What to Put in an Apparel Vendor RFP

Most apparel vendor RFP documents fail in the same quiet way. They ask for a price, they get three prices, and the three prices turn out to describe three different products with three different lifespans, so the decision gets made on the lowest number and regretted eleven months later. An apparel vendor RFP is not hard to write well, but it has to do one specific job: force every respondent to bid on the same garment, the same decoration, the same delivery model and the same service obligations, so that the numbers you receive are actually comparable. This is a working guide to the sections to include, the specifications to demand, how to score what comes back, and the questions that separate a decorator from a reseller.

When an apparel RFP is worth writing

An RFP costs your organisation real hours, and not every apparel purchase deserves one. It is worth the effort when at least two of the following are true: the spend is recurring rather than one time, the apparel is worn by staff who represent your brand to customers, more than one location or department is involved, the programme has to survive a change of personnel on your side, or your organisation requires a competitive process for the spend band.

If none of those apply, a specified request for quote serves you better. A single large event order, a one time conference run, a pilot for one department: write a tight specification, send it to three vendors, compare and decide. You get most of the discipline of an RFP without the governance overhead. The habit worth keeping either way is the specification, because that is the part that produces comparable numbers.

The sections an apparel vendor RFP should contain

A usable apparel RFP has nine sections. Each one exists to remove a specific category of ambiguity.

1. Scope and background

What the apparel is for, how many people wear it, across how many locations, and whether this replaces an existing programme or creates a new one. State your industry and your wear environment plainly. A warehouse in Doral, a hotel in Miami Beach and a professional office in Brickell are three different durability problems, and a vendor who does not know which one you are will specify the wrong fabric.

2. Item specification

The garment list, line by line, with brand, fabric content, weight, colour and size range. This is the single most important section and the one most often left open. More on how to write it below.

3. Decoration specification

Method, placement and dimensions per item. Do not write "logo on chest". Write the method, the position and the size in inches.

4. Artwork and brand control

What files you will supply, who approves proofs, how many revision rounds are included, how colour is matched and approved, and who owns the artwork and any digitised embroidery file at the end of the contract. That last point matters more than people expect, because an embroidery file you do not own is a switching cost.

5. Quantities and forecast

The initial order, your best forecast of annual volume, and the expected pattern: one annual run, quarterly runs, or continuous small orders for new hires. Vendors price volume certainty, so vagueness here costs you money.

6. Service levels and logistics

Delivery model, number of destinations, whether cartons must be split and labelled by site or department, receiving constraints, and how you want dates handled. Ask for a commitment process for dates rather than a published turnaround, because a generic turnaround figure applied to your specific job is a guess.

7. Programme administration

Reorder mechanism, how a stored specification is maintained, who can place orders, reporting you expect, how new hire top ups are handled, and how size data is held. A programme that depends on one person remembering what was ordered last year is not a programme.

8. Commercial terms

Pricing format, quantity bands, validity period, payment terms, invoicing requirements, purchase order handling, how changes are priced, and what happens to pricing if your forecast volume moves significantly in either direction.

9. Evaluation criteria

Publish the scoring model in the RFP. Vendors answer the questions you weight, and telling them the weighting improves the quality of every response you receive. It also protects your decision internally, because the rationale was fixed before the bids arrived.

Specifications that make bids comparable

This is the section that does the work. For every garment on your list, fix the fields below. Where you genuinely want vendor input, say so explicitly and ask for an alternate alongside a bid on your base specification, so you still receive one comparable number.

Two practical aids. If you are unsure what to put in the placement fields, a reference like our print placement and size guide gives you standard positions and dimensions you can quote directly, such as a left chest mark at five by five inches or a front print at twelve by sixteen inches. And if you are choosing between blanks for a mixed workforce, our guide to choosing blanks for company apparel covers how fabric and fit decisions play out across roles.

How to ask for pricing

Ask for pricing per item, in quantity bands, with the bands set at the quantities you will realistically order. If your annual run is in the hundreds and your top ups are in the tens, you need both bands priced, because a vendor who is competitive on the large run and punitive on small top ups will cost you more over a year than the headline number suggests.

Require these lines to be itemised separately rather than absorbed into a single figure: garment, decoration per location, any artwork or digitising setup, sampling, packing and labelling by site, and freight per destination. Also ask for the cost of a single piece reorder, since that is what a new hire actually is.

Then do the arithmetic that matters: model your realistic annual pattern against each bid rather than comparing unit prices at one quantity. A bid that wins at five hundred pieces and loses badly at twenty five can be the more expensive vendor across a full year. Our guide to how custom apparel pricing is actually built explains which inputs move a per piece figure, which is useful when you need to challenge a number rather than just accept it.

One structural note. Cost per piece falls as quantity rises, which is universal in this industry, and a vendor should be able to show you where their bands break and why. A vendor who cannot explain their own price structure will not be able to defend it when your volume changes.

The service requirements buyers forget

Price and garment are the easy half. Programmes fail on the operational half, and these are the clauses that prevent it.

