Bulk drifts from the sample in degrees a buyer only sees at the docks — a shade off, a stitch short, a marking a few millimetres out. What reaches the pallet is the signed original, not the run that came nearest to it. Send the spec and a sample lands inside seven days; bulk follows the approved build.
Contract bag types
Document and conference bags sit beside the woven and coated styles a promotion is built on — the contract bag range a bulk run is drawn from. A shape is drafted to the buyer’s spec rather than pulled off a shelf.
What the brand sets
Once the shape of a contract bag is settled, the run still leaves the cloth and trim, the size and form, and the way the mark goes on. The choice on any of them is a trade-off a buyer has to make deliberately, because a choice that suits one panel is wrong on the next.
Polyester and nylon, PVC-free coated cloths, RPET, canvas, jute, PU and leather
One construction per pattern — a second shape means a fresh pattern and its own marking run
Embroidery, screen and heat print, woven and rubber badges, metal plates, emboss, zip pulls
The pre-production gate
Bulk goes wrong the moment the build in the buyer’s head and the build on the line drift apart. On a contract bag run the gate against that is procedural: a pre-production sample sealed, tagged and signed by both sides before the marker is laid — so what ships is the piece that was approved.
The reference the QC line measures every bulk bag against
Retained at the plantThe permanent record of what was approved
Shipped to the buyer’s officeThe piece the third-party lab destroys or retains
Sent to the testing houseHow the run moves
Between the gate and the shipment a contract bag build passes through five stages, and each stage hands the brand something it can check — a pattern, a bundle card, a photograph, a marking check, a packing list. The process is stated as deliverables rather than as steps, because that is what a buyer can hold a plant to.
CheckpointApproved pattern and a signed master sample, held at the plant
CheckpointA bundle card travels with its stack, so a mis-picked panel is caught before it is closed
CheckpointInline checks logged per bundle, with photographs sent to the buyer
CheckpointMarking checked against the master — position, size and colour
CheckpointPre-shipment draw to the contracted level, cartons labelled to the buyer’s list
Brief to costed run
Name the bag, the cloth, the marking and the quantity. Back comes the build, the cost and a sample at a hundred pieces.
Who the run is for
What a contract bag programme has to get right depends on the buying behind it — a reorder that must match, a colour that must hold across a split order, a date that cannot move. The programme decides which of those the build is written around.
Why this floor
A contract bag order turns on the terms behind it — how few pieces a first order can be, who owns the pattern, and who carries a lot that fails. Those terms sit below, set against the suppliers a buyer usually weighs this kind of order against.
How this floor stacks up against the other options on a shortlist. The competitor columns describe the category, not a named supplier.
| Measure | LeelineBags | Trading company | Low-cost bulk | Sample-led |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum order | 100 pieces per construction | Brokered to a floor it does not own | Priced for 3,000+ before the setup pays | One sample, then a bulk figure |
| What binds the run | A sealed master countersigned before bulk cutting | The purchase order alone | Price and volume | The sample that passed |
| The pattern | Stays the brand’s, filed at the plant | Moves to whichever floor bids lowest | Held by the plant | Not kept between runs |
| Cloth lot | One lot per construction, held by lot number | Sourced order by order | Drawn as the store runs low | Bought for the sample |
| A reorder | Cut to the archived master the buyer signed | Re-quoted from the start | Recut to the last delivery | Re-sampled |
| When a lot fails | Quarantined and sorted against the master | Negotiated after the fact | Thinned into the shipment | Carried by the brand |
| Inspection | Written into the contract before the run | Arranged by the buyer | Rarely published | Visual only |
Minimum order
LeelineBags100 pieces per construction
What binds the run
LeelineBagsA sealed master countersigned before bulk cutting
The pattern
LeelineBagsStays the brand’s, filed at the plant
Cloth lot
LeelineBagsOne lot per construction, held by lot number
A reorder
LeelineBagsCut to the archived master the buyer signed
When a lot fails
LeelineBagsQuarantined and sorted against the master
Inspection
LeelineBagsWritten into the contract before the run
Buyer accounts
Two accounts from contract runs — a label opening a first range and a brand resecifying a carry-all — and what the paperwork, not the pitch, had to hold.
John AndersonBrand Manager, OutdoorProOne construction opened the run at a hundred pieces a shape — small enough that most floors wave it off as not worth tooling, and a size that let a first range test the shelf.
Holding the line until the sheet was countersigned felt slow at the time. It is the one pause a first-range buyer should want.
Two seasons on, the reorder came back cut to the archived pattern, not to a photograph of the first lot.
Sarah WilliamsMarketing Director, EcoGearThree offices, one house colour, and a launch date that could not slide — an order split after the dyeing rather than before it.
The rollout had to read as one fabric across all three offices. That it did is the whole test of a split order.
Final inspection ran to the level the contract named for majors, turning acceptance into a number agreed before the run rather than an argument at the bench.
Contract questions
The questions that come up on most contract enquiries. Where a figure already appears in a section above, the answer points at it, never repeats it a second time down the page.
The gate band above: a pre-production piece built in exact bulk materials, and no panel cut until both sides countersign it. A first-range buyer’s real fear is a lot that reads right in the sample room and wrong in the carton — the countersignature is what stands between those two.
Because a construction — one cloth, one pattern, one marking setup — is what a minimum attaches to, not the order. The comparison table carries the figure; the reason it sits on the construction is that two shapes are two patterns, so a quote that folds them together is quoting a saving the floor cannot hold.
The comparison table above holds the term: ownership doesn’t move with the order — the pattern is the buyer’s, and the floor cannot cut it for anyone else. That is the line between a reorder that copies the buyer’s own piece and one that is a near-match the plant is free to resell. Anything raised for the run is held the same way.
The whole order is drawn from one cloth lot, which the gate band keeps single. A split that reaches across two dye lots is how a rollout ends up reading as two ranges under shop lighting rather than one — the single-lot rule is what keeps a divided order looking like a single launch.
Name the plan before the run, not at the bench. Both the comparison table and the pre-shipment step carry this floor’s plan — the draw size, the defect classes and the accept-or-reject line — so a buyer can paste those terms into a purchase order. Written down, the final inspection is a figure both sides agreed, not a dispute settled by whoever holds the bag.
The table above the FAQ names the standing answer — a rejected lot is held, not shipped beside the good units. Beyond the term, what reaches the brand is the evidence: photographs of the failure and the corrective action before anything is packed, so the call to release or to hold is made on a record rather than a promise. A lot is never quietly thinned and sent.
The run is cut on the floor that quotes it. The trading-company column above sets the contrast — a desk brokering the order to a plant it does not own, where the buyer never sees the line and the spec drifts because nobody who quoted it is standing at the marker.
Start a contract run
A tech pack, a reference bag or a sketch is enough. Back comes the costed build, the acceptance plan the contract will name, and a sample at a hundred pieces.