The Product Development ProcessSix stages, one date to hit.
From an idea on a call to pallets on a dock — what happens at every stage, who owns which weeks, and what it costs you in time. Sourced from over 350 of the world’s finest factories.
Most programs do not fail on price. They fail because a date was set before anyone counted the weeks, or because artwork sat for three of them. This page runs the process in order, puts a clock on each stage, and says plainly which weeks are ours and which are yours. Every range here is typical across recent programs; your program is quoted on its own specification.
Ideation
The brief, the mockup, and the four facts that unlock a real price.
Every program that goes badly went badly here. A brief is not a wish; it is the shortest complete description of an object that lets a factory quote it without guessing. With those, we can shortlist factories the same week. Without them, every quote that follows is fiction, and the corrections arrive later, when they are expensive. This guide is what we ask for, and why.
- Case — multi-faceted architectural form, sculpted bezel with functional screws, alternating brushed and polished surfaces, sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating.
- Dial — geometric guilloché pattern, applied indexes, faceted hands with lume, date at three o’clock.
- Caseback — sapphire exhibition back, custom rotor with côtes de Genève and angled edges.
- Bracelet — fully integrated, articulated links, tapered, screw links, end-links aligned to the lugs.
- Texture — a custom 3D guilloché drawn for this dial rather than picked from a library.
This is the level of detail a factory needs before it can quote an object rather than a category — every finish, every tolerance, every component named. It is also the document the sample is judged against.
Like briefing an architect. “Four bedrooms, nice kitchen” gets you a shrug; a plot, a budget, a move-in date and a room list gets you drawings and a number. A factory reads a brief the same way — what it cannot see, it prices as risk, and risk is always more expensive than information.
- The in-store date sets everything. We build the schedule backwards from it. A date given late is the most common cause of an air-freight bill.
- A quantity is a price, not a detail. Unit cost, tooling amortization and factory selection all move with volume. A range is fine; a blank is not.
- Artwork status matters more than artwork. Knowing that art is final in three weeks lets us sequence around it. Knowing nothing does not.
- The mockup governs the quote. Where a mockup and a spreadsheet disagree on dimensions or Pantone, the mockup wins — it is the object everyone actually approved.
- A rendering is not a promise of finish. Renderings show intent. Color, gloss and texture are only committed once a physical sample is matched against a Pantone chip in daylight.
Four facts unlock a real price: what the product is, how many, when it has to be in hand, and where it is going. Give a factory those and it quotes the object. Leave the date or the quantity blank and it quotes the risk instead — and risk is always the more expensive answer.
The brief is the only stage where changing your mind is free. An hour of specificity here removes weeks downstream, because every later stage — sourcing, tooling, quality, freight — inherits its assumptions from this document. If you can tell us the object, the quantity, the date and the target cost, you will have costed options on your desk inside three days.
Global Sourcing
How a factory gets chosen from a network of over 350 — and why the cheapest quote is usually the most expensive one.
Anyone can find a factory. The work is knowing which factory can hold your tolerance at your volume on your date, and which one is quoting a price it cannot deliver. City Global has run production through Asian manufacturing for years from our Asia office in Shenzhen, which oversees our manufacturing partners across Asia and sits in the same time zone as the floor. Sourcing is not a search; it is a shortlist built from capability, capacity and conduct, and then defended with contracts and inspections. This guide explains how the shortlist is made.
Like hiring rather than shopping. Three quotes on paper are three résumés: they tell you what a factory says it can do. The shortlist is built the way you would actually hire — references, past work in the same category, and someone walking the floor. The cheapest bid on a kitchen remodel is famous for a reason.
- An outlier low quote is information, not a bargain. It usually means a different material, a thinner wall, or a specification the factory intends to renegotiate after the deposit.
- Same specification, same day, same format. Quotes are only comparable if the brief they answer is identical — which is why we write it once and send it unchanged.
- Category beats geography. Proximity to a port matters less than being inside the right cluster; the supply chain for glass is not the supply chain for zippers.
- The scale gap is the whole argument. China counted 4.05 million manufacturing legal entities at the end of 2023; the United States counted 284,452 manufacturing establishments with employees in the same year — about fourteen Chinese manufacturers for every American one. [China NBS; US Census CBP]
- [MIIT / China NBS, 01/2025]
Our network runs to more than 350 factories, and a new one is added only after it has been visited and audited. That is the difference between a vetted factory and a directory listing: anyone can find a factory on a portal, but a portal has never held a tolerance.
