Your knitwear sells hardest in the months a Turkish factory considers its off-season. That's not a problem — but it does mean building a calendar that runs backwards from the northern-hemisphere norm.
Most knitwear factories — Turkish ones included — are built around a northern retail calendar: autumn/winter ranges ship in July–September. An Australian brand's peak selling season is the exact inverse. That's not a problem for the buyer — a factory's slow months for European AW orders can mean genuine open capacity for an Australian June delivery — but only if the calendar is planned deliberately, not assumed to match your own retail rhythm. Below is a practical timeline for getting AW-for-Australia knitwear onto the water on time.
| Month | Australian retail need | Turkish factory rhythm |
|---|---|---|
| Jan–Feb | Deep summer — low knitwear focus | Peak: shipping European SS orders |
| Mar–Apr | AW range planning, first sampling should start | SS shipping winds down, AW sampling opens up |
| May | Bulk order should be placed / in production | AW bulk production ramping for Europe too — competing for slots |
| Jun–Aug | Peak retail season — stock needs to be on shelf | Full AW production run for European autumn delivery |
| Jul | Mid-winter — no room for supply delay | Common factory holiday period (varies by workshop, often 1–2 weeks) |
| Sep–Oct | Season winding down, reorders if needed | Northern AW shipping tail, some spare capacity opens |
| Nov–Dec | Summer stock only | SS sampling for Europe begins — good window for AU's next-year enquiries |
Indicative — exact factory holiday timing and slot pressure varies by workshop and year. Confirm dates directly before committing a delivery deadline.
If Australian knitwear needs to be on shelf by early June, the honest way to plan is to work backwards from that date, not forwards from "whenever we're ready to order."
Send specs, yarn preferences and tech packs in the northern late autumn — the window when Turkish factories sit between their own AW shipping and SS sampling, so development slots are genuinely open.
Allow two to three weeks per sample round, and expect at least one revision. Lock colours, yarn and pricing by end of February — this stage is where brands most often lose weeks by treating it as instant.
The latest realistic point to commit a bulk order for June shelf stock, ahead of the European AW crush filling the same production slots for July–September delivery.
Production typically runs 4–6 weeks depending on order size and construction. Sea freight to an Australian port is generally several weeks longer than to Europe; air freight is faster but adds real cost. Build both into the date, with a buffer.
Two dates matter more than most Australian buyers realise when they're planning a first order with a Turkish factory:
Ramazan Bayramı and Kurban Bayramı are national holidays in Turkey and most workshops close for several days to a week around each. They follow the lunar calendar, so exact dates shift year to year — check current dates against your timeline rather than assuming a fixed month.
Many Gaziantep knitwear workshops take a period of summer leave, commonly falling in July — the exact month Australian retailers most need stock on shelf. This is a regional pattern, not unique to one workshop. Ask for the specific closure dates before setting a delivery deadline.
If a style sells through in July and you want a reorder for August, be realistic — that production window sits during or just after the summer break, competing with capacity already partly allocated. A reorder placed in June is far more reliable than one placed in July hoping for a rush.
Some compression is possible — faster sampling, air freight instead of sea — but MOQ still applies (250 pieces per colour/size; a style in 3 colours and 5 sizes is 3,750 units) and a first order isn't the place to compress quality checks too. A realistic first-order timeline from initial sample to landed stock is closer to 4–5 months than 6–8 weeks.
Yes, meaningfully — Turkey to a European port is often under two weeks; Turkey to an Australian port is a longer sea leg, generally several weeks more depending on routing. Get an actual quote from your freight forwarder rather than estimating, since routings shift.
No — timing and length vary by factory, and some run a shorter break or stagger it. That's exactly why specific dates need confirming directly with your supplier rather than assumed from a general pattern, especially in year one.
China has its own closure to plan around too — Chinese New Year, typically a two-to-four-week production gap in Jan–Feb, sitting inside the exact window this calendar uses for Turkish sampling. Every sourcing country has a holiday calendar; Turkey's just falls at a different point in the year.
Send your target delivery month and we'll map the sampling and bulk-order dates backwards from it — holiday closures included — so there are no surprises in the middle of your peak season.