The Claim Window Is the Clause

Most quality clauses are generous in principle and useless in practice, because they expire before the goods arrive. A clause that gives the buyer seven days from shipment to raise a defect claim, on a route that takes thirty days, is not a warranty. It is a formality that protects the seller and teaches the buyer to stop reading contracts.

The window should start where the risk transfers and should be long enough to include the first inspection, not the first wear. For zippers, that usually means five working days from arrival for visible defects, plus a separate latent defect period of ninety days or one wash cycle, whichever comes first, for failures that only appear in use.

The Evidence Package

A claim without evidence is a complaint. Specify the pack in advance so that the first response is an investigation rather than a request for photographs. The pack should be small enough that a QC team will actually assemble it at ten o'clock at night.

  1. Lot number, carton numbers and quantity affected.
  2. Photographs of the defect with a scale and the lot label visible in the same frame.
  3. The retained sample of the same lot, where one exists.
  4. Inspection record showing the sample size and the count by defect class.
  5. A one-line statement of the commercial impact: sort cost, replacement need, or line stoppage.

Five items, one page. Anything longer will be sent incomplete, and an incomplete claim is the easiest claim to reject.

Rework, Replace or Credit: Fix the Order of Remedies

Disputes last longer than they should because the contract lists three remedies without saying which applies when. Put them in a hierarchy, with the trigger for each step, so that a defective lot has one obvious path instead of three negotiable ones.

CLAUSE 12 - CLAIMS AND REMEDIES
12.1 Notice: Buyer notifies within 5 working days of
     arrival for visible defects; 90 days for latent
     defects, or one wash cycle, whichever is earlier.
12.2 Acknowledgement: Seller responds in writing within
     2 working days, with a containment plan.
12.3 Remedy order:
     (a) 100% sorting and rework at Seller's cost where
         the defect is repairable and the retail date
         can still be met;
     (b) replacement of the defective quantity within
         15 working days where rework cannot restore
         conformity;
     (c) credit note at invoiced value plus 20% handling
         where neither (a) nor (b) protects the date.
12.4 Sorting cost: USD 0.03 per piece sorted, charged
     back against the credit note, capped at the value
     of the defective quantity.
12.5 Rework standard: reworked goods must pass the same
     AQL plan as new production, on a doubled sample.
12.6 Repeat failure: a second rejected lot on the same
     article within 90 days entitles Buyer to a 100%
     pre-shipment inspection at Seller's cost.
12.7 Set-off: Buyer may deduct agreed amounts from any
     open invoice after 10 working days' written notice.

Who Pays for What

  • Sorting labour. Seller, when the defect rate exceeds the agreed AQL; Buyer, when it does not.
  • Return freight. Seller for confirmed defects; Buyer for goods found conforming after inspection.
  • Air freight to protect a retail date. Seller where the defect is confirmed and the date is at risk.
  • Third-party inspection. The party whose position is displaced by the result.
  • Chargeback administration. Usually a flat fee, stated in the contract, not negotiated per claim.

A cost table removes the most corrosive part of a claim, which is the argument about who pays for the sorting table, the temporary staff and the overtime. Those numbers are small individually and enormous in aggregate over a season.

Rework Is Not Always the Cheapest Remedy

Sorting a lot of 20,000 zips at three cents a piece costs six hundred dollars, which sounds cheap until the sorting happens at the buyer's warehouse two days before the cut date. The real cost is the delay, and the clause should let the buyer choose replacement or credit when time, not money, is the binding constraint. Give the buyer that option explicitly rather than forcing a rework that arrives too late to use.

Equally, do not let a credit note become the default. A seller who pays credits every month has no incentive to fix the process, and a buyer who accepts credits every month is financing the seller's quality failures. The remedy hierarchy should push toward correction first and compensation second, with compensation calibrated to be uncomfortable.

Closing the Loop

Every accepted claim should produce a corrective action with a date and an owner. Donglong requires a root cause report within five working days of a confirmed claim, and closes the claim only when the corrective action has been verified on a subsequent lot. That last step is the one most programmes skip, and it is the reason the same defect returns every season. A claim closed without a verified corrective action will be raised again next season, at a higher cost and with less goodwill.

A Note on Use

This article is general commercial reference, not legal advice. Claim periods, set-off rights and chargeback mechanisms may be restricted by the law governing your contract. Have qualified counsel review the wording before it is used in a live purchase agreement.