Sourcing is a risk decision wearing a price tag. The number you are quoted is only meaningful next to the question of whether the factory can hold it at your volume on your date — and that question is answered by people standing in the building, not by a portal. What you buy from us at this stage is a shortlist you could not have built yourself and a counterparty you can actually hold to terms.
Prototyping
Images in 15 to 20 days, the object in your hands about ten days later, and the moment the program stops being reversible.
A rendering shows what a product should look like. A sample shows what a factory will actually make. Between them sits the sample cycle, the most important weeks in any program, because every defect caught in a sample costs one sample and every defect missed costs a container. Three objects matter: the prototype, which proves the idea can exist; the pre-production sample, which proves this factory can make it; and the golden sample, the signed physical standard the entire run is judged against.
Like tasting the cake before the wedding. You do not order three hundred portions on a photograph. The sample round is the tasting, the golden sample is the slice you both signed off, and every later argument gets settled by holding the carton next to it.
- Approve the object, not the photograph. Screens lie about color and scale. We ship physical samples for exactly this reason.
- Color is matched in daylight. Factory fluorescent light will pass a shade that fails on a shelf; the chip and the sample go to a window.
- One variable per round. Changing material and geometry together means the next sample cannot tell you which change worked.
- Steel is not editable. Small adjustments are sometimes possible; a dimension change usually means a new tool and a new clock.
- Reorders skip this stage entirely. Unit two of a program is cheaper than unit one, because the most expensive thing in it has already been bought.
The golden sample is what turns an opinion into a measurement. Without a signed physical standard, “defect” is an argument between two people looking at two screens. With one, it is a fact you can hold next to the carton — which is why nothing enters production before it is signed.
Programs are won or lost in the sample cycle. Its whole purpose is to convert opinion into evidence before the money is committed: a signed physical standard, held by both parties, that turns quality from an argument into a measurement. Build the schedule with two full sample rounds in it — the programs that budget for three and use two are the ones that ship on time.
Manufacturing
Mass production against a signed sample, a fixed date, and a calendar with two immovable objects.
Mass production is the stage everything before it was preparing for. The signed golden sample is the standard, the tooling is cut, the quantity is fixed, and the line runs against a date that was set at the brief and counted backwards from your shelf. Two things govern it: the minimum the line will run, and a calendar with two immovable objects in it — Chinese New Year and the Q4 retail season.
Like a printing press. Almost all the cost and all the difficulty sit in the setup — the plates, the calibration, the first sheet that matches. Once the press is running, the ten-thousandth copy is nearly free. That is why ordering the quantity you actually need beats ordering a cautious fraction of it, and why the second run is always the cheaper one.
- MOQ moves with material, not just quantity. A second colorway can trip a new material minimum even when the total unit count is unchanged.
- Labor is no longer the argument. Chinese wages have risen substantially for over a decade and the work has not left — because speed, tooling and componentry outweigh wage arbitrage.
- Tooling is the moat. Cutting steel quickly and accurately is a trade that takes decades to build; it is the capability that lets a brand own a shape instead of decorating someone else's.
- Presence is the differentiator. The advantage is only capturable by a buyer who is in the cluster — which is why we keep an Asia office in Shenzhen, overseeing partners across the region, rather than a phone number.
- Artwork approval is the client's stage. It is also the most frequently underestimated — days spent here are days removed from the tolerance at the end.
A 30–50 day production window does not always end 30 to 50 days later. A run starting in late September meets Mid-Autumn Festival and then Golden Week, and those closures take about ten days out of it. We put the holidays on the plan before quoting a ready date, which is why our dates hold.
Production itself is rarely where programs go wrong — by this point the variables are closed. What decides the run is whether the quantity respected the line's minimum and whether the date respected the calendar. Order the volume you actually need rather than a cautious fraction of it: tooling is a one-time asset with a payback period, and the second run is always the cheaper one.
QC Inspections
Independent, third-party inspection before a single carton leaves the factory.
Quality is not a promise; it is a sampling procedure with a pass mark, performed by a third party who does not work for the factory. City Global commissions independent inspection through accredited agencies, against the signed golden sample and a written checklist, before goods are allowed to leave the country. The purpose is narrow and unromantic: to make sure the defect is discovered while it is still the factory's problem, in China, rather than yours, on a retailer's dock.
