Picking a Clothing Supplier: Hotels
By The Velocity Wear Team
Judge a uniform supplier on four answers: the minimum order and what counts as one design, the lead time and what starts it, whether a physical sample is available before bulk, and whether the same artwork can be repeated next year. Our answers are 50 pieces per design, 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval, a £150 sample credited against the order, and yes.
What should a hotel ask before placing a first order?
Ask what happens on the second order, not the first. Anyone can produce 50 polo shirts once. The question that separates suppliers is whether the artwork, thread references and label spec are stored well enough that a restock in eighteen months looks like the same programme. Then ask where decoration happens, which methods are offered, and which one they would recommend for your fabric. A supplier who recommends the same method for every job is selling capacity rather than advice. Our full wholesale range sets out what each product is available with.
How do you compare two quotes that look different?
Put both on the same basis before you compare a single figure. Confirm the quantity each price is quoted at, because a per-piece number at 500 units is not comparable with one at the minimum. Confirm whether decoration, labels and packing are included or added. Confirm whether delivery is in the number. And confirm the currency, since we invoice in seven and an exchange rate quietly does more to a total than a negotiated discount. The habit of building up the true figure is explained in our piece on landed cost.
Which answers should make you walk away?
An offer to sample at no charge, because someone is paying for that garment and it is showing up elsewhere in the price. A turnaround that sounds impossible against a 10 to 15 working day production norm. A refusal to name the fabric weight or composition. Vague environmental claims with no certificate behind them. And a quote that will not break out decoration as a line, which usually means the number moves once artwork arrives. The broader checklist sits in our guide to questions worth asking a manufacturer.
How do you trial a supplier without risking the whole estate?
Start with one department and one design. Fifty pieces for reception tells you everything about lead time, colour accuracy, packing and communication, and it does so at a cost you can absorb. If the trial goes well, extend to housekeeping and leisure on the next order, where the larger combined quantity moves you up the discount tiers, which step at 50 to 99, 100 to 249, 250 to 499, 500 to 999 and 1,000 or more pieces, with up to 35 percent off the 50-piece price at the top. Spa towelling and bathrobes are quoted per job and can be added to that conversation through the towel and linen range.
Keep the trial honest by testing the awkward case rather than the easy one. Order the size you are least sure about, apply the logo in the colour that is hardest to match, and ask for delivery to the address that always causes trouble.
Ask one more question that rarely appears on a checklist: who answers the phone when something is wrong. A named contact who knows your order reference is worth more than a percentage, because the moment that matters is the one where a box has gone to the wrong site or a size has been short-shipped. Judge the answer on how specific it is. Anyone who can describe the escalation route in plain terms has been through it before. Anyone who says problems do not arise is telling you they will be improvising when one does.
Agree how problems get resolved before there are any. Short shipments, a wrong size run and a damaged carton are ordinary events in any supply chain, and what matters is whether the remedy is described in advance. A supplier who sets that out in writing is easier to work with than one who is merely confident.
