MOQ and Lead Times: Ordering Keffiyeh Wholesale

Two numbers decide whether a wholesale order works: the smallest quantity that unlocks the wholesale price, and how long the goods take to arrive. Everything else — price per piece, packing, labels — is negotiable around those two. This is what each one is here, and how to plan an order around a date you cannot move.

The two numbers in every wholesale order

MOQ means minimum order quantity: the smallest order that unlocks a given price. Lead time means how long it takes from a placed order to goods in your hands. A supplier who is vague about either is telling you something useful — the number is not fixed, and you will be the one absorbing the difference.

Plan with the lead time, not the price. A cheaper order that arrives after the event is the most expensive order you can place.

What our MOQ actually is

There is no minimum to buy: one scarf at $13.99 is a normal order. The wholesale price starts at 100 pieces, where every piece drops to $8.99 and stays there to 499. From 500 pieces the order is quoted rather than priced from the table.

• 1–99 pieces: $13.99 each — retail, applied in the cart.
• 100–499 pieces: $8.99 each — applied in the cart automatically, no code and no account.
• 500 pieces and up: quoted per order, with shipping and tariffs inside the figure.

So the 100-piece line is the MOQ in the only sense that matters: it is where the price changes. Below it you are buying retail, which is a legitimate way to test a colour before committing a shelf to it.

Mixing styles inside a tier

100 pieces does not mean 100 of one style. Mixing counts inside a tier: 60 cotton and 60 polyester is a 100-piece order at $8.99. That is how most first orders are built — four styles rather than one, so the risk is spread instead of parked in a colour nobody wanted.

Two things to be explicit about in the request: the quantity per style, not just the total, and the size per style, because the ranges are not interchangeable. Cotton and polyester are 110 cm squares, prayer scarves and the cashmere blend are 131 cm, and the net shemaghs are the 190 × 90 cm rectangle. The keffiyeh size guide has the measurements next to what each one suits.

Minimums that are not the MOQ

Three other minimums sit behind the price and never appear in the table:

• Customisation minimums. A woven label, a printed bag or an embroidered mark can have its own minimum, set by the thing that makes it rather than by the scarf. Ask before you design a run of 100 around a label that starts at 500.
• Colour minimums. If you need one colour across several styles, say so early. It may be a dye-lot question rather than a quantity one, and the answer changes the plan.
• Samples. A sample order is a handful of pieces and is priced as retail. It is the cheapest part of a wholesale decision — ask whether it is credited against the order.

What sets a lead time

Lead time is not one number. It is four things added together:

1. Stock or production. Retail orders ship from the US warehouse in 1–2 business days. Wholesale orders ship direct from the country of origin, and a production order is made rather than picked from a shelf.
2. Customisation. A private-label run adds steps before the cartons are closed: the label, the care text, the packing. Private label keffiyeh sets out what those steps are.
3. Transit. Longer than the retail 1–2 days, and longer again if the shipment has to clear customs. The quote includes shipping and tariffs, so the landed cost is the number to compare — but the transit time still has to fit your date.
4. The season. Capacity is not constant. A date near a religious holiday, a festival season or the run-up to a busy retail quarter is a date to book earlier.

What we do not do is quote a lead time before knowing the order: it depends on all four, and a number given to a question that has not been asked yet is a guess. The quote states it — if it does not, ask for it in writing before you pay.

Working backwards from a date

Take the date the scarves must be in hand and subtract, in this order:

1. Transit and customs clearance.
2. Production and packing.
3. Any customisation.
4. Sample approval, if you are approving a colour, a print or a label.
5. A buffer — a week is cheap insurance on an order you cannot re-run.

What is left is the date to place the order. If it is already in the past, the honest options are fewer pieces from stock, a different style, or a later date. Two hundred matching scarves that arrive in time beat three hundred perfect ones that do not, which is also the argument in keffiyeh for events and groups.

What to get in writing

• The dispatch date, and whether the lead time is measured to dispatch or to delivery.
• The exact list — quantity per style, colour and size — not just a total.
• Who arranges and pays the freight, and who clears customs.
• Whether the order may ship in parts, and when each part leaves.
• What happens if a piece arrives damaged: replacement, credit or refund.
• The quote reference. It is what makes a reorder a one-line email.

Quote requests reach us from the wholesale quote form and are answered within one business day, so there is no reason to place an order on an assumption. If describing the order in your own words is easier, contact us instead.

Reorders

A reorder is a new dye lot unless you plan otherwise. Ask for the same lot, or keep one scarf from the first batch as the reference to match against, the way judging a wholesale sample order teaches you to. Reorder early: the second lead time is measured from a fresh quote, not from the first order's date, and how much a keffiyeh costs explains what changes a per-piece price between runs.

Where to go next

If you have not ordered before, three pieces are enough to judge the cloth: the olive green military-weave cotton keffiyeh, the white and red chevron polyester keffiyeh and the ivory and brown traditional-weave prayer scarf. They cover the three weaves most trade buyers start with, and they are the samples to order before a 100-piece run.

Then read the wholesale buying guide for how the tiers are applied, and the wholesale price tiers for the quote form. Sizing questions are in the keffiyeh size guide.

Shop the styles in this guide: Black & Khaki cotton keffiyeh in traditional weave, 110 × 110 cm, White & Grey polyester keffiyeh, gulf weave, 110 × 110 cm and Jungle Green poly-cotton net shemagh, camouflage, 190 × 90 cm.