How to create a line sheet for apparel wholesale: what to put on it, how to price it, and how buyers read it
A line sheet is the document a retail buyer orders from. It has one job: let the buyer pick styles, check the margin and write an order without calling you. This guide covers the nine fields every style needs, the terms page buyers check before they sign, the extra data department stores ask for, the pricing math buyers run in their heads, and the mistake that costs brands the most, a line sheet that no longer matches what the warehouse can ship.
What a line sheet is, and what it is not
A line sheet is a brand's wholesale ordering document. It lists every style in a collection with its photo, style number, name, colors, sizes, wholesale price, suggested retail price, minimum order and delivery window, so a retail buyer can choose styles, check the margin and write a purchase order.
It is the most practical page a brand produces, and the least glamorous. Buyers read it the same way every time: they find the wholesale price and the suggested retail price to see their margin, check the minimum against their open to buy, check the delivery window against their floor dates, and then pick. Anything that slows that sequence, a missing price, a vague date, a style number that does not match the order form, costs you the order or costs you a follow-up call.
A line sheet is easy to confuse with the documents around it. Here is how they differ.
| Document | What it is for | What is on it |
|---|---|---|
| Line sheet | Getting the order | Every style with style number, colors, sizes, wholesale and suggested retail price, minimums and delivery window |
| Lookbook | Selling the story | Styled photography and the mood of the collection, usually with little or no pricing |
| Catalog | Browsing the whole range | The full assortment, sometimes including core and carryover styles, often without terms |
| Order form | Writing the order | Style numbers and a size grid to fill in quantities, plus ship-to, bill-to and terms |
In practice the line sheet is no longer one document. It is a PDF sent before market, a collection on your B2B portal, a line sheet on a wholesale marketplace, and the catalog on a rep's iPad. The information is the same in every one, and so is the rule that matters most: every version has to come from the same style data your orders land on. The line sheet drift section explains why.
What to put on a line sheet: the nine fields every style needs
Every style on a line sheet needs a photo, the style number, the style name, the colors, the sizes, the wholesale price, the suggested retail price, the minimum order and the delivery window. Leave one out and the buyer either skips the style or calls you to ask.
| Field | What to show | Why the buyer needs it |
|---|---|---|
| Photo | A flat lay or on model shot on a consistent background, and a photo per color when colors look different | Buyers choose by eye first. A photo in the wrong color gets the wrong color ordered. |
| Style number | The exact number your warehouse picks against and your invoice bills | It is what the buyer writes on the purchase order. If it differs from your system, the order is wrong before it starts. |
| Style name | A short, consistent name | It is how buyers and reps talk about the style in the appointment. |
| Colors | Color names exactly as they will appear on the order and the invoice, with a swatch if you can | Two names for one color is how a buyer ends up with a substitution they did not approve. |
| Sizes | The size range, and which sizes come in which colors | The buyer plans the size run against their own store data. |
| Wholesale price | Price per unit, with the currency stated | It is their cost. |
| Suggested retail | The price you expect the style to sell for, often called MSRP | With the wholesale price, it gives the buyer their margin in one glance. |
| Minimum order | Per style, per color, per pack, or an opening order total | The buyer checks it against their open to buy. |
| Delivery window | The start ship and cancel dates, or at least the month the goods ship | Buyers plan the floor by delivery. A style that lands after the floor set is a style they cannot use. |
Optional fields that answer the next question
- Fabric content and care. Composition and weight, especially for performance, knit and outerwear.
- Fit notes. Runs small, relaxed fit, inseam lengths. They save returns and reorder confusion.
- Country of origin. Some buyers need it for their own labeling and duty planning.
- Pack configuration. If you sell in prepacks or case packs, show the size ratio and the units per pack.
- Availability. If you show what is available to sell, say which date it is as of. A forward number and a warehouse number are not the same thing.
The sizes and colors underneath all of this are a data problem before they are a design problem. How a style carries its color and size grid decides whether the grid on the line sheet is the grid the order lands on.
The terms page: ten things a buyer checks before they sign
Put your terms on one page at the front or back of the line sheet. A buyer placing a first order wants to know the minimums, how and when you get paid, when goods ship and when they cancel, who pays freight, and who to call. If it is not written down, it gets negotiated.
