Every wardrobe listing publishes the outside box: 1200 × 600 × 2100. Almost none publish the wardrobe internal dimensions, and the internal numbers are the ones that decide whether a buyer's coats fit, whether their shirts touch the shelf below, and whether the container gets accepted. A buyer who cannot find the inside numbers does one of two things — asks, which costs you a day, or buys from the supplier who published them.
Wardrobe internal dimensions are the clear usable measurements inside the carcase: clear depth behind the doors, clear width between the side panels, and the clear vertical height of each hanging or shelving zone. They are always smaller than the external box, and the gap is bigger than most sellers admit.
Why Is a Wardrobe 600 mm Deep and Not 550?
Because a shoulder is 500 to 550 mm wide once a garment is on a hanger, and the hanger itself is around 450 mm across. Hang a winter coat on a rail running left-to-right and the garment occupies roughly 550 mm front-to-back. At 550 mm external depth, minus an 18 mm back panel and minus door thickness and clearance, you have about 510 mm clear — and the coat presses against the door.
600 mm external is the depth at which the maths finally works: roughly 560 to 570 mm clear, enough that the door closes without compressing the clothes. That is the whole reason the number exists. It is not tradition; it is a shoulder.
The rule to state on your listing: for a front-to-back hanging rail, publish the clear internal depth, not the external depth. A buyer who reads "600 mm" and receives 520 mm of usable space has a legitimate complaint, and a legitimate return.
How High Does a Hanging Rail Actually Need to Be?
There are two answers and you should publish both.
| Hanging zone | Clear height needed (rail to shelf/floor below) | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
| Long hang | 1520–1730 mm | Coats, dresses, gowns, jumpsuits |
| Short hang / double hang tier | 1000–1050 mm | Shirts, blouses, jackets, folded trousers |
| Rail-to-shelf-above clearance | 50–75 mm | The lift needed to get a hanger off the rail |
That last row is the one suppliers forget. If the shelf above the rail is 30 mm clear, the hanger will not lift off and the wardrobe is functionally broken even though every published dimension is correct. Fifty millimetres is the working minimum; 75 mm is comfortable.
Typical single-rail installed heights land near 1675 mm from the floor to the top of the rail; a double-hang layout usually sits at roughly 1015 mm and 2030 mm. Those are installed conventions, not standards — publish your actual measured values rather than repeating a chart.
What Changes When You Go Double Hang?
Double hang doubles the linear hanging capacity in the same footprint, which is a genuine selling point and worth stating in metres of rail, not in adjectives.
A 1200 mm wide wardrobe with a single rail gives roughly 1.16 m of hanging space after the side panels. The same carcase with a double-hang section over half its width gives about 1.74 m. That is a 50% capacity increase your competitor is describing as "spacious" and you can describe as a number.
The catch: double hang only works when both tiers get their 1000 mm plus the rail clearance. In a 2100 mm tall carcase with a 100 mm plinth and a top shelf, you have about 1900 mm of internal height to divide. Two tiers at 1000 mm each does not fit. Two tiers at 950 mm plus clearance does, but short jackets will brush the tier below. Say which it is.
How Deep Should the Shelves Be?
Shelves inside a wardrobe are commonly 450 mm deep, shallower than the 560 mm clear carcase depth, and that is deliberate — a folded jumper is about 300 mm across, and a deeper shelf just becomes a place where things get lost behind other things.
What matters more than the depth is the span. A shelf that spans the full 1200 mm internal width in 16 mm particleboard will visibly sag under folded clothing within a year. Either drop the span with a centre divider or specify a thicker or stiffer board, and publish the load rating either way.
