A Cape Town startup emailed S·KAIFEI in October 2024 with a single line: "Can you do 200 pcs per SKU?" The first three trading companies they had asked all came back at 1,000. The pattern master at our Shantou facility came back in two days with a 200 pcs/SKU confirmation — provided the brand sent a full 7-item tech pack and committed to 3 SKUs at the same volume. The brand launched in March 2025. That email is the spine of this article.

The 4-tier MOQ structure is what S·KAIFEI has run at the Guangdong production base in Shantou since 2008. Most brands do not know it exists. The tier you ask for usually determines the tier you get quoted at.