Ordering Hoodies for Christmas
By The Velocity Wear Team
Order Christmas hoodies in October. Production is 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval, which is up to three calendar weeks, and delivery, artwork preparation and your own approval round all sit outside that. Working back from a mid-December handover, an artwork approval in the second half of October is comfortable and one in late November is not.
What does the calendar look like counted backwards?
Start at the date the hoodies have to be in someone else hands, which for staff gifts is usually the last working day before the break, not the 25th. Subtract delivery transit. Subtract 15 working days for the build rather than 10, because you want the pessimistic figure on a dated job. Subtract the days between sending artwork and approving the proof. That is your order date.
Two things extend it. A sample cycle, which is a separate loop before the bulk clock starts at all, and any label or packaging component that has its own lead time. Both are worth having for a gift order, and both need to be decided in October rather than discovered in November.
Why is late autumn the wrong time to leave it?
Because everyone else is ordering then too, and because November and December are short months in working-day terms once public holidays land. A schedule that has no slack in June has none at all in December, and there is no version of a Christmas deadline that can be moved by a week.
The other pressure is your own side. Size collection takes longer in the run-up to the break, because people are away. Get the names and sizes in during October while everyone is at their desk, and treat the closing date as final. Approaches to that are covered in size splits for a bulk hoodies order.
Which hoodie works as a Christmas gift?
Something people would wear in January. A heavyweight in the 400 to 450 GSM range feels like a present in a way a thin one does not, and a restrained embroidered mark ages better than a dated graphic. If the hoodie has a year printed on it, it stops being worn in about six weeks.
A woven neck label and a simple branded bag turn a bulk order into something that looks considered when it is handed over, and they cost very little spread across 50 pieces. Decide those at the same time as the garment, not afterwards.
What if October has already gone?
Be honest about the date early. Tell us the deadline at quote stage rather than after ordering, because how the job is sequenced can change when a fixed date is known in advance, and nothing can be compressed once fabric is on the cutting table. Skip the sample if you have ordered the same garment before, since that removes a whole cycle.
If the date genuinely cannot be met, the better move is to hand over a card and deliver in January rather than take a chance on a schedule with no slack in it. Price the run on the wholesale hoodies page, check whether a sample is worth the days on the samples page, and see Christmas staff gifts and the real deadlines for a fuller look at the timing.