What Buyers Ask That Your Listing Does Not Answer
Pulled from the questions that actually arrive in export inboxes:
| Buyer question | The number that answers it |
|---|---|
| "Will my coats fit?" | Long-hang clear height, in mm |
| "Can I add a second rail?" | Internal height, and whether side panels are drilled |
| "How much hanging space is there?" | Linear metres of rail, not cubic capacity |
| "Will the doors clear my bed?" | Door leaf width and swing radius, or "sliding" |
| "How heavy can the shelves be loaded?" | kg per shelf, with span stated |
| "Does it need to be anchored?" | Yes/no plus the supplied hardware, per the destination market's rule |
That last line is not optional for the US market. Clothing storage units are covered by ASTM F2057, which became a mandatory US safety rule for units over 27 in (686 mm) tall, and in Europe domestic storage units are tested to EN 14749. Stability testing methodology for storage furniture is summarised well by Eurofins' furniture testing overview. If your listing does not mention anchoring, a compliance-aware buyer assumes you have not tested it.
Quick-Reference Summary
| Dimension | Publish this | Common value |
|---|---|---|
| External depth | Yes, but second | 600 mm |
| Clear internal depth | Yes, first | 555–575 mm |
| Clear internal width | Yes | External width − 2 × panel thickness |
| Long-hang clear height | Yes | 1520–1730 mm |
| Short-hang clear height | Yes | 1000–1050 mm |
| Rail-to-shelf clearance | Yes | 50–75 mm |
| Shelf depth | Yes | 450 mm |
| Shelf load / span | Yes | kg at stated span |
| Linear rail metres | Yes | Calculated per configuration |
| Anti-tip hardware | Yes | Supplied / not supplied |
Copy that table into your product spec sheet and you have answered nine of the ten questions before they are asked. For the neighbouring product family, standard cabinet dimensions for wholesale buyers covers the same discipline applied to kitchen and storage cabinetry, and the standard wardrobe dimensions reference gives the sizes buyers assume when a listing stays silent.
Getting the Numbers Onto the Image
A spec table answers a buyer who reads. Most do not read first — they scan the image, and if the image shows only a styled room, they ask. The internal dimensions belong on a second image: an elevation of the open wardrobe with the long-hang height, the short-hang height, the shelf depth and the clear internal depth called out on the parts they describe.
The important part is that those callouts come from the measured product, not from a drawing that was made to look right. Hand-drawn arrows in a photo editor drift as the range grows; an AI-generated image can produce a beautiful wardrobe with a "1650 mm" label nobody ever measured, which reads as authoritative and is simply false. What works is annotation that snaps to the real edges in the photo or drawing and locks the measured value onto the image, then exports at each marketplace's spec-image size.
FAQ
What are typical wardrobe internal dimensions?
For a 600 mm deep carcase, expect roughly 555–575 mm clear internal depth, long-hang zones of 1520–1730 mm, short-hang zones of 1000–1050 mm, and 450 mm deep shelves. The clear internal width is the external width minus two panel thicknesses, usually 32–36 mm in total.
How high should a closet rod be?
A single rail commonly sits about 1675 mm from the floor, with double-hang rails near 1015 mm and 2030 mm. What matters more than the installed height is the clear height below the rail — 1520 mm minimum for coats — and 50–75 mm of clearance above the rail so hangers can be lifted off.
Why is standard wardrobe depth 600 mm?
Because an adult garment on a hanger occupies roughly 500–550 mm front to back and the hanger is about 450 mm wide. A 600 mm external depth leaves enough clear depth for the door to close without pressing on the clothes; 550 mm does not.
How do I stop size-related wardrobe returns?
Publish the clear internal numbers alongside the external box, put them on a spec image rather than only in a table, and state shelf load with the span. Most wardrobe returns are not quality failures — they are buyers discovering that "600 deep" meant something else. If you want to see what a wave of them actually costs before you invest in better spec images, the return cost calculator does the arithmetic on freight, restocking and write-off for oversized items.
Do I need to supply anti-tip hardware?
For the US market, clothing storage units over 27 in tall fall under a mandatory stability rule, so anti-tip hardware and the accompanying warnings are effectively required. In the EU, domestic storage units are tested to EN 14749. Either way, state on the listing whether the hardware is in the box.