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Sock Sourcing for Retail: Cost, Margin and Landed Price
THE NUMBER THAT MATTERS ISN'T THE QUOTE
The most common mistake in sourcing a retail product is treating the factory quote as the cost.
It isn't. Your real cost is the landed cost — everything it takes to get one sellable unit onto your shelf — and it's usually 15–30% higher than the quote you're comparing against.
Get that number right and every pricing decision downstream is easier.
WHAT LANDED COST ACTUALLY INCLUDES
| Component | Notes |
|---|---|
| Unit production cost | The factory quote |
| Packaging | Bands, boxes, inserts, hang tags |
| Freight | Sea or air; included in our pricing |
| Duties and taxes | Depends on your market and classification |
| Customs clearance | Broker fees, port charges |
| Inbound handling | Getting it from port to your warehouse |
| Sampling | Amortised across the run |
| Wastage | A small allowance for seconds and damage |
Design is free with us, so it isn't in that list — but if you're comparing suppliers, check whether it's in theirs. Design and artwork fees are a real cost that some quotes hide.
THE PRICING MATHS
Retail works on multiples of landed cost. The standard frames:
Keystone (2×). Landed cost doubled. The traditional floor for retail, and honestly too thin for a small brand carrying its own stock and marketing.
2.5–3×. Where most direct-to-consumer sock brands sit. Enough margin to fund marketing, returns and discounting.
3–4×. Premium positioning, strong brand, or a specialist construction people can feel the difference in.
Wholesale. If you're selling into other retailers, they'll want roughly 50% off your RRP. Which means your landed cost has to be about a quarter of RRP for the model to work at all.
That last point catches out a lot of first-time brands. If you plan to wholesale, price for wholesale from day one — you cannot add that margin later.
A WORKED EXAMPLE
Illustrative only. Your numbers will differ by height, construction, quantity and market.
| Per pair | |
|---|---|
| Production | $8.00 |
| Packaging | $0.60 |
| Freight | Included |
| Duty and clearance | $0.90 |
| Wastage allowance | $0.20 |
| Landed cost | $9.70 |
| DTC retail at 3× | $29.10 → $29.95 |
| Wholesale price (50% of RRP) | $14.98 |
| Margin on wholesale | $5.28 |
| Margin on DTC | $20.25 |
The gap between those last two lines is the entire argument for building a direct channel.
WHAT MOVES THE PRODUCTION NUMBER
In rough order of impact:
Quantity. By far the biggest lever. The per-pair difference between 100 and 500 pairs is substantial, and between 500 and 2,000 substantial again.
Height. A knee-high uses roughly twice the yarn of a mid. Low-cut is the cheapest thing you can make.
Construction. Silicone grip, toe knitting and zoned padding all add process.
Fibre. Merino and Coolmax carry a real premium over a cotton/nylon/poly blend.
Colour count. More yarns in the knit, more cost.
Decoration method. Direct knit is the best value at volume. Sublimation is competitive at low volume and for complex artwork.
THE STOCK QUESTION
Landed cost is only half the picture. The other half is how long the money sits in the warehouse.
A hundred pairs at $9.70 is under a thousand dollars of stock — a very manageable first position. Two thousand pairs across eight SKUs is closer to twenty thousand, and if half of it sells slowly you have a cash flow problem rather than a product problem.
The discipline that protects you: fewer styles, deeper stock, and reorder when a style proves itself. Every brand that has got into trouble on our watch did so by launching wide.
WHAT TO ASK A SUPPLIER
To compare quotes properly rather than on headline price:
- Is design and artwork included, or extra?
- Is freight included, and by what method?
- What's the price at 100, 500 and 1,000 pairs?
- What's the sample cost, and is it credited against production?
- What's the needle count and blend? (You're comparing products, not just prices.)
- What's the reorder lead time?
A quote that looks 15% cheaper often isn't once design, freight and sampling are added back in.
WE'LL GIVE YOU REAL NUMBERS
Tell us the construction, the quantity and your target retail price, and we'll give you a per-pair cost you can actually build a model on — including where the price breaks sit, so you can see whether ordering deeper makes sense.
Free designs, free revisions, and a pre-production sample before full production. Free shipping from 30 pairs. 100 pairs per style on the Team Feet Labs range. Figures above are illustrative, not a quote.