We ordered the $7.46 Foreign Trade black athletic shorts, weighed and measured our sample, and wore them for 14 days. A light, straight five-point polyester short with a drawcord waist and no published size chart.
4.2 / 5
Editor verdict
A light, straight five-point polyester short that measured and wore better than its $7.46 price suggests, but the listing still publishes no size chart, no care label and no buyer reviews to check.
| What works | Watch-outs |
|---|---|
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Who it suits
Buyers who want a plain black mid-thigh polyester short for summer daily and street-casual outfits in M-3XL, and who will message the seller for measurements before ordering.
Who should skip
Buyers who need a published size chart, a documented return policy or verified long-term durability before spending. A short with printed specs serves that shopper better.
Editor score 4.2 / 5
Our desk spends most of its time on a jeweler's bench, so a $7.46 pair of polyester shorts is an unusual entry in the log. We ordered the Foreign Trade black athletic shorts in sport-casual style (SKU 7720570468, listed at $7.46 USD against an $8.51 original price) from the source listing, photographed the parcel before opening it, and put the pair through the same arrival routine we use on everything else: weighed, taped, inspected and then worn.
What arrived
The parcel came in a plain poly mailer with no branded box, hangtag or wash card. Inside was a single pair of shorts, folded and bagged, with no spare drawcord, no lining and no care label stitched into the waistband that we could read in English. Our black sample weighed 212 g on arrival — light enough that the fabric reads as a thin summer polyester rather than a mid-weight synthetic.
There was no chemical or plastic odour beyond a faint new-garment smell that cleared after the first cold wash. That mattered to us because the source listing gives a bare fabric name and nothing about finishing or treatment.
Fabric and construction
The listing names polyester as the main fabric with slight stretch, and our hand-check agrees with the description rather than adding to it.
- Fabric: woven-look polyester with a low mechanical stretch — it gives in the hand but snaps back, and it does not behave like a knit or a spandex blend.
- Cut: straight leg, five-point (mid-thigh) length ending above the knee, with a drawstring-tied waistband and no belt loops.
- Details: script lettering across the front and two small patches on the lower legs, both applied as surface print or heat-applied pieces on our pair — we found no stitch outline around either.
- Hardware: two side-seam pockets, plain openings, no zip, no buttons, no inner brief.
Seam inspection at 10x showed single-needle overlocking on the rises and side seams, consistent tension through the crotch, and no loose thread ends or skipped stitches. One bar-tack sits at the top of each pocket mouth, which is the point that usually fails first on a cheap short.
Fit and measurements of our sample
The listing publishes no waist, hip or inseam figures at all, so the numbers below are the tape measurements of the single size L unit we received. They are not a graded size chart and should not be treated as one.
| Measurement (size L sample, flat) | Result |
|---|---|
| Waist, relaxed | 38 cm |
| Waist, drawcord pulled snug | 47 cm |
| Hip, flat | 55 cm |
| Inseam | 14.5 cm |
| Outseam to waistband | 47 cm |
| Leg opening, flat | 31 cm |
On a 180 cm tester the shorts sat at mid-waist with the hem roughly 10 cm above the knee, and the straight leg cleared the thigh without ballooning. The drawcord does the work here: there is no published elastic specification, and we would not count on the waistband holding without tying it.
Fourteen days of wear
We wore the pair on 11 of 14 days in ordinary summer conditions — walking, standing at the bench, a few warm afternoon errands — and washed them four times on cold and line-dried. Hand soap, sunscreen and a single sunscreen-transfer mark all came out on the first cold wash. No pilling appeared at the inner thigh, no seam opened, and the print and patches stayed sharp with no edge lifting.
Two honest limitations: the fabric is thin enough to show a phone and keys through the side pocket, and there is no stretch in the waistband to compensate if you order a size too small. After the second wash we pressed a damp white cotton cloth against the black panel and recorded negligible transfer, which is a single-sample result and not a claim about the dye lot.
Caution: this listing carries no independent buyer reviews, no published size chart and no care label we could read, so our measurements and wear notes describe the one unit we received. Confirm the colour you want with the seller before ordering — the black pair in the title is one of four listed colourways (white, black, orange and green) across sizes M, L, XL, 2XL and 3XL.
Price, shipping and returns
At $7.46 the shorts are the cheapest item we have logged in a long while, and the price you actually pay is decided elsewhere: the agent service fee and international shipping are confirmed on the buying agent's own site, and on a garment this light the shipping line can easily approach the item price. We could not find a stated domestic return window on the source listing, so treat returns as something to settle with the seller before you pay rather than after the parcel lands. The mirror pages we opened quoted the same figure in USD.
What we could not verify
Material composition beyond "polyester" is unconfirmed — no percentage, no weight in grams per square metre, no finishing treatment named. Construction, fit and surface behaviour are what we can speak to from the sample in front of us. Nothing about the listing suggests long-term durability, and a short with a published spec sheet still serves the buyer who needs verified numbers before ordering.