Samples Before Bulk: A Guide for Bands
By The Velocity Wear Team
A sample is £150 and the fee is credited against the bulk order. For a band, the reason to take one is that merch is sold face to face: the buyer touches the garment before paying, so the weight of the cloth and the feel of the print matter as much as the graphic. A screen mockup shows none of that.
Why pay for a sample before a merch run?
Because the cost of being wrong is 50 pieces you have to stand behind at a table all tour. A sample is a single garment produced through the same setup as the full run, which is why it carries a fee rather than being free. Think of the £150 as the first payment on the order, since it credits back when the bulk run goes ahead. AI mockups versus physical samples sets out exactly what a render cannot show.
What can only a physical piece tell you?
Hand feel, which decides whether a heavy print sits stiff across the chest. Opacity, because a light ink on a dark garment can read grey rather than white in real light. Weight, which separates a shirt someone keeps from one that lasts a summer. Print scale against the body, since a graphic that looked bold on screen can sit small on an actual chest. And the wash, which is the test worth doing before you order and after you receive.
How much time does a sample add?
Its own production and shipping, ahead of the 10 to 15 working day bulk window. That is why a sample belongs at the start of the schedule rather than in the middle of it. If the first tour date is six weeks away, a sample fits. If it is three weeks away, sampling and printing cannot both happen, and something has to give. Lead times bands should plan for has the full count back.
When can a band skip the sample?
When the garment is one you have already held and the decoration method has not changed. A reprint of a known shirt in a known colour does not need proving again, and the piece you kept from the last run is a better reference than a new sample. Sample when the blank changes, when you move from screen printing to DTF or embroidery, or when a colour has to match something exact. The bands and music page shows the garments, and orders run through the wholesale page. Finishing choices are covered in branding options for bands.
Who in a band should approve the sample?
One person, chosen in advance. Merch decisions made by group chat take a week and usually end where they started, and the sample is the point in the schedule where a week costs the most. Give the job to whoever runs the merch table, because they are the one who has to sell the thing and they already know what the audience picks up and puts down.
Give them a short list to check against rather than an open question. Colour under daylight, print position measured from the shoulder, how the graphic sits across the chest, how the fabric feels after a wash. A checklist turns approval into a decision about the garment; an open question turns it into a debate about the artwork, which was settled at proofing.
Keep the approved piece afterwards rather than wearing it. It becomes the reference for every run of that design, it settles any later question about how the first batch looked, and it is the only physical record of what was agreed. Bag it, label it with the date and the order number, and leave it somewhere that is not the back of the van. When the design is reprinted a year later, that piece is what the new run gets compared against, and having it saves the argument about whether the black has shifted or whether memory has.
