Most first orders that go wrong do not go wrong in production. They go wrong in the first three emails, when the buyer and the workshop are describing different pieces and neither of them notices.
Below is how an order actually runs here, from the first message to the carton arriving at your door, with the points where it usually slows down. None of it is unusual for a hand-tying workshop. It is written down because a buyer ordering from Vietnam for the first time has no way to know what normal looks like.
1 · The first message
The fastest first message has four things in it:
- A photograph of the piece you want — a client, an old unit, a competitor’s product. A picture replaces a paragraph of adjectives.
- A length in inches or centimetres, and whether that is the length of the hair or of the piece.
- A base size for toppers and toupees. If you have no standard size, say so, and tell us whether you will send a template.
- A quantity, even a rough one. One sample, twenty pieces and two hundred pieces are three different conversations.
What slows this step down is the word natural. Every buyer wants it, and it means something different to each of them. A photograph under daylight settles it faster than anything written.
2 · Specification and price
We reply with a written specification — base construction, lace type, density, colour, knot treatment, parting, cap size — and a price and lead time against it. Usually within one working day.
Read the specification line by line. This is the document the piece will be built to, and it is the cheapest point at which to change anything. A change here costs an email. The same change after the lace is cut costs a piece.
3 · The sample
One piece, at sample price, made to exactly the same specification as a production run. Not a stock unit pulled from a shelf that roughly matches, because we do not hold finished stock.
A sample takes the same production time as the product it represents — see the lead time table — plus three to seven days by express courier to the United States, Japan or the Gulf.
When it arrives, do not judge it by stroking the hair. Turn it inside out. We wrote a short guide to what to look for in the first five minutes, and it applies to any supplier’s sample, not just ours.
4 · Trial order
Ten to forty-nine pieces. This is the step most buyers want to skip and the one we would least like them to. A trial order answers the question a sample cannot: whether the fortieth piece is as good as the first.
It also tells you what sells in your market, which is rarely what you expected. Buyers often find that one density or one base type outsells the rest by a wide margin, and the next order is shaped by that.
5 · Deposit and production
A 50% deposit confirms a production slot. Hand-tying capacity is fixed by the number of people at the bench, so the slot is real — once it is confirmed, work starts on that date and not before.
During production we send photographs and short videos when you ask for them, and always before despatch: the underside of the base, the front hairline, the parting, the colour against your ring. If something is wrong, this is where it gets caught.
6 · Balance and despatch
The balance is due before despatch. Goods ship by DHL, FedEx or UPS express, or air freight for larger consignments. Export documents are issued by WINA Trading & Service Supply Co., Ltd., a registered Vietnamese company — which matters if your side runs supplier due diligence or needs a commercial invoice from a legal entity rather than an individual.
7 · The second order
This is where the arrangement starts to pay for both sides. Your colour ring is held at the workshop, your specification is on file, and a repeat order does not need the first three steps again. From the second order we are also open to discussing 30/70 payment terms instead of 50/50.
Where orders slow down
In our experience, in rough order of how often:
- Colour. A colour described in words or from a screen photograph. Send a physical swatch, or a strand of the client’s hair, and the problem disappears.
- Base size. A number without its unit, or a size that is the outer edge on one side and the hair area on the other. Our note on centimetres, inches and base sizes covers the usual mix-ups.
- Specification changed after the deposit. Possible, but it moves the slot.
- Holidays. Tết, the Lunar New Year, closes Vietnamese workshops for one to two weeks in January or February. Orders for March are best placed in December.
What we will tell you up front
We are not the fastest option and not the cheapest. We hold no stock, so nothing ships tomorrow. We make human hair only. If any of that rules us out, it is better to know in the first email than the fourth.
If it does not, the first message is four lines long.