• Date commitment process. Rather than accepting a published turnaround, require that the vendor confirms a specific in hand date for each order before you commit, and state what happens if a confirmed date is missed.
• Stored specification and reorder. Require that the vendor hold garment, colour, method, placement, size and approved artwork as a written record, and that reorders run against it without re approval. This is the mechanism behind reorders that match the original, and without it your fourth order drifts.
• New hire handling. State the minimum order you need honoured. A programme that forces you to batch new hires until the quantity is worthwhile leaves people without apparel for weeks.
• Size data and breakdown reporting. Require the actual size breakdown shipped, in writing, so next year's run is based on fact rather than on last year's assumption.
• Multi site splitting. Specify labelling by site and, where useful, by department, and require it as part of the base price rather than as an extra.
• Proof and revision terms. How many revision rounds, how proofs are delivered, and who signs off.
• Artwork ownership and exit. Confirm in writing that you own your artwork and any digitised files at the end of the relationship.
• Continuity of specification. What happens if a blank is discontinued. The answer should be a notified substitution with a sample for approval, not a silent swap.

If you want a model for how these clauses fit together into something your organisation can run, our outline of a standing company uniform programme covers the administrative structure, and our bulk order page sets out the information we need to respond to a specified request in full.

How to score the responses

Decide the weighting before you read a single bid, publish it in the RFP, and score each criterion independently so a strong price cannot quietly carry a weak operational answer. The model below is a starting point for a recurring staff apparel programme. Adjust it to your situation: a one time event order should weight price and date higher, while a customer facing uniform programme should weight sample quality and programme administration higher.

Score samples blind if you can. Remove the vendor identity, number the garments, and have the people who will wear them handle each one. It is the single most informative hour in the whole process, and it routinely reorders the shortlist.

Questions that expose a weak vendor

Put these in the RFP as written questions. Each one is difficult to answer convincingly without the underlying capability.

1. Which decoration methods do you produce yourself, and which do you place with someone else? This is the question. A vendor who prints but places embroidery elsewhere has a handoff in the middle of your mixed order, and handoffs are where accountability disappears. At Imperial Custom Apparel, Kornit DTG printing, DTF transfers and custom embroidery are all produced in house, which is why a mixed order stays a single project with a single owner.
2. How do you commit to a delivery date, and what do you do when you cannot hit the one I need? You want a process answer. A published turnaround applied to every job regardless of its content is a marketing number, not a commitment.
3. Show me how you store a specification and how a reorder runs against it. Ask to see the actual record format. If the answer is that they keep the old job on file, ask what fields that file contains.
4. What is your minimum order, and what does one single piece cost? New hires arrive one at a time. A vendor with a high minimum is telling you that your onboarding will be handled in batches.
5. What happens when a blank is discontinued mid programme? The right answer involves notification and an approval sample. A wrong answer involves a substitution you discover on arrival.
6. Can you decorate my own artwork onto a physical sample before award? A vendor unwilling to produce a sample with your mark on it is asking you to buy on description.
7. Who is my named contact, and who answers when they are unavailable? Programmes run on people. A shared inbox as the only answer is a risk.
8. How do you handle multiple destinations, and is splitting and labelling included in the price you quoted? If it is an extra, the comparable bid you thought you had was never comparable.
9. Do I own my artwork and any digitised embroidery file at the end of the contract? Anything other than a clear yes is a switching cost disguised as a technicality.

Mistakes that produce bids you cannot compare

Six patterns account for most unusable RFP responses, and all six are avoidable in the drafting.

Asking for a price without a specification. The most common and the most expensive. If you do not fix the garment and the decoration, every vendor optimises toward the lowest number they can defend, and the cheapest bid is simply the thinnest product.

Requesting one blended unit price. A single figure hides the quantity behaviour that will determine your annual cost, and it hides whether setup, packing and freight are inside or outside the number.

Leaving decoration method open. Embroidery, direct to garment printing and transfers differ in appearance, durability and cost, and each suits a different fabric. Letting vendors pick guarantees you will compare unlike things.

Omitting the logistics model. Delivery to one address and delivery split across eight sites are materially different jobs. If the RFP is silent, the bid will assume the cheap version.

Scoring after reading the bids. Weighting invented after the fact tends to describe the bid you already preferred. Publish it up front.

Skipping physical samples. Fabric weight, hand feel, fit and decoration quality cannot be evaluated on a specification sheet. If you award without handling the garment, your staff will be the first people to assess it, which is far too late. Supplying clean artwork makes sampling faster, and our design and artwork guide covers what file format and resolution to send.

Running the process

A realistic sequence, with the slow parts first. Set your own dates against your governance calendar, and build in the sampling round rather than treating it as optional.

• Define scope and roles internally. Agree who specifies, who scores, who approves and who will administer the programme afterwards. The administrator should help write the service section.
• Write the specification. Garments, fabrics, colours, sizes, methods, placements and dimensions. Lock it before you issue.
• Issue the RFP with the scoring model published. Include your forecast and your order pattern.
• Hold a single clarification window. Answer every question to every bidder at once, in writing. One sided clarifications destroy comparability.
• Score written responses before samples arrive. Keeps the paper evaluation honest.
• Run the blind sample review. Your own artwork, unidentified garments, the people who will wear them.
• Model the annual cost per bid. Your real pattern of runs and top ups, not a unit price at one quantity.
• Award, then document the specification as the programme record. The spec you wrote becomes the standing document that every later order runs against.