Why a European buyer sources socks from Türkiye.
Not because it is the cheapest place to knit a sock. Because of two structural facts that have nothing to do with any individual factory: the customs position, and the distance measured in days rather than weeks.
Zero customs duty into the EU.
Türkiye and the European Union have been in a customs union since 1995. It covers industrial goods, and finished textiles and apparel fall inside it. Socks produced here and shipped with an A.TR movement certificate enter the EU without customs duty.
That is not a discount a factory offers. It is the trading relationship, and it applies whichever Turkish supplier you use. Against sourcing origins that carry a standard tariff into the EU, it removes a percentage from landed cost before anyone has negotiated a price per pair.
The A.TR is issued at export. Your customs broker will ask for it by name.
Days on a truck, not weeks on a ship.
Indicative road transit from Istanbul. Your forwarder will confirm against their own schedule, but the order of magnitude is the point.
About four days by road.
About five days by road.
About six days by road.
Sea freight from East Asia to the same warehouses is measured in weeks, and the gap widens every time a canal, a port or a carrier has a bad month.
What that changes about how you buy.
Short transit is not only a delivery date. It changes the size of the bet you have to place.
You can order less, more often. When a repeat lands in weeks rather than a quarter, the safety stock that covers the gap gets smaller. That is working capital returned to you, and it usually outweighs a small difference in unit price.
A mistake costs less. A colour that does not sell is a short exposure rather than a container you are committed to for months.
You can react to a season. A line that sells out in October can be back on the shelf before the season ends, which is not a decision available on a long lead time.
You can visit. Istanbul is a short flight from most European cities. Buyers walk our floor before they commit and during production, which is a different relationship from approving photographs of a factory you will never see.
Terms and paperwork.
Set these in the first conversation. They decide who books the truck, who insures the load and where the risk changes hands.
| Incoterms | EXW, FCA, FOB, CPT, DAP and DDP are all workable. If you have a freight partner you already use, collection from our gate is the simplest arrangement. |
| A.TR certificate | Issued at export. The document that gives EU-bound goods their duty position under the customs union. |
| Certificate of origin | Issued where the destination market requires it alongside or instead of the A.TR. |
| United Kingdom | Outside the EU customs union since Brexit, and covered by a separate UK–Türkiye trade agreement. Your broker will confirm the current position for your goods. |
| Carton marking | Produced to your warehouse specification: barcodes, pack quantities, purchase order references. |
| Freight quotation | confirm which Incoterms Sockten quotes as standard |
Use your own forwarder if you have one.
Plenty of buyers already have freight arranged and rates they are happy with. Collection from our gate is entirely normal and we will have the paperwork ready for them. We are a knitting workshop; we are not trying to sell you freight.