Your First Bulk cap Order, Step by Step
By The Velocity Wear Team
A first bulk cap order runs through six stages: enquiry, quote, artwork approval, optional sample, production and delivery. The minimum is 50 pieces per design and caps start from $12 a piece. Production takes 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval. Everything in front of approval is yours to control, and that is where first orders usually lose time.
What happens after you send an enquiry?
You get questions back, and how good the quote is depends on how well you answered them. The enquiry needs the cap style, the quantity, the decoration method and position, the colourway and the date you need the caps in hand. Send those and the first quote is a real number rather than a range.
Style is the decision most first-time buyers have not made yet. Five panel, six panel, snapback, trucker and dad caps all look similar in a list and behave very differently on a head, and the profile and closure follow from the choice. The builds are set out on the wholesale caps page, and what to include in the enquiry itself is in briefing a supplier for caps.
What does the quote actually depend on?
Four things, roughly in order of impact. Quantity, because the bands run 50 to 99, 100 to 249, 250 to 499, 500 to 999 and 1,000-plus with up to 35% off the 50-piece price at the top. Number of decoration positions, because each one is a separate operation on every cap. Decoration method, since 3D puff and dense embroidery carry more work than a small flat stitch. And the number of separate designs, because each counts against the 50-piece minimum on its own.
That last point catches people out more than any other. Two colourways with their own setups are two designs and two runs of fifty, not one order of a hundred. The tier structure and what sits in each band are on the pricing page.
Do you need a sample?
Take one if the cap is going on sale, if the colour has to match something you already hold, or if the artwork has never been stitched at this size before. Skip it if you are repeating a known design and only the quantity has changed. A sample is £150 and is credited against the bulk order, so on a run of any size the real cost is the time it adds, not the money.
The time it adds is a round trip in front of production, so decide early. Requesting a sample after you have already promised a delivery date to someone else is how a comfortable schedule becomes a tight one.
How long does production take, and what turns up?
Ten to fifteen working days from artwork approval, plus transit to the UK, the USA or Europe. The caps arrive individually bagged and packed into marked cartons, and larger runs come palletised. Count the cartons against the paperwork before you sign, then check caps from several boxes rather than one.
Invoicing is available in seven currencies, which matters if your accounts sit in a different currency from your supplier. If this is a genuine first order, the mistakes worth avoiding are catalogued in the mistakes almost everyone makes on a first clothing order, and most of them happen before anything is manufactured.
