Returns and Claims on Clothing Made to Your Specification
This page states honestly how returns and claims work when clothing is manufactured to order. It is shorter on promises than pages on retail websites, because the truth of made-to-order production is different from the truth of a stock shop, and we would rather state it plainly here than have a buyer discover it after a problem. The short version: goods made to your confirmed specification cannot be returned like stock, but a proven fault on our side is put right, and this page explains how.
1. Why Made-to-Order Goods Are Not Returnable Like Stock
Every garment we sew is cut and made for one buyer's programme: their specification, their sizes, their colours, and usually their own labels and packaging. A stock retailer can take a returned shirt and sell it to the next customer; a factory cannot do that with 3,000 pieces carrying another brand's label. For that reason, these are not something a made-to-order programme can accept, on either side of the trade:
- Change-of-mind returns.
- Over-forecast returns.
- Returns of goods that simply did not sell.
This is exactly why the sampling and written confirmation stages matter so much in our process: the approved pre-production sample and the written order confirmation are the agreement about what will be made, and both sides check them with care before bulk production begins.
2. Check Your Shipment When It Arrives
Claims stay simple when a shipment is checked on arrival, and difficult when it is checked months later. When your cartons arrive:
- Open them promptly.
- Count them against the packing list.
- Compare the garments with the approved sample and the order confirmation: style, colour, measurements, workmanship and packing.
- Keep the cartons, labels and packing materials from anything you question, because they carry the carton and production references our team needs to trace the goods in the order file.
On a large shipment, a sensible arrival check works carton by carton across the load rather than opening one carton and judging thousands of pieces by it:
- Spread the check across styles, colours and sizes.
- Record which cartons each checked piece came from.
If a fault repeats in the same carton run, that pattern is itself valuable evidence, because it lets our team trace the production stage the run passed through. A claim built on a spread check with carton references is the fastest kind for us to verify and the fastest kind for a buyer to see answered.
On a large shipment, a sensible arrival check works carton by carton across the load rather than opening one carton and judging thousands of pieces by it: spread the check across styles, colours and sizes, and record which cartons each checked piece came from. If a fault repeats in the same carton run, that pattern is itself valuable evidence, because it lets our team trace the production stage the run passed through. A claim built on a spread check with carton references is the fastest kind for us to verify and the fastest kind for a buyer to see answered.
3. What Counts as a Valid Claim
A claim is valid where the goods, as delivered, genuinely depart from what was confirmed and approved, and the fault is on the production side. In practice that means:
- Manufacturing defects - faulty stitching, fabric faults or construction errors beyond the agreed tolerance for the style.
- Measurement failure - garments measuring outside the tolerance on the confirmed size chart.
- Shortages - fewer pieces or cartons than the packing list and invoice state.
- Wrong goods - a style, colour or size ratio that does not match the written order confirmation.
Claims cannot be raised for wear and damage after the goods have been used or retailed, for damage that happened in transit or storage where the risk had already passed to the buyer's side under the shipment terms, or for differences from a change that was asked for in conversation but never confirmed in writing. Those boundaries are not fine print; they are the same confirmation discipline the whole order ran on.
4. The Evidence That Supports a Claim
A claim is decided from evidence, and clear evidence gets a fast answer. What supports a claim best is:
- Clear photographs or a short video showing the fault, with the garment's label and the carton it came from visible.
- The quantities affected - how many pieces, in which styles, colours and sizes.
- The carton numbers and packing list references for the affected goods.
- Your inspection notes from the arrival check, including measurements where size is the issue.
Our team reviews the evidence against the order file: the confirmed specification, the approved sample held from production, the factory inspection records and the packing data. Where the evidence shows a production fault, we say so plainly; where it shows something else, we explain what the record shows instead of arguing in circles.
5. How a Proven Claim Is Put Right
Where a claim is proven, the remedy is agreed with the buyer around the shape of the problem, in honest general terms:
- Repair where repair is practical and the buyer accepts it.
- Replacement of the affected pieces in a following production or shipment where the programme continues.
- A credit against the order value for the affected goods where neither repair nor replacement makes sense.
Small proven shortages are normally settled by credit or by making the pieces up in the next order, whichever the buyer prefers. The aim is always the same: the buyer ends up whole on the goods they paid for, and the cause is fixed in production so the same fault does not travel with the next shipment.
The remedy follows the affected quantity, not the whole shipment. If the evidence proves a fault in one colour of a five-colour programme, the remedy is worked out on that colour's pieces; if a shortage is a handful of pieces in one size, it is settled on those pieces. That proportionality is what keeps a claim a business conversation instead of a dispute: the buyer shows the affected goods, we verify them against the record, and the number both sides are discussing is the number the evidence supports.
6. How We Prevent Claims Before Shipment
The cheapest claim is the one that never happens, and most of our quality work aims there. Before the cartons are sealed, every order passes:
- Inline checks while sewing is underway.
- Measurements verified against the size chart before packing.
- A final inspection.
Buyers who want their own eyes on the goods are welcome to send their own inspector or an inspection agency for a pre-shipment inspection, and the balance of a transfer order falls due after that inspection where one is asked for, as our payment terms describe. A fault found on our inspection table costs an afternoon; the same fault found in a buyer's warehouse costs everyone far more, and the whole system is built around that difference.
7. Raise a Claim Promptly, While the Trail Is Warm
We deliberately state no artificial deadline on this page, because a claim should be judged on its evidence rather than on a calendar technicality. But honesty runs both ways: a claim raised straight after the arrival check can be verified against fresh production records, retained samples and the memories of the team who ran the order, while a claim raised many months later, after goods have been moved, stored and handled elsewhere, becomes genuinely harder for anyone to prove or disprove. So the practical rule is simple - check on arrival, raise it promptly, and keep the affected goods and cartons untouched until the review is done. Buyers who work that way find the process in the sections above moves quickly.
Claims Handling for Clothing Importers in the USA
Importers in the USA usually raise claims through their broker or inspection partner with photographs and a count against the packing list, and that is exactly the evidence this page asks for. Send it to the merchandiser on your order file, and the claim is reviewed against the production record and answered from the file, with the remedy agreed in writing. Distance does not change the standard: a proven fault is put right whether the buyer sits in Dhaka or in New York.