How many kinds of knitwear samples there are?

Different clients have different requirements of the samples, some clients place orders after 1^st sample, some clients have to go through the whole samples process before place an order. It can be roughly divided as the followings:

Development stage: 1st sample—2nd sample–Salesman sample

Bulk production stage: Pre-production sample– Production sample–Shipment sample–Keep bulk sample

Samples for the development stage:

1st sample: The 1^st sample of sweater development needs to use the correct yarns, the correct stitch, craftsmanship, measurements and etc according to clients’ tech packs. All details should be done as closely as possible to the clients’ designs.

2nd sample: Based on the 1st sample, the 2^nd sample is improved according to the clients comments. Usually, the clients’s modification comments mainly focus on workmanship and some measurements. Occasionally, there is requests to change yarns. If the 1st sample is almost in line with the designs concept, the client will not ask for a 2^nd sample, but directly make salesman samples.

Salesman sample: Clients would like to carry out the next salesman samples after review 1^st or 2^nd samples. They will give comments, advise colors info, quantity and other requirements to make salesman samples. It requires very good quality for salesman samples, and finish all the added craftsmanship, such as embroidery, printing process. Salesman samples are for fashion fairs which can attract many buyers to place orders. So it must be well enough to meet the designs’ requirements. Otherwise all the preparation will be useless.

Samples for production stage:

pre-production sample: PP sample is the last sample approved by the client before bulk production. It is required to use bulk yarn for sampling, including the quality, color, trims and all the added craftsmanship. It’s better to make one more PP sample left at factory for reference.
production sample: A sample made by the production workshop according to the requirements of bulk production before linking. The purpose is to make all department familiar with the process, difficulties and key points of this sweater. This can prevent the occurrence of quality problems and reduce unnecessary errors in the production process. However, most factories have not made these production samples with the impact of the order delivery lead time.
shipment sample: These samples are selected from production according to the color, size and quantity required by the customers, which can represent the quality of the production, all the trims and packaging is consistent with the production. Different client has different requirement, some need size-color set sample, some need all color with blend sizes, etc. It is usually provided before the bulk shipment, and the factory can deliver goods only after the shipment samples are approved.
keep bulk sample: Select the sweater with the best quality and size from the sweaters that cannot be shipped due to quality problems after bulk production is delivered. On the one hand, it can be used for checking and reference when the client has problems after receiving the bulk. On the other hand, it can be used for reference if clients re-order or have other similar styles development.

As mentioned above, different client has different requirement for the sample. Factory needs to record and collect the questions during the process of samples, especially for the special workmanship or processes. Samples are the basis communication between the factory and clients. Usually after making samples several times, on the one hand factory will have an overall understanding of the requirements of the clients, on the other hand the clients can get a better understanding of the factory and have an intuitive understanding of the production capacity of samples. Therefore, the factory must produce samples in an orderly and efficient manner to keep the quality and delivery during the samples development.