How to Write a Bag Tech Pack That Gets You an Accurate Quote the First Time

Ask five factories to quote the same bag from the same sketch and you will get five different numbers. That is not suppliers being slippery. It is five merchandisers filling in the same blank fields with different guesses.

A bag tech pack closes those blanks. It is the document that turns a drawing into a buildable, costable specification. This guide lists the 12 items a factory needs before it can price your bag, shows what a good BOM line looks like next to a bad one, names the five gaps that cause the most re-quotes, and ends with a one-page checklist you can attach to your next RFQ.

Why the first quote is usually wrong

A factory quote is built from a short list of inputs: fabric consumption, trim and hardware cost, labour minutes per unit, packaging, testing and compliance, and a buffer for risk. When a field is empty, the merchandiser fills it with something. That something is either the cheapest option that still functions - which drops your price now and raises it later - or a padded buffer, which raises it now.

One documented case: a brand sourcing 2,000 units was quoted $11.80 by one factory and $15.40 by another for the same design. The spread was not greed. One factory assumed basic construction and standard trim; the other read the unclear notes as a complex build with premium components. After the tech pack was tightened, both landed near $12.60. (Fabrikn, 2026)

The cost of a vague pack is not only money, it is calendar time. A merchandiser can usually turn a clean pack into an initial costing in 24 to 72 hours. A messy one can take a week just to interpret, before any pricing starts. Kingsons, a bag manufacturer, reports that over 60% of first-sample errors trace back to an incomplete spec sheet, with missing material codes and absent stitch requirements as the two top causes.

The 12 items every bag tech pack needs

Not every item carries equal weight. The last column is what actually happens when the field is left blank.

Items 3, 6, 7, 8 and 12 move the quote the most. They are also the ones most often missing, so they get a section each below.

Item 3: the BOM line that decides your price

The bill of materials is where most of the money sits, and it is the part most often written in adjectives. Here is the same requirement written two ways.

Note the last clause in the zipper line: SBS equivalent acceptable. Saying what is also acceptable is not weakness. It is the fastest way to stop a quote stalling on a component the factory cannot source in time. Hardware gaps in particular trigger long clarification cycles, because component suppliers want size, finish, attachment method and load rating before they will commit.

Item 6: tolerances, the cheapest clause you will ever write

A bag with no tolerance is a bag with an argument waiting. Soft goods move: fabric stretches, foam compresses, operators are human. The question is not whether a finished bag is off by 2mm. It is whether you and the factory agreed in advance what off means.

For sewn bags, plus or minus 3mm on components and plus or minus 5mm on overall dimensions is workable - written per dimension, not as one blanket note at the bottom of the page. Colour needs the same treatment: a Pantone TCX reference, a signed lab dip, and a numeric shade tolerance (Delta E) instead of the words match colour. If you want the factory-side view of how shade variation is controlled at bulk scale, see our article on colour difference control for custom racket bags.

Item 7: stitch and construction spec

Two bags can use identical fabric and identical hardware and still fail differently in the field, purely because of how they were sewn. Specify stitches per inch by seam type - 7 to 8 SPI on general seams, 10 to 12 at load-bearing points - and mark every bartack: handle bases, strap attachment points, webbing loops, and any spot where a panel takes weight.

State the seam type too: bound, piped, taped or overlocked, and where reinforcement goes. One line here prevents the most expensive kind of failure, the one that shows up after the container lands. This is the same logic as inspecting during production rather than only at the end - a point we covered in detail in our article on why process quality control matters more than final inspection.

Item 8: hardware named by model, not by colour

Black buckle is not a specification. It is an invitation. Name the brand, the model, the size and the finish, and add a test standard if the part carries load. YKK RC zippers and ITW Nexus acetal buckles are the common reference points in sports bags; if you are open to an equivalent, say which one. Silent substitution of generic hardware is one of the hardest things to prove after shipment, and one of the easiest to prevent on paper.

Item 12: acceptance criteria, in AQL

Good quality is not a specification. AQL is. The common standard for soft goods is 0 for critical defects, 2.5 for major and 4.0 for minor, sampled at General Inspection Level II under ISO 2859-1 / ANSI Z1.4. On an order of 3,201 to 10,000 units that means 200 pieces pulled at random, with the lot rejected at 11 major or 15 minor defects.

Put that number in the tech pack, not only in the purchase order. When it lives in the pack, the factory prices to it from the start instead of being handed a standard it never costed. Our travel bag inspection checklist shows how those defect classes are applied on a real order.

