Nine things that move the wholesale cost of luggage — and why no supplier in this category can honestly publish one price.
There is no single trade price for luggage, and a published list would be wrong for almost everyone who read it. It moves with volume, with which collections and sizes are taken, and with the terms — the nine factors below are what it moves with.
That is ordinary in this category and every buyer reading this already knows it. What is not ordinary, and what is worth asking of any supplier, is a straight answer about what turns the vagueness into a number and how long that takes.
Our answer
Tell us three things and it stops being vague: your market, roughly what volume you are working to, and the retail price you need to hit. Trade prices come back with the first reply, within one working day.
The obvious one, and the one buyers overestimate. Volume moves a unit price, but in this category it moves the FREIGHT more than the goods — a larger order fills containers more efficiently and spreads a fixed shipping cost over more pieces. Ask for the price at two volumes rather than one; the gap between them tells you which part of the quote is the product and which part is the logistics.
Cabin, medium and large are three different amounts of material, and a range built mostly of large cases costs more per piece than the same range weighted to cabin. The mix is also a merchandising decision — cabin sells fastest and large carries the highest ticket — so it is worth pricing two or three assortments rather than asking for one blended figure.
Hard shell and soft shell are not variants of one product; they are different constructions with different cost bases, and within each there is a spread. Shell thickness, whether the material is virgin or recycled, and the lining and internal fittings all sit inside the word "suitcase" on a specification sheet. If two quotes differ and the models look alike, this is usually where the difference is.
The components a customer touches, and the ones a return is filed against. Wheel type and mounting, handle stages and tube quality, zip specification, and whether the lock is a plain combination or a TSA-approved one all carry cost. They also carry warranty exposure — a cheaper wheel is not a saving if it comes back.
Individual polybags, printed cartons, hang tags, care leaflets and any retailer-specific labelling are all specified and all priced. Packaging is also a freight input rather than a cosmetic one: cartons that do not nest, or that add a centimetre in each direction, change how many pieces fit in a container.
A branded range and an own-label programme are different products commercially. Badges, embossing, colourways matched to a reference, bespoke linings and custom packaging each move the price and, more importantly, the lead time and the minimum. This is the factor that most often turns a stock enquiry into a different conversation — and frequently a better one.
Luggage is freighted by volume rather than by weight, which makes it an expensive category to move: most of what is in the container is air. So whether the sizes nest — each case packing inside the next one up — changes the delivered cost per unit more than a point or two on the unit price will. Ask what a 20ft and a 40ft actually hold, nested and not nested, and compare that alongside the price rather than after it.
Two quotes are not comparable unless you know who is importing. If you import, the duty, the clearance and the compliance responsibility are yours, and the number you were given is a factory-gate number. Country of manufacture matters for the same reason: under the Everything But Arms arrangement in Regulation (EU) No 978/2012, Bangladesh-origin goods enter the Union at nil duty — but the benefit accrues to whoever imports, so it is only your saving if you are the importer.
The part of the cost that arrives after the invoice. A longer warranty term is worth a higher unit price if the claims are handled by the supplier; a shorter one is expensive if your own staff assess returns, because that is a service operation you are now staffing. Ask who does the work and who pays for the replacement, then price the two quotes again.
Send us the quantity you are working to, the market it is going to and the retail price you need to hit. A proposed assortment comes back reasoned piece by piece, with trade prices, within one working day.
