Sneakers from Jinjiang, Not Leather Shoes from Wenzhou

Footwear is one of the steady lanes out of China, even in years when the headline number dips. The mistake is treating every shoe town as the same factory. Jinjiang (晋江) makes athletic shoes and casual sneakers. Wenzhou makes leather shoes. I do not send a sneaker program to a leather-shoe plant because both answers say “shoes.”

What the quotation has to name

• Upper material: mesh, synthetic leather, or a mix. “PU” without a thickness is not a spec.
• The sole bond. A sole that peels after a week of wear is the defect I look for first.
• The size run you actually sell, in the system your customer uses, with a measured sample in each end size.
• Color against a swatch. A screen photo of a sneaker is a different color by the time it reaches the line.

Logo and packing stay light. A new last does not.

Printing a logo, changing a lace color, and packing in your box are the light-custom path, once the base shoe exists. A new last, a new sole mold, or a new upper pattern is tooling. I separate those on the quotation so a “low minimum” does not quietly become a mold bill.

Jinjiang is on the industrial hub guide. If you have a reference shoe and a quantity per size, I can tell you whether we are decorating a shoe the town already makes, or asking it to invent one.

Keep reading

• Jeans from Xintang: Weight, Wash, and Shrinkage
• Logo, Color, and Packaging: What “Low MOQ” Actually Covers
• What a Pre-Shipment Inspection Covers on Standard Goods