When you begin creating your swimwear line, nothing is more important than understanding exactly how much it’ll cost to bring your products to fruition. So, now that we’ve explored the different types of swimwear styles, how you can go about manufacturing your products, and the different ways you can go about making your swimwear line eco-friendly, it’s time to talk about just how to budget accordingly.
When creating a swimwear line, you’ll run into two different budgetary considerations that need to be taken into account sampling costs and bulk/wholesale costs.
All prices mentioned are in US$.
Our price lists are further down in the page.
ON A BUDGET? ORDER IN OUR SHOP.
We offer the lowest MOQ worldwide with only 100pcs, there’s free shipping and you’ll only need about:
$1200 for products + $300 for labelling & packaging = $1500 to start your swimwear line.
WHAT ARE SAMPLING COSTS?
Related article: How To Order Samples
In total, sampling can cost you anywhere from $200 to $2000. It all depends on how what route you take. Some of our clients skip sampling altogether.
Samples are essentially one-off orders that you can use to gauge your interest in a particular fabric, pattern, print, or design. With that in mind, it’s important to consider that sampling costs can add up. Let’s take a look down below to see an example of what we charge for sample designs.
Ready Design
Our sample price is 3X bulk price. To give you a quick idea of how that pans out here are some examples on how much they could cost you:
1X Swim Bikini Top – bulk $12, sample $36
1X Swim One Piece – bulk $18, sample $54
1X Active Sport Bra – bulk $21, sample $63
1X Active Leggings, bulk $26, sample $78
1X Men’s Swim Shorts – bulk $19, sample $57
As you can see, through our own sample pricing model, the prices you pay for samples are 3x higher than what you would pay in bulk through our catalog. However, in our shop we already have fixed price samples. See shop.
Custom Design
For instance, if your design is rather complex, if it uses a lot of fabric, or if you want to add special hardware, your sample price could be much higher than any of the ready design samples that we have to offer. To put it simply, the simpler the design, the cheaper your sample will be.
To start off with your custom design, we charge $99 to develop the design itself, including pattern making and size range grading. 50% of the fee will be credited towards your bulk order for each design you develop. Any revisions to your custom design are not included in this fee. If you require to see a sample, then the fee is 3x bulk price. We will make 2 pieces of sample, one to send to you and a keeping sample for us. This means that you don’t need to return any samples to us, saving on time and shipping costs.
All in all, creating a single custom design and purchasing a sample can cost you around $100 per design (top, bottom, one piece, sport bra, leggings, shorts, briefs) all inclusive!When you’re going with a custom design, the prices can vary depending on a number of different variables.
Print Strikes
If you are developing any prints to use in your collection, we do a mockup and test print for $25/print.
Related article: Custom Swimwear Prints
Shipping
Depending on how many samples you order and where you plan on shipping them to, you can expect your costs to be anywhere between $15-$100, depending on how many samples and to where. In our shop shipping is free.
WHAT ABOUT BUYING IN BULK/WHOLESALE?
Related article: How To Order Bulk
Here’s where things become a little bit more realistic – especially considering the fact that you’ll recoup some of your initial investment through your profits when you start selling your swimwear.
Ordering in bulk essentially means that you’re ready to order large quantities of your swimwear products. And more than likely, you’ll be placing a bulk order for the sample designs that you had purchased previously.
When ordering in bulk, most of your associated costs will be based on the amount of products that you order, in addition to your design and the type of fabrics that you choose. Custom designs can vary in prices, but ready designs are obviously a bit more predictable.
Don’t forget to take accessories, packaging, and shipping into account – all of these will have an impact on your budget, and you’ll need to account for them prior to confirming your order!
Prices for Ready Design can be found in our catalogs: Swim | Active. Benchmark prices for Custom Design (Women’s Swim) are displayed below with our price lists.
ACCESSORIES & PACKAGING
Do you want to offer gift bags? Hang tags? Hygiene liners? See options and prices here.
SHIPPING
Cost (+/-20%), US$/pc North America: $1.1, Europe $1.2, Australia: $0.9
For both samples and bulk shipment we plan shipments so that it its uncommon that our customers have to pay custom duty. If they do, it’s usually small.
PRICE LISTS
Custom Design – your designs (developed from scratch)
Ready Design – our designs, your label
As you might notice, ready designs are cheaper than custom designs to sample. This is because they don’t need to developed, we have already done that work. The examples in the sheets are 100% Custom Design or 100% Ready Design, but you can also combine and mix any way you like.
You can also skip sampling altogether and order bulk directly.
CUSTOM SWIM PRICE LISTS
CUSTOM ACTIVE
LET'S TAKE A LOOK AT SOME EXAMPLES
Here are some example orders that will help to illustrate costs and a budget.
EXAMPLE A
Suppose you want to develop 5 different designs for a new swimwear line. You choose Bali Swim to produce your designs for you, and you’re ready to order. Your total budget is $10,000 for manufacturing and after viewing our tables, it looks like you can produce roughly 500 units or so in bulk, and have some money left over to factor into your next order.
This gives you roughly $2,000 to develop 100 units each for all five designs. But if you upgrade your fabric, you’ll have a little bit less money to spend on each design. If you increase your quantity, you’ll have less money left over. It might seem complicated at first, but it’s really straight forward!
BUDGET EXAMPLE: SAMPLE DEVELOPMENT
Fabric
Carvico VITA or Bali Swim Matte/Shiny
Unique Designs
How many different designs/styles in your collection. One bikini set (top + bottomm) is counted as 2 unique designs. One swimsuit is counted as 1 unique design.
Pattern Making (only Custom Design)
Sample development fee (US$69/design)
Print Strikes
Testing out your prints. (US$25/print)
Download here to start your budget calculation
BUDGET EXAMPLE: BULK PRODUCTION
Download here to start your budget calculation
THE BALI SWIM PAYMENT TERMS
Here at Bali Swim, it’s always our goal to help entrepreneurs pursue their dreams. We do this by making the process of designing a swimwear line of your own easier, stress-free, and simple. When it comes to our payment terms for production and manufacturing, we try to make things simple by requiring customers to make two payments.
We require a deposit of at least 50% prior to beginning production, and then require the remaining payment after your work has been finished, but before we send it out to you. For first-time clients, we require 100% of your payment prior to beginning production on your products.
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