- Minimums. Opening order and reorder minimums, in units, packs or dollars.
- Payment terms. Net terms, a deposit or a card, and if you factor your receivables, a note that invoices are assigned to your factor and where to remit.
- Delivery windows. Start ship and cancel dates for each delivery.
- Shipping. Who pays freight, where goods ship from, and how.
- How to order. Your portal, marketplace, rep or email address, and how orders are confirmed.
- Price validity. The date the prices on this sheet expire.
- Short ships and substitutions. Whether you ship partial orders, and whether you ever substitute a color without approval.
- Returns and damages. What you take back, the window, and how to report damage.
- Territory and exclusivity. Any regions or accounts you protect.
- Contacts. The rep or customer service contact, with email and phone.
Factoring deserves its own line on the terms page. Buyers at larger accounts are used to it, and saying it up front keeps a payment from going to the wrong place. If you are new to it, the factoring integrations page explains how credit approvals and invoice assignment work.
Selling to department stores and big box: what a boutique line sheet leaves out
Large retailers read the same line sheet as a boutique, but they order through a different machine. Before a first purchase order they usually need item data they can load into their own systems: a UPC for every color and size, pack configurations, ship windows with cancel dates, and often an electronic catalog rather than a PDF.
A UPC for every color and size
Each sellable unit needs its own UPC. Say on the line sheet that UPCs are available, and make sure the numbers in your system are the ones the retailer loads. More on UPC barcodes.
Prepack and case pack ratios
Many retailers buy in packs rather than by the unit. Show the size ratio and the units per pack so the buyer can order in packs. See case packs and prepacks.
Start ship and cancel dates
The purchase order will carry a ship window and a cancel date. Shipping after the cancel date risks a refused shipment or a chargeback, so only offer windows you can hit.
An electronic catalog, not a PDF
Many retailers set items up from an EDI 832 price and sales catalog or a catalog service such as InterTrade. It has to carry the same UPCs, sizes and prices as your line sheet.
Carton labels and routing
Your terms page can promise compliance, but the retailer's routing guide decides how cartons are labeled and shipped, including GS1-128 carton labels.
Orders arrive by EDI
Once you are set up, the purchase order usually arrives as an EDI 850 rather than an email. See the retailers AIMS360 trades EDI with.
Pricing a line sheet: the margin math buyers run in their heads
Buyers read two numbers first: wholesale and suggested retail. Together they give the retailer's margin, which is suggested retail minus wholesale, divided by suggested retail. The common convention is keystone, where suggested retail is double wholesale, which gives the retailer a 50 percent margin.
| Wholesale | Suggested retail | Markup on wholesale | Retailer margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| $30.00 | $54.00 | 1.8 times | 44.4% |
| $30.00 | $60.00 | 2.0 times, keystone | 50.0% |
| $30.00 | $66.00 | 2.2 times | 54.5% |
Which one a retailer expects depends on the category and the account, so ask rather than guess. What never changes is that a buyer who cannot see both numbers cannot do the math, and a line sheet that says “contact us for pricing” is a line sheet most buyers skip.
Work backward from landed cost
Your own margin comes from the other side: wholesale minus landed cost, divided by wholesale. A style that lands at $12.00 and wholesales at $30.00 gives you a 60 percent margin. Landed cost means the full cost of getting the unit into your warehouse, factory price plus freight, duty and packaging, not the factory price alone. Set wholesale from that, then set suggested retail from wholesale. The wholesale and retail margin calculator walks through the numbers.
Minimums: units, packs or dollars
State the minimum the way you actually produce and ship. If you cut by the dozen or ship in cartons of a fixed count, a minimum in units or packs makes sense. If you care more about the size of the account than the size of each style, an opening order minimum in dollars is simpler. Set it from your own production minimums and carton sizes, not from what other brands post.
Lock the price before the first appointment
The price on the line sheet is the price you honor for that season. Finish your costing before you send it, put a price validity date on the sheet, and if you truly have to change a price mid season, issue a new dated version rather than quietly editing the old one.
How to create a line sheet in seven steps
Freeze the line, pull the style data from one source, prepare the images, set prices and minimums, merchandise the sheet, write the terms page, then publish it to every channel with a version date. Steps two and seven are where most brands lose time.