Like a restaurant health inspection. The chef telling you the kitchen is clean is not an inspection — an unannounced visit from someone who does not work there is. Ours happens while the food is still in the kitchen, not after it reaches the table.
- Inspection is sampling, not counting. AQL defines how many units are drawn and how many defects the lot may carry — published standards, agreed before production.
- The golden sample is the reference. Without a signed physical standard, "defect" is an opinion; with one, it is a measurement.
- Packaging is inspected too. Carton markings, barcodes and drop performance fail shipments as reliably as the product does.
- Only accredited bodies publish audits. Reports appear under the factory's Sedex profile, not the sourcing partner's, however many copies the partner holds.
A brand-and-sourcing firm cannot hold a SMETA audit. SMETA audits production sites, and City Global is not a factory — so asking us for “your SMETA” is a category error. What we can give you is our Sedex profile plus the SMETA and corrective-action reports of the factories actually running your order.
Quality control is the stage that decides whether your brand is defended by a process or by luck. Because the inspection happens before the goods leave the factory, a failure at this stage costs a re-work and a few days; the same failure discovered in market costs a recall, a retailer relationship and a story. It is the cheapest line on the quote relative to what it prevents.
Global Logistics
Sea or air, full container or shared, the HS code that sets the duty, and the day the product has to be on a shelf.
The price of a product at the factory gate is not the price of the product. This guide covers what the modes cost in time and money, how duty is determined, and the one decision that quietly controls the whole bill: your calendar.
Like moving house. The truck is the cheap part; the timing is the expensive part. Book movers six weeks out and it is a line item. Book them the day before and you pay whatever is left. Ocean is the truck, air is the day-before, and the HS code is the paperwork that decides what the city charges you at the door.
- The calendar is the cheapest lever. Ocean freight booked six weeks out and air freight booked in panic are the same shipment at very different prices.
- Chinese New Year moves every schedule. Factories close for weeks and the pre-holiday rush tightens both capacity and rates — programs are planned around it, not through it.
- Packaging is freight. A carton redesigned to cube out efficiently can save more per unit than a hard negotiation on the unit price.
- The code, not the description, sets the duty. Two products that look identical on a shelf can carry materially different rates because of material or function.
- Design changes can change the rate. Swapping a material or adding a function can move the classification — which is why this is checked before tooling, not after arrival.
72% of global container capacity sits with just six carriers — MSC, Maersk, CMA CGM, COSCO, Hapag-Lloyd and ONE. When one of them reroutes, the whole market moves, which is why booking early is worth more than negotiating hard.
The controllable inputs are almost never the freight rate itself — they are the date you gave us, the way the product cubes in a carton, and the classification of the goods. Fix those three at the brief stage and the freight line behaves; leave them late and it becomes the largest surprise on the invoice.
Ten questions we get asked most
Straight answers, in the order they usually come up.
How long does the whole process take, start to shelf?
For a custom product on new tooling, plan on roughly four to six months from an approved brief to delivered goods: sampling and tooling in weeks, mass production of 30 to 50 days after sample approval, then 40 to 60 days by sea. A rerun of approved tooling skips the prototype round entirely and lands far faster. Every program is quoted on its own specification — these are typical blocks, not a guarantee.
What do you need from me before you can quote?
Four facts: what the product is, how many, when it has to be in hand, and where it is going. With those, a costed shortlist comes back inside 48 to 72 hours. Without the date and the quantity, any price you are given is decoration — those two facts choose the factory.
Do you charge for sourcing?
No. Sourcing and quoting are free. A full ideation brief — build-versus-source analysis, three to four costed paths, a real supplier and price scan — carries a fee that is refunded when the order is placed. Ask us and we will quote it for your program.
What is the difference between a mockup, a sample and a golden sample?
A mockup is a photograph-quality visual of your product with your art, back in 24 to 72 hours, used to sell the idea internally. A sample is the physical object off real tooling — figure 15 to 20 days to see photographs of it and about another ten to have it in your hands from overseas, depending on the product. The golden sample is the one you sign — the physical reference every carton is judged against for the rest of the program.
Who pays for tooling, and who owns it?
