| Sizes you plan to top up later | Where your cash will be sitting meanwhile | Plan a second run instead of one wide order |
A curve that survives those four checks is still a guess, but it is a guess with a reason behind it. That is the most an opening order can honestly be.
The questions that change a quotation
Most price arguments start life as unanswered questions. Five of them, put in the first email, change both the number you are quoted and the number you end up paying:
- Which sizes are in your curve, and how many pieces sit in each one?
- Was the curve built from your own sell-through, or copied from another market?
- Which sizes would you merge if the factory asked for four instead of six?
- Do you want the whole quantity at once, or a first cut plus a planned top-up?
- Who carries the stock if one size sits on the shelf through the first season?
If the answers are vague, the quote will be vague in exactly the same places. Buyers who import sanitary pants from China to Tanzania for the first time usually leave the curve to the last email and pay for it in the first delivery.
What we can settle before the cutting order
We control the pattern set, the marker, the laminate and the packing. We do not control your market, your sell-through or the price your retailers will accept, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. We have produced in Guangdong since 1998, and what we can do is tell you where a curve stops being economical before you commit to it.
A sanitary pants manufacturer in Tanzania and a factory in Guangdong will often answer the same question differently, because one is describing a garment and the other is describing a cutting plan. The comparison only becomes useful when both are asked for the same four things: sizes, pieces per size, packing and the material build.
The phrase sanitary pants wholesale in Tanzania normally means redistributor volume, cartons moving on to sub-distributors and pharmacies, and it is priced per pack configuration rather than per size. Settle the pack configuration and the size curve together, because between them they fix the carton count that everything else is quoted against.
We ship from China and do not hold stock locally, so the stock risk inside a curve stays with you; our part is to make the curve cuttable. Send the curve you have and ask for a specification sheet with the pattern set and the packing written beside it. The supplier page sets out what we hold ourselves to, the wholesale page covers pack configurations, and the contact page reaches the export desk directly.
Why do two quotes for the same pants quantity differ so much?
The size curve is usually the reason. A curve with more sizes forces more changeovers at the cutting table, and each changeover carries setup that does not shrink with volume. The same total quantity can therefore require quite different work.
How many sizes should a first sanitary pants order carry?
Fewer than your catalogue suggests. A narrower range you can actually test is easier to cut and easier to sell, and it leaves room for a planned top-up once you know which size moves. Spreading a fixed budget across six sizes tests none of them properly.
What is a cutting marker and why does it matter to a buyer?
A marker is the layout that nests the pattern pieces across the material. How well those pieces fit together decides how much material becomes product and how much becomes edge waste, so the marker is where a size curve turns into cost.
Can a supplier cut a curve with uneven volume across sizes?
It can, but the short sizes still need their own setup, tickets and packing checks. Expect either a higher price per piece or a request to merge sizes. A factory that agrees without comment is likely to raise the issue later, when you have less room to move.
Does buying more pieces of one size always reduce the cost?
Up to a point, because setup spreads across more pieces and the material is used more fully. Beyond that the saving flattens and the risk moves onto your stock. The useful question is not the cheapest price per piece but the curve you can sell through.