Remove every dropped or unapproved style before you build anything. A line sheet should only show what you can make and ship this season.
Style numbers, names, color names, size scales and prices come from your system of record, not a copy of a spreadsheet, so the sheet matches what the warehouse picks and the invoice bills.
One consistent photo per style and one per color where colors differ, on the same background and cropped the same way, with small files and simple file names so every channel can load them.
Put wholesale and suggested retail side by side, check the retailer margin and your own margin from landed cost, and set minimums from your production and carton sizes.
Group styles by delivery window first and category second, keep one season per sheet, and lead each group with the styles you most want in the order.
Minimums, payment terms, delivery and cancel dates, shipping, how to order, price validity, short ships and substitutions, returns, territory and contacts, on one page.
Send the designed PDF to prospects, open the collection on your B2B portal, activate it on your wholesale marketplace and rep app, date every version, and retire it when the season ends.
Step two decides whether the rest holds. When the line sheet is built from a copy of a spreadsheet, every later change to a price, a color or a delivery date has to be made twice, and eventually one of them is missed. Step seven is where versions multiply: a PDF from March, a portal collection from April and a marketplace line sheet somebody edited by hand. Date every version and retire the old ones.
PDF, B2B portal, marketplace or rep app: which line sheet format to use
Most brands need more than one format. A designed PDF still opens doors with new accounts. Existing accounts order faster from a digital line sheet on a B2B portal, a wholesale marketplace or a rep's iPad, where the line sheet and the order are the same screen and nothing is re-keyed.
| Format | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Designed PDF | Prospecting, first impressions, buyers who want to print | It goes stale the moment a price or a color changes, and orders come back as emails or scanned forms that someone has to type in. |
| Spreadsheet | Larger accounts whose buyers build their own worksheets | Easy to edit and easy to lose track of. Images usually do not travel with it. |
| Your B2B portal | Existing accounts reordering, account specific pricing, private lines for key accounts | The buyer needs a login, and the portal is only as good as the images and data behind it. See the B2B wholesale portal. |
| Wholesale marketplace | Market season, discovery, and retailers who already buy on JOOR, NuORDER, Brandboom or Faire | The platform's rules shape the sheet. On JOOR, for example, one order ties to one line sheet and a line sheet carries one season. Orders have to flow back into your own system. |
| Rep iPad app | Appointments, showrooms and trade shows | Reps need current data on the device before the appointment. See the sales rep order entry app. |
For a side by side of the platforms themselves, see the wholesale B2B platforms guide.
Line sheet drift: when the line sheet stops matching what you can ship
Line sheet drift is what happens when the line sheet and the product data your orders land on stop matching. A style number changes, a color is dropped, a price moves or a delivery slips, and the line sheet still shows the old version. The buyer orders what the sheet says, and the problem surfaces at pick, at invoice or as a chargeback.
Drift almost always starts the same way. The line sheet is built in a design tool from an export, the export becomes its own copy, and the copy is never updated when the style master changes. Multiply that by a PDF, a portal and a marketplace and you have three versions of the truth before the season is half over.
The fix is structural rather than careful: build every format of the line sheet from the same style record the order will land on. Then a price change, a dropped color or a new delivery date is one edit, and every channel that sells from the line sees it.
How AIMS360 handles it
In AIMS360 a line sheet is a collection: a merchandised group of styles built from the style master, with the images, colors, sizes and prices already attached. The same collection is what reps browse on the iPad app, what buyers order from on the B2B portal, and what a JOOR line sheet is built from. Collections carry start and end dates, can be kept private to named accounts on the portal, and can allow orders on styles not yet in stock so a future delivery can be sold before it lands. The full detail is on the line sheets page.
What AIMS360 does not do
AIMS360 does not include a page layout tool for a designed PDF line sheet. It holds the style data and images, reports with image options print the line, and style data exports to Excel. Brands that still send a designed PDF build it in their design tool from that export, and use the collection for the actual ordering.
Eight line sheet mistakes that cost orders
- “Contact us for pricing.” A buyer working through a stack of brands before an appointment moves on to the next one.
- Wholesale without suggested retail. The buyer cannot see the margin, so they cannot say yes.
- Delivery dates you cannot hit. A missed cancel date can cost you the order, a chargeback and the next season.
