Minimum order quantities: how an MOQ is actually calculated
A minimum order quantity looks like a gate — a number you have to clear before a wholesaler will quote you. It is really an accounting line. An MOQ is the point below which a shipment costs more to assemble, document and move than the margin on the goods can carry. Once you can see the three costs that set it, you can usually bring your own MOQ down — often without ordering any more than you meant to.
The three costs behind every MOQ
An MOQ is not one number pulled from the air. It is where three separate costs meet, each of which behaves in steps rather than smoothly:
- Picking. A pallet shipped whole is never touched; a pallet broken open to pull a few cases ties up a picker and a forklift.
- Freight. Transport does not scale in a straight line. It jumps between groupage, part-load, full truck and container, and the gaps between are where cost per case spikes.
- Documentation. The paperwork for a cross-border shipment costs about the same whether it moves two pallets or twenty.
Take them in turn, because each sets a floor, and the highest of the three is your real MOQ.
The pallet is the first unit, not the case
You are quoted per case, but a warehouse works in layers and pallets. A full pallet is moved once, by one forklift, and leaves on the trailer as it arrived. A pallet broken to pick 40 loose cases is handled by a person, one case at a time, and that labour is real — it lands in the price of small orders as surely as the goods themselves do.
So the first floor you meet is per line: a full layer, or a full pallet, of each SKU. It is why the same product is cheaper by the pallet than by the case, and why ten pallets of one line will always beat ten pallets split across forty. Our pallet configuration for each SKU is on the product range page; ordering in whole layers is the single easiest way to earn a keener price.
Freight moves in steps, and the middle is expensive
The freight market does not offer a smooth rate that falls gently as your order grows. It offers a handful of distinct products, each cheap only inside its own band:
| Load | Rough size | Cost per case |
|---|---|---|
| Groupage / LTL | 1–6 pallets | Low per pallet on a shared lane, but slow and handled several times |
| Part load | 8–24 pallets | Highest — too big for cheap groupage, too small to fill a trailer |
| Full truckload | 33 pallets / 24 t | Lowest by road — the whole vehicle over the whole load |
| 20 ft container | ~10–11 pallets | Low per case on sea lanes once volume justifies a box |
| 40 ft container | ~20–24 pallets | Lowest per case for volume on longer routes |
The trap is the part load. Between roughly eight and twenty-four pallets you have outgrown the cheap groupage lane but you are still paying for a trailer you have not filled. The cost per case in that band is often worse than a smaller order on groupage. The move is to step out of it in one direction or the other: drop back onto a consolidated lane, or add enough to fill the truck. Whether a full truck is 33 pallets or 26 depends on weight, which is a separate calculation worth doing before you commit.
Documentation costs the same at any size
A commercial invoice, a packing list, a EUR.1 or statement on origin, and any health or conformity certificates take the same work to raise for two pallets as for a full container. That is a fixed cost, and fixed costs are brutal when spread over a small order. It is a large part of why MOQs exist at all: below a certain size, the documentation alone can cost more per case than the freight. The full document set, and who issues each part, is worth reading before your first order so nothing is requested too late.
A worked example
Take a canned soft drink — figures typical of the category, not a specific line. Say a layer is around 100–120 cases and a pallet runs eight to ten layers, so a pallet is on the order of a thousand cases. Now compare three ways to buy it:
- Half a pallet, loose-picked. The pallet is broken, the picking is manual, and the order still rides a part-load or groupage lane. Cost per case is at its worst.
- One full pallet. No broken-pallet handling, but on its own it still sits in the expensive part-load band for road freight.
- A full truck of mixed lines. Full pallets, one loading, the whole trailer over the whole load. Cost per case can be a third of the half-pallet figure.
Nothing about the goods changed. The price per case moved because the picking, freight and paperwork per case moved. That is the MOQ, made visible.
Mixed pallets: meeting the floor across several lines
You rarely need a full pallet of every SKU you want. A mixed pallet — several lines built onto one base — lets you clear the shipment floor without over-ordering any single product. It costs a little more to pick than a single-line pallet, and it is quoted accordingly, but a mixed pallet that helps fill a truck almost always beats a single-line order stranded in the part-load band. If your range is broad but your volume per line is modest, this is usually the cheapest way to buy.
The deposit is part of the MOQ
Most wholesale orders here run on a proforma invoice: a deposit to confirm and secure stock, the balance before the goods leave. Because that deposit and the documentation only make sense above a floor, an MOQ is often expressed as an order value as much as a quantity. Two small orders a month cost more to process than one that combines them, and the terms reflect it. Always confirm bank details on the proforma against a second channel before you send a deposit — it is the one fraud this trade genuinely suffers, and we set out how we guard against it on the contact page.
Five ways to lower your effective MOQ
- Order full layers or pallets per line. It removes the broken-pallet handling charge outright.
- Consolidate SKUs to fill a pallet, then pallets to fill a truck, rather than spreading a small budget thinly across many lines.
- Pair light with heavy. Combining a bulky, light category with a dense, heavy one fills the trailer by both floor space and weight at once (the pallet-and-truckload maths shows why that matters).
- Buy EXW or FCA and consolidate at your end if you already move freight, so our MOQ is only about the goods, not the transport (the Incoterms guide explains what that shifts onto you).
- Set up a recurring monthly programme. Predictable volume is worth more to a supplier than a larger one-off, and earns better terms and a lower standing MOQ.
What to send us
Tell us the lines you want and a target in pallets or containers with your destination, and we will come back with the minimum per line and the cheapest way to reach it — usually the same day. If you only have a rough budget, say so; we will suggest a build that fills a load rather than one that strands you in the part-load band.
Related reading: pallet and truckload maths, Incoterms for FMCG buyers, and the EU export documents checklist.