Foreign Trade Black Athletic Shorts Review: Counting Stitches at Four Seams on a $7.46 Pair

What arrived, and what we did before writing a line

We ordered the black pair through an agent cart at $7.46, against a struck-through $8.51, SKU 7720570468. The parcel reached our Portland bench with one pair of shorts, no hangtag and no care label beyond a printed size and fibre line. Our testing team opened it on camera, weighed it, then spent the week doing the least glamorous work in this review: counting stitches per inch at four seams, measuring the waistband channel, and pulling the drawcord until we could describe how it behaves rather than how it is marketed.

The listing calls these a straight-leg five-point short in polyester with slight stretch, in sizes M through 3XL and four colourways. We bought black, because black is the only colourway the photographs actually show. Anything we say about white, orange or green is a note about the listing, not a measurement.

Stitch counts: the part the photographs cannot show

Stitch density is the cheapest place for a factory to save money, and on a sub-ten-dollar short it is the first thing we check. Using a seam gauge on the inside of the garment, away from the print, we logged the following on our size M pair.

Seam	Our reading	What it means in wear
Outer side seam	11 stitches per inch, overlocked edge	Dense enough that we could not pull the seam open by hand
Crotch seam	9–10 stitches per inch, single pass	The weakest point on any short this light; held under a two-hand tug, no grin-through
Leg hem	8 stitches per inch, single-needle	The thinnest stitching on the garment; expect the hem to be the first thing to go
Waistband channel	12 stitches per inch, two rows	The best-built seam here, and the one that takes the most load

There are bar tacks at the side vents and the drawcord exit holes, which is more finishing than the price implies. We also found one skipped stitch on the inner hem of the left leg and two loose thread ends at the crotch seam, both of which we trimmed. Neither affected the seam when we pulled it, but a skipped stitch is a skipped stitch, and it is the reason the hem row scores lower than the waistband.

The waistband, pulled fifty times

The waist is an elastic tube with a flat woven drawcord running through it, not a drawstring-only closure, which is the right call for a short this light. The cord moves freely through both exit holes without snagging on the channel stitching, and it took a double knot to hold tension during a run to the bus. Fifty deliberate pulls produced no fraying at the cord ends and no visible distortion of the eyelets.

Our bench note after the fiftieth pull: "cord still travels, channel intact, elastic returns to flat by itself."

After three warm washes and line drying, the waistband measured within a quarter inch of its original flat reading. That is a short test window and we say so plainly: three washes tells you the elastic has not given up immediately, not that it will survive a summer.

Fabric, colour and the five-point cut

The shell is polyester with the slight two-way stretch the listing promises, a smooth, faintly slick hand that hangs straight rather than draping. Under our D65 light box the black reads as a true black with a low sheen on the high points, not the blue-black you sometimes get on cheap dyed polyester. Weight is light, in line with a summer short, and it dried on the line faster than the cotton T-shirt we washed alongside it.

Five-point means mid-thigh: our tape read roughly a 5.5-inch inseam on the M, with an 11-inch leg opening across and about a 15-inch flat waist. The straight leg kept its line through a day of sitting and standing without climbing, and the opening sits clear of the knee, so there is no break to fight when you walk. None of those figures are published by the seller, which is the central problem with this listing.

The script lettering across the front and the small patch details on the lower legs are applied, not embroidered. A thirty-second dry rub on each produced no transfer onto white cloth and no lifting at the edges, though the print sits slightly proud of the fabric and will be the first place wear shows.

What we could not check

The listing carries no buyer reviews we could cross-reference and no waist, hip or inseam chart, so our tape readings describe one pair in one size, not a size run. We ordered M only; the jump from M to 3XL is unmeasured. The factory spec sheet behind the listing names a different brand than the storefront title, and the colour swatches beyond black are unsupported by photography. Ask the seller for flat measurements of the size you intend to buy, then lay them against a pair you already own.

At $7.46 the construction is more honest than we expected at four seams, with the hem stitch as the clear weak link. That is a fair trade at this price, provided you go in knowing the size chart is something you have to build yourself.