What minimum order quantity should I expect from a Chinese factory?
There is no standard figure — an MOQ is set by whatever the factory cannot do in a small batch, usually a material minimum, a tooling cost or a line changeover. Ask which of those drives it and the number becomes negotiable or clearly is not. A factory with no MOQ is usually not the factory.
Buyers tend to treat the minimum order quantity as an opening position in a negotiation. Sometimes it is. More often it is a real constraint with a specific cause, and the useful move is not to push back on the number but to ask what sets it — because the answer tells you what kind of supplier you are talking to.
What actually sets an MOQ
| Driver | Negotiable? | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Raw material minimum — the mill or resin supplier sells in fixed lots | Rarely | The floor is upstream of your factory. Splitting a lot across customers is the only lever, and it needs another buyer |
| Tooling or setup cost — moulds, dies, screens, plates | Often | Usually convertible into money: pay the tooling separately and the unit MOQ drops |
| Line changeover — the cost of stopping a run to make yours | Sometimes | Depends entirely on how busy they are, which is why MOQs move with the season |
| Commercial preference — the order is too small to be worth the attention | Yes, but | They are telling you that you are a marginal customer. Believe them, and price the consequences in |
The question to ask
"What drives the MOQ?" is a better question than "can you do less?", and it works. A factory answers it specifically — a fabric roll is 500 metres, the mould amortises over so many units. A trading company answers it vaguely, or restates the number, because it did not set the number and is passing on somebody else’s.
A very low or absent MOQ on a product that plainly requires tooling is worth understanding rather than celebrating. Common explanations: the goods are stock rather than made to your specification, the supplier is a reseller aggregating small orders, or the price quoted has absorbed the setup cost somewhere you have not been shown.
Sample, trial and production runs are three different things
Confusion here causes more disputes than the MOQ itself. A sample is made to prove the product can exist and is frequently hand-finished. A trial run proves the production process, at production settings, and is the first thing that tells you what your goods will actually look like. A production run is the MOQ. Quality is normally agreed against a signed reference sample, and it is worth being explicit about which of the three that reference came from.
Where the MOQ conversation goes wrong
The pattern to avoid: a buyer negotiates the MOQ down hard, the factory agrees, and the order becomes the least important thing on the floor that month. It ships late, it is made in the gaps between larger runs, and the buyer has no leverage because the price and volume were already conceded. Where the volume genuinely is small, a supplier who is glad to have it will serve you better than a larger one who agreed reluctantly.
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Sources
All sources checked 7 September 2026. This page is general information, not legal, tax or customs advice. Requirements vary by product, market and circumstance — confirm your own position before acting.