gifts, promotional products and party supplies / Buying guide
Minimum order quantity for gifts
There are two minimums in this category and confusing them is the most common planning mistake. The stock minimum is what a booth will sell you off the shelf: usually 50 to 200 pieces, sometimes 10 to 30 for a genuine test.
The custom minimum is what it takes to run your logo, your colour or your packaging, and it is usually 500 to 1,000 pieces or more, because it triggers a production run rather than a warehouse pick.
In this guide
When the stock minimum is negotiable
- Goods already sitting in the booth: almost always, because nothing is being produced.
- A first order explicitly framed as a test ahead of a larger buy: frequently accepted.
- Slow-moving or end-of-season stock: very negotiable, sometimes below the stated floor.
- Anything requiring a mould, a print plate or a dye lot: not negotiable at all.
Why freight sets a floor the market does not
A booth will happily sell you 30 pieces. Shipping 30 pieces internationally will cost more per unit than the goods, because there is a fixed cost to moving any consignment at all.
The practical floor is set by the shipment, not the item. Consolidating several small buys into one shipment is what makes small quantities work — which is why mixed orders from Yiwu are economic where a single 30-piece order is not.
Planning a first order
- Pick six to ten items rather than one. The freight cost is shared and you learn far more.
- Order at the stock minimum, not the custom minimum, until you know what sells.
- Keep the total above roughly 20 kg so freight per unit stops being punishing.
- Budget for a sample round before the real buy on anything you have not handled.
Questions & answers
Common questions
- Can I order just one of something?
- From a booth, sometimes, at a retail price. As a sample ahead of a real order, yes and it is worth doing.
- Does the minimum apply per colour or per item?
- Usually per colour and per size. Ask explicitly — a 100-piece minimum across five colours is a very different order from 100 per colour.
- What if I need 5,000 of one thing?
- At that volume you should be quoting factories directly rather than a market booth. The saving is real and we will route it that way.
Your next step
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Send a 1688 or Taobao product link and you get back the specification in English, the supplier check, and the landed cost to your country before you commit to anything.
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