For procurement and sourcing
Most merch RFQs compare three numbers that are not comparable. This page is written for the buyer who has to defend the award: how the cost is built, what sits inside the unit price and what sits outside it, what the MOQ actually costs, and what happens to your programme if the chosen supplier stops answering.
Vendors arrive at an RFQ expecting to be scored on price, quality and lead time. Procurement usually scores on a matrix that has four or five weighted rows, and price rarely carries the weight that the vendor assumes. On the evaluations we have seen, unit price is frequently 25-35% of the score, with quality, on-time delivery, responsiveness to the RFQ, financial stability and sustainability taking the rest. A vendor that answers every question in writing and states its assumptions is usually beating a cheaper vendor that returns a bare price sheet.
The failure mode is silence on assumptions. A quote of a plain tee at 200 pcs for 8 400 AMD per unit tells you nothing about whether that includes VAT, whether the setup fee is included, what the lead time assumes, or whether the price holds if the buyer changes the artwork. When the award goes to another vendor, the reason is rarely that 8 400 was beaten. It is that the comparison could not be completed.
The second failure mode is a quote that cannot be re-ordered. If your procurement team needs to place a second order at the same price twelve months later, and the vendor's quote is explicitly a one-time price for that specific run, then you have not bought a product. You have bought an event. We state quote validity and re-order terms separately because they are different numbers, and conflating them is how a procurement file ends up with an unfunded year-two renewal.
Six blocks, in the same order, every time. First, the specification: method, substrate, print position, physical dimensions, decoration count. Second, the unit price at each quantity tier, with the tier boundary stated so you know when the price changes. Third, the non-recurring setup, itemised by colour or by process, with the screen setup band of 12 000-18 000 AMD or the DTF setup band of 8 000-15 000 AMD shown as a separate line rather than buried in the unit price.
Fourth, the lead time in working days, split between artwork approval, production and delivery, with the assumption that artwork is supplied in vector format. Fifth, the commercial terms: VAT 20% shown separately, payment schedule, quote validity in days, and re-order terms. Sixth, the exclusions, listed explicitly, so nothing arrives later as a surprise. The exclusions list is the part most vendors omit and the part that saves an argument at month three.
Everything is quoted in AMD. Where a run is large enough that an offshore option becomes worth comparing, we will say so and we will quote the offshore landed cost, including freight, duty and the lead time penalty, so you can compare it against the local option honestly. We do not hide an import quote behind a local price.
Our quotes are valid for 30 days, which matches the shelf life of a cotton price in this market. Blank cost is the volatile line: an imported cotton or polyester price change, a change in the supplier's own exchange rate position, or a short-term container rate movement all land in that line within weeks. Decoration cost moves far less, because ink, labour and screen time are local and mostly stable.
This is worth stating plainly because it affects how you should read an award. A quote obtained in March and implemented in August is not a fixed price, it is an estimate that has aged. The correct procurement response is either a shorter re-order window with a price review at order, or a longer validity with a defined adjustment formula. We prefer the second for annual programmes: the price is fixed against an agreed index for the blank line only, with the decoration line held firm.
We do not issue an open-ended quote, and we do not quote an indefinite validity to win a tender. Both are common in this market and both produce the same outcome, a conversation three months later in which nobody remembers what was agreed.
These are the four areas where the commercial difference between vendors is largest, and where the information in a quote decides whether the award is defensible.
A per-line breakdown separating blank cost, decoration cost, setup, assembly, packaging and freight. Not a single unit number with a total underneath. The breakdown lets your team see which line is worth negotiating. Blank cost on a 200-piece cotton run is usually the smallest line and the least negotiable; setup is the line that disappears entirely if the design goes to two colours instead of four.
We quote EXW from our Yerevan or Vanadzor facility by default and state the destination assumption in the quote header. Where a buyer wants DAP or DDP for an imported run, we state which duties and taxes are included, which are the buyer's, and what evidence we provide for customs. Implied Incoterms in a merch quote is a legal risk, not a rounding error.
Minimum quantities are 50-100 for screen and DTF, 50-100 for embroidery, 25-50 for sublimation and 1-10 for DTG. We publish the tier boundaries rather than quoting one quantity, because a single-price quote forces the buyer to guess which quantity band they actually want. Tier pricing on a 500-piece run typically lands 18-30% below the 100-piece price per unit.
Ask any merch vendor what happens if they cannot deliver. A real answer names the substitution policy, the stock-holding position, the re-order window and the artwork and screen ownership position. We hold your approved artwork and separations for 24 months from last production, and we will hand them over without charge if you move the programme elsewhere.
A corporate merch programme sourced offshore typically carries an 8-14 week transit and clearance time before anyone counts a day of production. That is not a disadvantage if you are planning a six-month rollout, and it is a disaster if you are replacing a run of onboarding kits that were due on Monday. The cost of the delay, in rushed freight, in duplicated local production, or in a delayed launch, is usually larger than the unit price saving and is almost never in the quote.
There is a second arithmetic problem with imported programmes in this market. MOQ for an imported screen-printed garment from a typical Asian supplier is 500-1 000 pieces per design. An Armenian company with 600 employees and a 12% annual growth rate cannot consume 1 000 pieces of one design. The realistic response is to consolidate designs across a full year into one production run, which means committing to a programme twelve months ahead, holding the artwork approval, and accepting that the recipient list will have moved by the time the goods land.
