As a fashion brand, you definitely do not want to be buying production fabric at retail prices. You will end up either going broke really fast or have to charge so much for your products to cover your cost of goods that they will be prohibitively expensive to your customers. When you just need a small amount of fabric for sampling, though, you won’t always be able to make the wholesale MOQs. So what do you do for sample fabric?
If you are getting fabric custom made at a mill, you can usually get sample yardage of a roll-300 or so yards. This can still be at wholesale pricing as long as it will be part of a larger production order.
If you are using deadstock fabric, there often isn’t an option to buy sample yardage ahead of placing your order. Deadstock suppliers often sell first come first serve. You may be able to get a swatch to see the color and quality, but then you’ll need to order what you want for production and use part of that for sampling.
If you are ordering stock fabric, you can often get smaller quantities – sometimes just 5yds – at retail price and then come back later to order larger production quantities at the wholesale price. Many suppliers will have tiered pricing with a lower cost per yard the larger quantities you order.
It is perfectly okay to pay retail prices for sample fabric when you are ordering very small quantities. You just want to make sure that you can come back several months later and order the same fabric for production at a wholesale price.