TransparencyEconomicsOperation

Nothing is free: the real cost of finishing.

Open books — the payroll, the label invoices and the trucking behind every lot. What twenty-five cents a piece actually buys.

Trade desk · July 21, 2026 · 5 min

A label replaced by hand at the Offpriced finishing line — The finishing line — every cost on this page starts here.

Buyers meet our prices with two opposite suspicions. Some see the deep discount and assume corners were cut. Others see the difference between lot price and our quote and assume it is pure profit. Both are wrong, and the easiest way to show it is to open the books. So here they are.

At least twenty people touch every deal

Finishing is not a machine you switch on. Each deal puts a crew of twenty-plus workers on the line — relabeling, measuring specs and sizes, pressing, assorting, packing, ticketing. They are paid by the day, deal after deal. This is the salary sheet from one deal in June — recreated line for line from the signed original:

Worker salary sheet — 22 workers, 15.5 days, one deal at the Offpriced finishing centre — One deal = one crew of 22, paid by the day for 15.5 working days. Names and taka amounts blacked out for privacy — the signed original is on file.

The materials bill

Every label, care label, hangtag, price ticket and polybag is bought — from the nominated suppliers the brands themselves use. Nothing is improvised and nothing is free. Here is one program’s accessories invoice, line by line as billed:

Nominated supplier invoice MAG/OFF001/26 — labels, care labels and polybags for one program — Five styles, ~53,000 pieces of trim, billed by the brands’ own nominated supplier — Tk 76,066.67, about US $650, for one program. Supplier name withheld.

“Nothing is free — and honest work shows up on invoices.”

The moving

Goods truck from the mill to our finishing centre and, when relabeling needs the mill again, back. Finished cartons truck to Chittagong port. Add the crew, the accessories and the transport together and finishing lands around US $0.25 per piece, or more — before anyone has earned a margin. The arithmetic, piece by piece:

The simple math — finishing cost per piece on a 50,000-pc program, about US $0.25 — Per piece, on a 50,000-pc program: labels, hangtags, salary, transport, trucking and overhead — about Tk 30 = US $0.25.

The volume math

One more honest number: the floor and the team cost the same in a slow month as in a fast one. When volume dips, the same overhead spreads over fewer pieces and the cost per piece rises. Steady programs get the best prices not as a favour, but as arithmetic. And that math only holds in a good month — a slow one spreads the same crew and floor over fewer pieces, and the number only goes up.

What we charge above cost is our fee for twenty years of buying right. The discount comes from the stocklot buy — never from skipping the finishing.

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