Local sourcing removes that constraint. MOQ is 50 for screen printing, 1 for DTG, and the whole cycle from artwork approval to delivery inside Yerevan can run in 10-14 working days. The unit price is higher. On a 200-piece run it is higher, and if your procurement analysis is honest it should be, because you are buying the MOQ freedom. On an annual programme of 1 500 pieces the local option is frequently competitive once the design consolidation and the freight are priced in.
Procurement treats MOQ as a barrier to be negotiated away. Production treats it as a number that follows from cost arithmetic. On a screen run, the setup is 12 000-18 000 AMD per colour; spread over 50 pieces that is 240-360 AMD per piece of fixed cost before ink, before labour, before the blank. You cannot negotiate it to zero. You can negotiate the design down to one colour, or negotiate the method down to DTG, or negotiate the quantity up to the next tier.
The negotiation that actually works is on design count, not unit price. A programme with one design across a 500-piece run is straightforward. The same programme with four designs across a 125-piece run each carries four setups, four screen burns and four approvals, and the unit cost reflects all of it. Reducing four SKUs to two, or consolidating a tenure award and a onboarding kit onto the same garment with different decoration, removes a setup line entirely. That is a 15-25% saving that no amount of price negotiation will produce.
Payment terms deserve the same directness. Our default is 50% advance with the balance on dispatch for first-time buyers, moving to 30 days net on the second and third order once a trading history exists. Card and bank transfer in AMD are both accepted, and crypto is accepted for buyers who prefer it, settled at the rate on the invoice date. We do not offer extended terms on a first order, and we would rather say that plainly in the quote than discover it in a negotiation.
Your RFQ arrives with quantities, method and delivery window. We reply inside one working day with either a costed quote or a single written question that materially changes the price. We do not send a clarification request for six items at once; it delays the quote and it puts the work on your side.
You receive the six-block quote described above, with tier pricing, non-recurring setup itemised, VAT 20% shown separately, named Incoterms, lead time split by stage, exclusions listed, and quote validity stated. If your scoring matrix needs a sample or a reference, we answer that in the same message rather than after you ask again.
Where a scoring matrix requires physical evidence, we produce a sample on the actual production substrate and a drawdown for colour reference, then reference existing work by method and quantity. Sample cost is credited against the first order above 200 pieces, which keeps the sample decision commercially neutral for the buyer.
Purchase order is confirmed, the payment schedule is agreed in writing, and the production slot is booked against an artwork approval date rather than an order date. Delivery is scheduled to a named address and contact. The delivery note and the artwork handover pack are issued together on dispatch.
We can describe the shape of the work we have run in banking, telecom and wine and spirits programmes: quantities, methods, lead times and the problems that came up. We cannot pass on a private contact without the buyer's written consent, and we will not describe a programme as an ongoing relationship if it is not one. References are arranged case by case and take time; ask at the quote stage if your scoring matrix requires one, not at the award stage.
You own them. We hold approved artwork, separations and screens for 24 months from the last production run, and we hand over the vector files and any separation data you need to move the programme without a redesign, at no charge. If you want the physical screens destroyed and confirmed in writing instead, we will do that and note it in the file. This is standard practice and it belongs in the contract.
We state the substitution policy up front rather than after a failure. In practice the risk is concentrated, not abstract: the local screen market is small and a single workshop failure is a real event. Our mitigation is stock on critical blanks, an offline copy of every approved separation, and a named second workshop in Vanadzor for overflow on screen and embroidery. That covers a bad week, not a closure. If your risk register treats this as a single point of failure, the honest mitigation is a genuine second supplier, and we would rather help you brief one than block you from using them.
No. Corp-Merch is an independent corporate merch vendor and we are not on any approved vendor list we have not been formally added to, and we are not a partner, sponsor, affiliate or official supplier of any bank, telecom operator, event or organisation referenced on this page. Programme names appear only to describe the kind of work we handle. Any commercial relationship is a private matter between the two parties and is not implied by a mention.
A production sample is charged at the decorated unit price plus freight, because producing it consumes real stock and press time. It is credited in full against the first order above 200 pieces, and in part against orders of 100-200 pieces. Colour drawdowns and preflight reports are not charged. If your scoring matrix needs a sample, ask for the credit terms in the RFQ so the comparison is fair across vendors.
First order is 50% advance and 50% on dispatch, in AMD by bank transfer, by card, or in crypto settled at the invoice-date rate. From the second order we move to 30 days net. Invoices carry VAT 20% as a separate line, and we can split them by department, cost centre or programme shape provided the split is agreed before the first purchase order. Re-splitting an issued invoice after the fact is charged as additional finance work.
Corp-Merch is an independent corporate merch vendor operating in Yerevan and Vanadzor. We are not a partner, sponsor, affiliate, agent or official supplier of any bank, telecom operator, event, employer or organisation referenced on this page, including AmeriBank, Ardshinbank, Converse Bank, HayPost and the named programmes above. Programme names are used only to describe the kind of merchandise work we handle and the sectors we operate in. Any supplier relationship is a private commercial matter between the two parties and nothing on this page should be read as a joint venture, an agency relationship or an endorsement. We do not reproduce another organisation's trademark or brand mark without a written licence from the rights holder.
Send quantities, method, delivery window and destination. You get a six-block costed quote inside one working day, or one written question that materially changes the price.