Glossary
MOQ
Also called: minimum order quantity
MOQ (minimum order quantity) is the smallest number of units a supplier will produce in one order. Traditional manufacturing often sets it in the hundreds; print on demand exists precisely to make the MOQ one.
A no-MOQ model is the entire economic case for print on demand. You are trading a higher per-unit cost for the removal of inventory risk, which is what lets a new shop test twenty designs without buying stock for any of them.
The trade is real in both directions. Once a design sells consistently, bulk production at a genuine MOQ becomes cheaper per unit. Most sellers who scale end up running both: print on demand for the long tail, bulk for proven winners.