Sourcing from Bangladesh: what to verify
Bangladesh is the world’s second-largest garment exporter for structural reasons — capability, capacity, and duty access. The buyers who do well here are not the ones who found the cheapest quote; they are the ones who verified the right five things before the first PO.
Duty access, in one paragraph
Bangladesh ships to the EU under Everything But Arms — duty-free — with rules of origin your documentation must actually satisfy; the paperwork (REX registration, correct certificates) is where duty-free is won or lost. The country’s LDC graduation will shift terms in the coming years, with transition arrangements — a partner watching this for you should be able to explain, today, what applies to your product and market. Ask; the quality of the answer is itself the audit.
Honest lead-time math
From confirmed order to ex-factory: fabric booking and knitting or weaving (3–6 weeks), then cutting through packing (4–8 weeks depending on quantity and complexity), with approvals — lab dips, PP samples — running alongside and gating everything. Call it 60–105 days ex-factory for most knitwear programs, plus 4–5 weeks on the water to Europe. Any promise dramatically shorter is spending your buffer without telling you; the real differentiator is not a shorter promise but visible daily progress against the plan, so a slip surfaces in week three, not week eleven.
Compliance that survives an audit
Verify at factory level, never corporate level: current audit reports (BSCI, SEDEX), certifications for the claims you make (GOTS, GRS, OEKO-TEX — each is a certificate with a number you can check), structural-safety standing with the RSC (the Accord’s successor), and expiry dates — a certificate wall means little if half of it lapsed in March. The real question for your partner: can they show you the current documents for the specific factory your order runs in, on demand? In our case that lives in the buyer portal, expiry-alerted; however your partner does it, insist it be on demand and current.
The partner test
Five questions separate an accountable partner from a forwarded email: Who exactly owns my order, by name? How do I see daily production — a report, or the line itself? What happens when something slips — protocol, or improvisation? Whose QC team inspects, at whose standard? And who handles export documents, duty paperwork and the bank? If the answers are one company, with evidence, you have a partner. If they are five phone numbers, you are the partner.
The fastest verification is watching the machine work: click through the live buyer portal — no signup, seeded data, three minutes.
Take the platform tourMaintained by the Cotton Rose merchandising team — this guide is kept current, not published and forgotten.