Tooling is a one-time cost on the program, and you pay for it once — not per run. Cut it once and reruns carry no new tooling. Change the geometry after the steel is cut and it means new steel, which is why sample-stage approval matters more than any other signature in the process.
Why does the minimum order quantity keep changing?
Because the MOQ is set by the line, not by us. It follows the machine and the material — a mold has a cycle, a fabric has a roll width, a printing plate has a setup. When we tell you a minimum, it is the factory's economics, and it moves when the process moves.
A 20ft or a 40ft container — what is the difference?
A 20ft holds roughly 33 cubic meters, about ten standard pallets, and is one TEU — the twenty-foot equivalent unit every port statistic is counted in. A 40ft holds roughly 67 cubic meters and about twenty pallets, and a 40ft High Cube adds about a foot of interior height for roughly 76 cubic meters. Here is the part that surprises people: a 40ft gives you twice the space but not twice the weight. Both are capped near 28,000 kg of payload, and road limits inland can cut that further. So dense freight — glass, ceramics, liquids, anything with metal in it — fills a 20ft on weight long before it runs out of room, while light bulky goods such as apparel, plush or foam belong in a 40ft or a High Cube. Because a 40ft rarely costs double a 20ft, the cost per cubic meter is usually lower in the bigger box, which is why the right question is never “which container is cheaper” but “which one does my product cube out in.” We run that calculation on the packing specification before booking, and it is often where the freight line on a quote gets materially better.
What is an HS code, and how do I read one?
HS stands for Harmonized System — a customs classification maintained by the World Customs Organization and used by more than 200 countries. It is the number that tells a government what your product actually is, and it is the number that sets your duty rate. Read it left to right, widest to narrowest. Take 4202.92.3120, a common code for a textile tote bag: 42 is the chapter, articles of leather and travel goods; 4202 is the heading, trunks, suitcases, handbags and similar containers; 4202.92 is the subheading, those with an outer surface of sheeting of plastics or textile materials — the first six digits are identical worldwide; 4202.92.31 narrows it to man-made fiber, which is where the US rate attaches; and 4202.92.3120 is the statistical suffix the US uses to count what crosses the border. The lesson for a program is that the material and the function decide the code, not the marketing name. The same bag in cotton versus man-made fiber can land in a different subheading at a different rate, and swapping a material or adding a function late can move the classification. That is why we check the code before tooling rather than after arrival.
What are duties and customs, and who pays them?
Customs is the government checkpoint your goods clear on entry; duty is the tax charged when they clear it. Three things set the bill: the HS code, the declared customs value, and the country of origin — where the product was substantially made, which is not necessarily where it shipped from. Duty is payable on entry, not when you sell the product, so it is a cash event weeks before revenue. On top of the base rate there may be trade-remedy tariffs on specific goods from specific countries, plus a customs broker fee and, in the US, small processing fees. As the importer of record you are legally responsible for the declaration being right, which is why three documents — the commercial invoice, the packing list and the bill of lading — must agree with each other exactly. If they disagree, the shipment waits, and a waiting container starts a daily demurrage clock at the port. We file to clear on arrival and increasingly pre-file before the vessel berths, because the cheapest day of storage is the one you never pay for.
What is Pantone, and can you match an exact PMS colour?
Pantone is a colour standard — the Pantone Matching System, or PMS. Each colour has a number (say PMS 2945 C) that refers to a physically printed chip, so a factory in Shenzhen and a designer in Los Angeles are looking at the same object rather than the same screen. Screens lie: the same file renders differently on every monitor, and fluorescent factory light will pass a shade that fails on a shelf. That is why we match against a physical chip in daylight, and why the letter after the number matters — C is coated stock, U is uncoated, and the same number reads differently on each. On a fully custom program the colour is written into the specification before tooling and matched at the sample stage. On stock product with a decoration applied, the body colour is whatever the supplier stocks and only your logo is matched to PMS — you cannot PMS-match an entire product that already exists. Settle which of the two you are buying at the brief, because it changes the factory, the timeline and the price.
Who inspects the goods — you or the factory?
An independent third party, against an AQL standard agreed in writing before production. Inspection is in-line during long runs and pre-shipment once the order is largely packed. Nothing ships on a failed inspection.
Sea or air — how do I decide?