- Different color names in different places. Navy on the line sheet, Midnight on the invoice, and a buyer who thinks you shipped the wrong color.
- More than one season on a sheet. Buyers plan by delivery, and some platforms tie each line sheet to one season.
- Dropped styles still showing. Nothing damages trust faster than confirming an order you cannot ship.
- No validity date. An old PDF resurfaces months later and someone orders against last season's prices.
- Photos that do not match the color. The buyer orders what they see.
Line sheet checklist
- Every style shows a photo, style number, name, colors, sizes, wholesale price, suggested retail, minimum and delivery window.
- Style numbers and color names match your system exactly.
- Dropped and unapproved styles are gone.
- Photos match the color they sit next to.
- Prices are checked against landed cost, and the retailer margin is where you intended it.
- Minimums match how you produce and ship.
- Delivery windows are dates you can hit, with cancel dates.
- One season per sheet, grouped by delivery.
- The terms page covers all ten items.
- UPCs and pack ratios are ready for any department store or big box account.
- The sheet shows a version date and a price validity date.
- The PDF, the portal, the marketplace and the rep app all show the same version.
Line sheet questions brands ask
A line sheet is the wholesale ordering document a fashion brand gives retail buyers. It lists every style in a collection with a photo, style number, name, colors, sizes, wholesale price, suggested retail price, minimum order and delivery window, so a buyer can choose styles, check the margin and write an order without calling the brand.
Every style needs nine things: a photo, the style number, the style name, the colors, the sizes, the wholesale price, the suggested retail price, the minimum order and the delivery window. The line sheet also needs a terms page covering minimums, payment terms, delivery and cancel dates, shipping, how to order, price validity, short ships and substitutions, returns and damages, territory or exclusivity, and who to contact.
A lookbook sells the story of a collection with styled photography and little or no pricing. A line sheet sells the order: it carries the style numbers, prices, sizes, minimums and delivery dates a buyer needs to write a purchase order. Brands often send both, the lookbook to get attention and the line sheet to get the order.
Show the wholesale price and the suggested retail price side by side, because the buyer uses the two to work out their margin: suggested retail minus wholesale, divided by suggested retail. The common convention is keystone, where suggested retail is double wholesale, which gives the retailer a 50 percent margin. Work backward from your landed cost first so the wholesale price protects your own margin.
The minimum order is the smallest order you will accept, stated per style, per color, as a number of packs, or as an opening order dollar amount. Set it from your own production minimums and carton sizes rather than from what other brands post, and state it plainly, because a missing minimum turns every order into a negotiation.
Include every style you can actually deliver in the season and nothing you have dropped. Group the styles by delivery window first and by category second, and keep one season per line sheet, because buyers plan against delivery dates and some wholesale platforms, JOOR among them, tie each line sheet to a single season.
Most brands need both. A designed PDF still works for prospecting and first impressions. Existing accounts order faster from a digital line sheet on a B2B portal, a wholesale marketplace or a rep's iPad, where the line sheet and the order are the same screen and nothing is re-keyed. Whatever the format, build it from the same style data your orders land on.
Large retailers usually need item data they can load before a first purchase order: a UPC for every color and size, pack configurations if they buy in prepacks or case packs, ship windows with cancel dates, and often an EDI 832 price and sales catalog or a catalog service listing. If that data disagrees with the line sheet, the purchase order follows what the retailer loaded, and the mismatch shows up later as a wrong order, a rejected invoice or a chargeback.
Every season, and any time a price, a color, a size run or a delivery date changes. Put a version date and a price validity date on every line sheet, and retire the old one when the season closes, so a buyer does not place an order months later against prices you no longer honor.
Yes, as collections. In AIMS360 a line sheet is a collection built from the style master, with the images, colors, sizes and prices already attached. The same collection is what reps browse on the iPad app, what buyers order from on the B2B portal, and what a JOOR line sheet is built from. AIMS360 does not include a page layout tool for a designed PDF; brands that send one build it in a design tool from the style data export.
See a line sheet built from your own style master
Bring a season's styles and your wholesale price list. A specialist will walk you through building the collection once and selling it to reps, buyers and your wholesale marketplace from the same record.
Last reviewed September 28, 2026. JOOR, NuORDER, Brandboom, Faire and InterTrade are trademarks of their respective owners.
