Oct 22, 2026News & Insights
Before Your Cushion Covers Ship: What to Check and What to Photograph
The inspection that happens before the container leaves decides whether you spend the next season selling or apologising. Here is what to look at, in order.
The container is loaded. Two weeks later a customer opens a carton and finds a cushion cover with a zip that runs off the seam.
Nobody in that chain can prove when it happened. The factory says it left clean. The forwarder saw sealed cartons. You are the one holding the return.
A short inspection before loading closes that gap. It does not need a laboratory. It needs an order, and a torch.
Start with the fabric, not the stitching
Unfold a cover flat and look along it at an angle, not straight down. Shading differences between panels show up at an angle and disappear when you look straight on.
Check that the panels are cut the same direction. A pile fabric cut against the grain looks like a colour fault in daylight but is really a cutting decision, and it will not wash out.
Run a hand across the face. Any roughness, slubs or thin patches are worth photographing with a ruler beside them, so the conversation later is about a measured patch rather than an opinion.
The closure is where complaints begin
Zip every cover you check, not just the first one. A zip that catches once will catch in the customer's hands, usually on the day they fill it.
Look at where the zip meets the seam at both ends. That is where a puckered corner appears, and it is the fault buyers photograph most often when they ask for a credit.
On an envelope back, fill one cover and see whether the overlap holds. A back that gapes on an empty cover may sit correctly once filled, so test it the way it will be used.
Open one carton properly, then spot-check the rest
Open a carton from the middle of the pallet, not the one on top. The top carton has been handled differently from the rest and is the least representative item in the shipment.
Count the packing, not just the product. Labels, inserts and bags are the parts that quietly run short, and a short count is invisible until a customer complains that their order is incomplete.
Then walk the pallet and pull covers from several cartons at random. You are not looking for perfection. You are looking for a difference that tells you the batch was not made the way the sample was.
Photograph what you cannot describe
A photograph settles arguments that a sentence cannot. Put something with a known size next to the fault so the scale is unambiguous, and take the shot in daylight if the site allows it.
Photograph the packing as opened, before anyone tidies it. Once a carton has been repacked, the evidence of how it arrived is gone.
Keep the photographs with the order number and the date. When a dispute arrives two months later, a dated folder is worth more than anyone's memory of the day.
Write down what you accepted
If you accept a small difference, record it in writing and say it is accepted. An accepted difference that nobody recorded becomes the new standard by default, and the next order will be measured against it.
Equally, write down what you rejected and why. A supplier who receives a clear list fixes specific things. A supplier who receives a complaint fixes whatever they guess you meant.
If you are planning a first shipment, ask us for the inspection points we work to before the goods are packed. It is easier to agree the standard while the order is still open.
