What a fitted sheet from Turkey actually costs, line by line
Three lines make the price and the fourth is not a cost at all. A 160 × 200 sheet at 145 g/m², landed in Germany, is 8.16 € at 350 pieces — here is where every cent of it goes, and what more volume really buys.
Updated 2026-10-02
Three lines, and there is no fourth
A 160 × 200 fitted sheet in 145 g/m² open-end jersey, plain polybag, delivered to Germany, costs 8.16 € a piece at 350 pieces. It is made of exactly three numbers: 7.06 € of product, 0.30 € of packaging and 0.80 € of freight. There is no handling fee, no agent's margin and no document charge underneath them — the printed care label, the elastic all the way round and the carton are already inside the 7.06.
What volume actually buys you
The same sheet is 8.16 € at 350 pieces, 7.59 € at 800, 7.28 € at 1,600 and 7.00 € at 2,400. Most of that fall is freight rather than goods: a pallet takes sixteen cartons of fifty, so 800 fills one and the per-piece lorry cost drops from 0.80 € to 0.55 € and eventually to 0.35 €. Going from 350 to 2,400 pieces saves 14 % a piece and ties up seven times the cash. For a first order that is usually the wrong trade.
Import VAT looks like a cost and is not one
Türkiye and the EU are in a customs union, so textiles enter at 0 % duty with an A.TR certificate, which we issue with every shipment. What you do pay at the border is import VAT — 19 % in Germany, 1.55 € on this sheet — and if you are VAT-registered you reclaim it. It is cash flow, not cost. Switzerland, Norway and the UK sit outside that union and run on EUR.1 instead, also at 0 %.
The lines people forget to budget for
The sample pack is 180 € and is credited against your first order, so it only ever costs you anything if you walk away. A colour outside the stock card is a custom Pantone at 0.35 € a piece and two more weeks. Packaging is a real choice and not a detail: a plain polybag is 0.30 €, a printed insert card or belly band 0.44 €, a PVC sleeve with a moulded hanger 0.57 € and a kraft box 1.00 €, which also ships heavier. A woven brand label is 0.04 € from 500 pieces; the printed care label is included and never charged.
What this means for a first order
350 pieces of 160 × 200 at 8.16 € is 2,856 € net, and the sheet sells in German retail well above that. Six weeks of production and a week on the lorry means an order approved today arrives in about seven weeks; a repeat runs in four, because the cut, the elastic and the dye recipe already exist. The figures here are calculated from today's yarn price and today's exchange rate, and the configurator will price your own combination rather than this one.
Orientation from a factory that ships into the EU every week, not legal advice. The rules below are named so you can look them up, and your own advisor should confirm anything you are about to print on a label.