The calendar decides, not the invoice. Sea runs 40 to 60 days depending on whether you are FCL or LCL, and it is the cheapest block in the whole program; air runs 10 to 20 days at several times the cost per kilogram. If the date is tight, buying tooling capacity is usually cheaper than buying air freight. Booked six weeks out and booked in panic are the same shipment at very different prices.
What is FCL and LCL, and which one am I?
FCL is a Full Container Load — you buy the whole container, 20ft or 40ft, and it is sealed at the factory and not opened again until it reaches you. LCL is Less than Container Load — your pallets share a container with other companies’ freight. Think of it as chartering a truck versus sending boxes by courier: the courier is cheaper for a few boxes, but it stops at a depot, gets sorted alongside everyone else’s, and arrives when the slowest consignment in the load arrives. That is why LCL sits at the long end of the 40 to 60 day range and FCL at the short end — LCL adds consolidation at origin and deconsolidation at destination, more handling, and more exposure to another shipper’s paperwork holding the box. As a rough rule, once you are past roughly half a container, FCL is usually both faster and cheaper per unit, and it is the safer choice for anything fragile or on a deadline. We quote both when the volume is near the line so you can see the trade.
What happens on a reorder?
It re-enters at production, not at the brief. No new tooling, no new sampling if the specification has not moved, and a shorter lead time on the second run. The realistic planning horizon is two seasons — programs that reorder cleanly are the ones where the calendar was written down at the start.
Ten things worth knowing
The facts that explain why a program behaves the way it does.
Almost everything you own arrived on a ship. Air freight carries a small share of the tonnage and a large share of the panic.
One vessel can carry more than twenty-four thousand twenty-foot containers. Your order is a rounding error on it, which is exactly why booking early matters more than negotiating hard.
The first six are the world’s shared language for what a product is. Everything after that is national — which is where the rate, and the argument, lives.
It is a document of title, not a receipt. Whoever holds the original can claim the goods, which is why originals travel separately from the container.
Demurrage runs while your box sits inside the port. Detention runs while you hold it outside. Both charge by the day, and both start because paperwork disagreed.
Air freight is priced on chargeable weight, so volume can outweigh actual weight. A pallet of plush pays for the space it fills, not the mass it has — which is why bulky goods and air are a bad marriage.
AQL inspection is statistics, not a headcount. ISO 2859-1 sets the sample size and the number of defects allowed, so a pass is a measured probability rather than a promise.
It exists because ink is mixed by hand and light is a liar. A numbered physical chip settles arguments that no two screens ever will.
That is why tooling is an asset with a payback period rather than a fee. It is cut once, and every rerun for the life of the program comes off the same steel.
When Panama’s drought cut daily transits and Red Sea routings moved around Africa, sailings lengthened and rates followed. Canals are single points of failure for a global calendar.
The China manufacturing calendar
The closures every schedule is built around. Two of them decide the year.
Chinese public holiday dates are set annually by the PRC State Council and are normally published late in the preceding year, so dates beyond 2026 are indicative until the official notice lands. What does not change is the shape of the year: capacity and freight rates tighten hard before Chinese New Year and again ahead of the Q4 retail season, and factories commonly extend closures by several days on either side of both.
Chinese New Year is Thanksgiving week, Christmas and the last flight out of a hub airport all landing at once. Everyone in the country is trying to move at the same time, everyone in the world is trying to ship before it, and the price of both reflects that. You do not negotiate your way through that week — you plan around it.
We schedule backwards from your in-store date and place the closures on the plan before quoting a ready date, so a holiday is a known block rather than a surprise. If a run cannot clear Chinese New Year, the honest answer is to move the date or the quantity — not to promise the calendar will behave.
Manufacturing calendars around the world
China is not the only calendar that moves. Every sourcing country has weeks it does not work.
Dual-sourcing only protects a date if the second country closes at a different time — and often it does not. Vietnam keeps the same lunar new year as China, and factories in Taiwan and Korea can be open while the Chinese plant making their components is shut. Lunar and Islamic holidays move against the Gregorian calendar every year, so a ship date that cleared the holiday last season will not necessarily clear it this one. Lengths below are what we plan around in practice, which is usually longer than the official notice.
Before a date is promised we check the closure calendar of the country the order is actually running in, not the country the brand thinks of as “overseas.” If a program cannot clear a closure, we say so at the brief — while the date or the quantity can still move.