The five gaps that cause the most re-quotes

• Fabric described as a word, not a spec. Nylon is not a material. 420D nylon ripstop, PU backing, water-repellent finish, PVC-free is. On coated materials, thickness and backing alone can swing cost by 20 to 40 percent.

• No tolerance anywhere. Covered above, and still the most common omission we see.

• Hardware named by colour. Black buckle invites a generic substitute that costs less and fails sooner.

• Logo method left open. Embroidery, woven label, rubber patch, debossed and heat transfer have very different tooling, minimums and unit costs. Pick one and supply artwork with placement measurements.

• No quantity and no target ship date. Without these a factory can price neither material yield nor a production slot, so it sends you a placeholder.

How much detail is too much

A tech pack is not the place to prove how thorough you are. Over-specifying parts that affect neither function nor price slows the exact process you are trying to speed up.

• Specify anything that changes cost, function or compliance.

• Mark the rest TBC. Lining colour TBC, will confirm before sampling is far better than silence, because it tells the merchandiser a decision is coming.

• Send a physical reference. A swatch or a competitor sample answers questions that three paragraphs cannot.

• Say what you do not know. We are not sure this construction is feasible at 500 units, please advise gets you an engineering answer. Pretending you know gets you a silent assumption.

What happens after you send it

In order: feasibility review and initial costing, which runs 24 to 72 hours for a clean pack; material sourcing and confirmation; sampling, which varies with construction complexity - a padded racket compartment and a simple drawstring do not take the same time, so no honest factory gives one fixed number for every bag; sample approval; then bulk production. At our plants bulk runs 50 to 60 working days from confirmed order to ship-ready, and the minimum is 500 units per style. Lead time is worth agreeing before you sign, not after - see why asking about peak season lead time can save your supply chain.

FAQ

Q: Do I need CAD drawings?

A: Not required, but useful. Dimensioned technical drawings are the minimum. CAD can remove roughly two physical sample rounds and 4 to 6 weeks from development. A clean three-view drawing with every dimension called out gets you most of the benefit at no cost.

Q: Can the factory write the tech pack for me?

A: Many will, and for a simple bag it works fine. Two cautions. The pack then reflects what the factory finds easy to make rather than what you designed. And you cannot send that same pack to three factories for comparable quotes, because one of them wrote it. If you go this route, get the finished pack back into your own files before you use it to compare suppliers.

Q: I do not know which fabric I want yet. Should I wait to request a quote?

A: No. Send the pack with the fabric field marked open and give an acceptable range: 600D polyester or equivalent, PU backing, target price band USD X to Y. A good merchandiser will come back with two or three options at different price points. Waiting costs you weeks.

Q: What tolerance should I use for bags?

A: Plus or minus 3mm on components, plus or minus 5mm on overall dimensions, and a numeric shade limit against a signed lab dip. Anything tighter is achievable but costs more, because it raises the reject rate. Decide what genuinely matters on your product and tighten only those points.

Q: Will a better tech pack get me a lower price?

A: Not always. Sometimes a complete pack raises the first quote, because the cheap one was built on missing items. What you get is a quote you can compare, defend and hold the factory to. The saving shows up as fewer re-quotes, fewer sample rounds, and no repricing halfway through production.

The one-page checklist

Twelve lines. Tick them before you send the next RFQ.

□ Product overview: end use, capacity, expected load

□ Technical drawings: three views, every dimension called out

□ BOM: every part named and coded, supplier where known

□ Material spec: fibre, denier, coating, backing, certification

□ Colour: Pantone TCX reference, signed lab dip, Delta E limit

□ Measurements plus tolerance, written per dimension

□ Construction: SPI by seam type, seam finish, every bartack marked

□ Hardware: brand, model, size, finish, load rating where relevant

□ Branding: method, artwork file, placement measurements

□ Labels and compliance: care label, country of origin, REACH / Prop 65 / GRS

□ Packaging: polybag, carton spec, retail or FBA labelling

□ Commercials: quantity per style and colour, target ship date, AQL level

Send it, and see what comes back

A complete tech pack is the fastest way to find out whether a factory understands your product, before you have spent anything. Send us yours - draft or finished - with your target quantity and product requirements. You get a manufacturing feasibility review, an MOQ recommendation, material suggestions, a lead-time estimate and a factory quotation within 24 hours. If you do not have a pack yet, send the drawing or reference photos and we will tell you which of the 12 items are still open.

LEMP Sports | OEM / ODM bag manufacturing | China + Myanmar | BSCI · SMETA · SEDEX · GSV · WRAP · ISO 9001