Sweater FOB Cost Breakdown: What You Actually Pay

Short answer: On a 12-gauge combed cotton sweater quoted at $11.80 FOB Shanghai, yarn is roughly $4.60 (39%), knitting $1.90 (16%), linking and sewing $1.35 (11%), dyeing and washing $1.20 (10%), finishing and packing $0.85 (7%), trims and labels $0.55 (5%), factory overhead $0.70 (6%) and margin $0.65 (6%). Of that, only about 10% is genuinely negotiable by asking. The other 39% moves when you change fibre, gauge or quantity — which is where you should spend your energy instead.

Buyers treat an FOB number as a single thing to be pushed down. It is not, it is eight things, and four of them are set by markets you do not control. Knowing the split is the difference between a negotiation that gets you 5% and one that quietly gets you a cheaper yarn you did not ask for.

The Reference Garment

Everything below is a specific sweater, because costing without a reference garment is fiction:

Change any one of those inputs and the numbers below shift. That is the point.

Line by Line

What Actually Moves the Number

The lines buyers forget to budget

How to Negotiate Without Damaging the Order

Ask for 3–6% on a properly specced programme and you will usually get it, out of margin and overhead. Ask for 15% and you will also get it — out of the yarn, quietly, three weeks after you signed. The honest way to a lower number is to change the spec: consolidate four colourways into three, accept a 45-day production window instead of 30 so the factory can schedule you into a gap, and book yarn early so the mill is not buying spot. Those three moves together are worth more than any discount you will extract by pressing.

Conclusion

An FOB price is a stack of inputs, and the biggest input is a commodity you can see moving on a screen. Learn the split, change the two or three lines that actually drive it, and stop treating margin as the place to find savings. Margin is 6%. Yarn is 39%.

Key Takeaways for Buyers

How We Quote

We quote knitwear with the costing split out — yarn, knitting, linking, dyeing, trims and conversion — because a buyer who can see the lines makes better decisions and asks better questions. Send us a tech pack with target quantity, gauge and fibre and you will get a quote you can actually audit, plus the price validity window in writing.