Underwear and lingerie have become more of a fashion statement and a sign of female empowerment in recent years. The demand for underwear is always very large and stable, but now more and more people would like to try lingerie, because of its various fashion designs. In this article, I will recommend several different Chinese websites to these sellers who want to do the business of underwear and lingerie on the basis of different types of business and budget, so they can import whatever designs they like without coming to China.

Generally, customers who are doing underwear business can be divided into the following 4 types,

  1. Aliexpress for a dropshipping business.
  2. DHgate for small quantity wholesale business.
  3. Alibaba for small-medium scale wholesale business.
  4. Made-in-China & Global Sources for Medium-large scale wholesale business.

1. Aliexpress for Dropshipping Business

Most dropshipping sellers are new starters, they haven’t learned much knowledge about the item and market. That’s why they just want to have a try, do not invest too much to take the risk of inventory.

AliExpress is the best choice for these underwear dropshippers, no matter you are a new starter or experienced seller, you can always find the designs you can sell in your own store. Remember to check suppliers’ order quantity and reviews, so you can have a rough idea of an item’s quality. If the design you are interested in does not have any review, you can just wait for several weeks and check again.  

Some sellers have stock warehousing in different countries, for example, the buyer can choose to let seller ship below lingerie from China or the US, according to buyer’s location. They will use different shipping method and shipping time will be saved a lot.

Aliexpress for Dropshipping Underwear Business (3) (1)

When google underwear drop shipping, there are also several websites based in the US, UK, or other countries who can offer you, suppliers. Such as EmmaCloth and BigBuy. But the suppliers and designs are fewer when compared with AliExpress.

2. DHgate for Small Quantity Wholesale Business (budget from $100-$1,000)

Small quantity wholesale buyers who want to make their underwear order amount under $1,000 normally purchase supplier’s existing designs and the quantity is around dozens to a few hundred. These buyers sell the lingerie in their online stores, small shops on the streets, or some small markets in the local place.

It’s very difficult to find suppliers who are willing to make customized styles with such a small amount, but some suppliers may agree to print logos on underwear in a very simple way at best (Like printing a small logo or other patterns on a T-shirt). So suppliers with more fashion and new designs are buyers’ prime options, they do not care much about private labeling.

DHgate is the most suitable wholesale website for these buyers, and the more you buy, the cheaper prices you can get. They have plenty of designs of different styles of underwear & lingerie for the buyer to select. But before buying, you’d better know how to use it safely to avoid any possible traps.

DHgate for Small Quantity Wholesale Business

If you still cannot find the designs you found of on DHgate, you can also go to Aliexpress for a try. Some sellers are willing to give certain discounts for buyers whose quantity is over 10/20 or other number of units.

On both websites you can choose the various shipping ways you like, only with different shipping costs: China Post ePacket is the slowest and freeway; China Post Air Mail, EMS, and DHL take a couple to dozens of dollars.

shipping way

Remember to keep your eye on special promotions these websites hold every year, such as anniversaries, and holidays, to get price discounts and coupons for your order.

Other wholesale websites overseas that search from Google are very few, for instance: A&K Hosiery from the UK, Cotton Connection from the US. But most of their designs are the basic model.

3. Alibaba for Small-medium Scale Wholesale Business (budget from $1,000-$10,000)

Small-medium scale wholesale buyers prefer to private labeling their underwear with the budget from $1,000 to $10,000. Most of them sell on Amazon, eBay, or their own brand website. 

To customize a design of underwear, there are two ways:

  • Complete own design graphics sent by the customer, and they need exact same style for the lace pattern, color, material, size, etc, with their logo, sewn-in label, package, and other requests. 
  • Let suppliers send their underwear catalog, check and select, make the designs into their own with slight modification and private label on product & package.

So how to private label your underwear? We should use different methods for different types of underwear:

  • Sewn-in label: underwear with normal cotton material, lace, etc. The most common labeling way.
  • Print directly on the inner back of underwear: seamless underwear, this labeling way can keep the underwear clear and clean on both design and sense.

Alibaba for small-medium scale wholesale business

  • Print on the external of the underwear with patterns, letters: sports underwear.
  • No label on product, only private label on packages: nude bra, silicone bra. 

nude bra, silicone bra

Alibaba is the best wholesale website for small and medium-sized businesses where you can get reasonable prices from abundant lingerie supplier resources, but 70% of them you can find are trading companies and middlemen (everyone claims that they are factories). So if the supplier’s service, product, and price can satisfy all your requests, it’s not necessary to keep searching for a real factory, as it’s really difficult to. 

Most factories from Alibaba are on a small and medium scale because large factories do not take Alibaba’s online shop as their main way to seek customers. They tend to attend international trade fairs, to seek large wholesaler buyers and retailers, such as Walmart, and Zara. Large buyers will not search for suppliers on Alibaba.

Alibaba factories need to pay close attention to marketing, in order to get more inquiries. Sometimes they also cooperate with a domestic sourcing agent to get more orders.

If you plan to buy from Alibaba, it’s very essential to find reliable suppliers, and avoid getting scammed on Alibaba.

4. Made-in-China & Global Sources for Medium-large Scale Wholesale Business (budget over $10,000)

Buyers with over $10,000 budget can be these three types: customers who want to develop their own underwear brand with their ideas, large middle man who supplies for local chain stores or supermarkets for underwear and lingerie or practiced retailers who have their own large underwear website. 

They need suppliers who can satisfy all their demands of high quality & strict standard, full-scale customization (according to buyer’s sample or drawing). They will have strict request for materials, such as colorfastness because underwear is close-fitting wear, so suppliers need to offer reliable test reports from the large testing company. 

To develop whole new underwear or lingerie, the supplier also needs professional staff who can well understand customer’s design drawings and ideas and give suggestions properly, so that they can make the right samples as soon as possible because underwear buyers usually have tight development cycle to fit different seasons.

Obviously, small or medium factories could not fulfill these requests, that’s why buyers need effective large-scale factories to support them. I suggest them to go to Made-in-China and Global Sources to get what they want.

Although they may find a few large factories from Alibaba, with difficult and time-consuming process, why not use these other similar websites to get more suppliers in a much easier way. Small and medium factories would not spend too much money on Made-in-China and Global Sources, because it’s harder for them to get orders than in Alibaba, that’s why there are more large factories there for searching.

Made-in-China & Global Sources for Medium-large scale wholesale business

Also, you can submit a request in the ticket to entrust us to find reliable underwear suppliers for you.