Pricing Strategy for Private Label Activewear
The most common pricing mistake in private label activewear is setting the retail price first and then compressing the factory until the garment fits that number. What comes back is a bra that passes a visual check and fails after twenty washes: thinner elastic, a lighter hook gauge, a single-row closure instead of three. Price should run the other direction. Establish what the garment costs to land, decide the margin structure you need, and then choose the construction that fits it.
Start with landed cost, not FOB
FOB is the number on the quote and it is not your cost. Landed cost adds ocean or air freight allocated per unit, duty at the classification your broker confirms, inland drayage and warehousing, third-party inspection, packaging, and a reserve for returns. Buyers who skip the last line are the ones whose margin disappears in the second quarter. Work the calculation on a spreadsheet per style, per color, and revisit it whenever freight rates move more than ten percent.
Set the ladder before the styling
A three-tier range needs visible price separation. If your entry bra lands at 4.50 and your mid tier at 6.80, a retail ladder of 19.99, 32.00 and 46.00 keeps the relationships legible to the customer and gives each tier room for a channel discount without collapsing into the one below. The test is simple: if your mid tier goes on promotion at thirty percent off, does it still sit clearly above the entry price? If not, the ladder is too tight.
Where discounting breaks the model
Apparel margin is thin enough that a permanent twenty percent promotion consumes most of the contribution of a mid-tier bra. Discount rate is a merchandising decision, but it is also a sourcing one: if you know a style will carry a promotional price for most of the season, its construction has to be costed for that price from the start, not marked down after the fact.
Renegotiate at reorder, not at sample
Sample-stage price pressure produces substitutions you cannot see. Reorder-stage negotiation is legitimate: higher total volume, consolidated colorways, a shared fabric booking across styles, and simplified packaging are all real efficiencies the factory can price. Ask for those specifically and you will get a better answer than a flat request for a lower number.
Protect the details that carry the price
When you do need to take cost out, cut where the customer will not feel it: fewer seasonal colorways, a shared base fabric, simpler packaging, a smaller trim range. Do not cut elastic weight, hook gauge or seam construction. Those are the three items that generate the returns and complaints that erase the saving several times over.
