How Can I Speed Up Cost Calculations?

Fast and accurate cost calculation is one of the fundamental requirements for manufacturers to stay competitive. When a brand requests a quote, a manufacturer that cannot respond quickly loses the business to a competitor who has already prepared their pricing. Yet for most garment manufacturers, the cost calculation process remains manual, fragmented, and extremely slow.

Calculating the cost of a garment requires knowing the prices of dozens of components: fabric, accessories, printing or embroidery, washing, ironing, packaging, labor, overhead, and profit margin. A significant portion of these depend on prices obtained from sub-suppliers. Without getting quotes from fabric suppliers, accessory suppliers, and print shops, an accurate cost calculation is impossible.

In the traditional process, the manufacturer asks each sub-supplier individually for pricing, waits for their responses, then compiles everything in Excel. Sub-suppliers responding late, sending incomplete information, or not responding at all can extend cost calculations by days or even weeks. Meanwhile, the brand receives quotes from other manufacturers and makes their decision.

Beyond speed, accuracy is also a major risk. In manual calculations, forgetting a component, using the wrong exchange rate, or incorrectly estimating labor hours leads to losses that are only discovered after submitting the quote. A manufacturer who wins the job with a low bid is actually a manufacturer running at a loss.

Digital cost calculation tools dramatically speed up this process. With pre-defined templates and sub-supplier price databases, you can calculate a product's cost in minutes. Automatic reminders and single-platform price collection features also shorten sub-supplier response times.

Fast and accurate cost calculation directly impacts not just your ability to win work, but also your profitability. Quotes prepared with correct pricing information both build client confidence and protect the manufacturer's profit margins.

If you want to speed up your cost calculation process and stop missing opportunities, leave your email address. Let us introduce our tailored cost calculation solutions to you.