The supplier behind your clothing brand

DS Trading is a German company based in Hamburg, where Ben Detert looks after your orders. Co-founder Felix Sander works in China with a whole team that knows more than 100 producers personally, among them streetwear manufacturers with printing, embroidery and washing in house and a maker of outdoor jackets and softshell. For a brand this means that if you want to know before next season whether your factory can handle the reorder or whether the fabric quality will stay the same, our team goes and looks on site straight away.

For many brands, production in China is a black box: you only find out what happened when the goods arrive. With us, one European contact takes each collection from the specification to DDP delivery and puts it into practice. We get in touch on our own as soon as the pre-production sample is ready or a date moves, and we do not hide it when something is not going to plan. Your launch and season dates are planned with realistic lead times, and we do everything we can to keep them.

Nothing matters more to us than your trust. You know us personally; if there is a quality problem, we speak to you straight away and come to you. Prices are usually below what sourcing yourself or another sourcing agency costs: we handle China and Germany ourselves, compare both sides, go for the cheaper option on each and negotiate the best possible price with the factory. The invoice comes from Germany.

You define the product: fabric and weight, cut and grading, colour, trims, labels, care symbols and packaging. Whatever is not written down is decided by the factory, so we work through that list with you before the first quote, from a tech pack if you have one, from a reference article and a sketch if you do not.

Trademark and product compliance stay with you as the brand owner, for example textile labelling obligations. We implement what you specify and flag when a specification looks incomplete to us.

A brand becomes a brand when the second production run matches the first. We keep your approved specification and approved sample on file as the reference for every reorder, so a follow-up order is checked against your first batch rather than a fresh interpretation by the factory. Colour and fit are part of that check, along with fabric weight, seams and labelling.

The minimum order is 300 pieces per article, for first runs and reorders alike. You can restock the sizes and colours that actually sold instead of repeating the whole grid, and staying with the same manufacturer keeps the reference intact.

Your contractual partner is DS Trading in Hamburg. You conclude a purchase contract under German law, place of jurisdiction Hamburg, and receive a German invoice your bookkeeping treats like any domestic supplier. You need no EORI number and file no customs declaration; we are the importer of record.

Every quote is a landed cost per unit: product, freight, duty, import VAT, optional cargo insurance and delivery in one figure. Payment comes in two parts: 60% when the contract is signed and 40% once the bill of lading or air waybill is issued. On request the transaction can be secured with a letter of credit.

This fits brands that already have a product and a market and want a supplier to produce and import it reliably: DTC labels moving their first article off a European intermediary, growing shops that have outgrown catalogue goods, workwear and corporate-fashion brands planning repeat orders. If you are still working out the specification itself, start on our private-label page. If you sell on Amazon or eBay, the Amazon FBA supplier page is closer to your setup.