Restocking Branded Kit for Hotels
By The Velocity Wear Team
A hotel restock is a fresh order of 50 pieces per design, produced in 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval. The artwork, thread colours and label spec carry over, so the second run is quicker to brief than the first. Place it while you still have roughly two months of stock on the shelf, not when the cupboard is bare.
What changes between the first run and the second?
Less than you would expect, provided the first order was documented. Screens, digitised embroidery files and label artwork are reusable, so the brief for run two is a purchase order rather than a design conversation. What does change is your size demand: after six months on the floor you know which sizes actually moved, and a repeat order is the moment to correct the curve rather than copy it. Browse the current product range before you repeat, because a product that suited a trial may not be the one you want to commit to for a second year.
How close will the colour be on a repeat order?
Close, but treat it as a batch question rather than a guarantee. Dye lots shift slightly between production runs, and a navy from March will not always be indistinguishable from a navy in September under the lobby lighting. Two habits keep it manageable. Order deeper on the first run so that both batches overlap on the floor for as long as possible, and keep a retained piece from the original run so the new batch can be compared against a physical reference instead of a memory.
Embroidery is more stable than fabric dye because thread references are fixed, which is one reason a lot of properties put the logo in stitch on anything guest-facing. Spa linen and towelling sit outside the printed range entirely and are quoted per job, so if your programme includes them, ask for the spec sheet from the first order to be repeated rather than re-described. The towels and linen pages are the place to start that conversation.
How much should a hotel hold in reserve?
Enough to cover the lead time plus the transit, plus whatever your starter rate is over that window. If you run through fifteen tees a quarter and production takes up to three working weeks before shipping, a reserve of around twenty pieces means a late reorder never puts a new starter in an unbranded shirt. That is the same arithmetic we set out in our piece on buffer stock and reorder timing, and it applies as neatly to a 90-room property as it does to a clothing brand.
When is it worth reordering early?
Three moments justify moving early. A refurbishment or rebrand means the current artwork has an end date, so you order the last batch small and the new one properly. A seasonal peak means demand for spare kit doubles for a quarter. And a quantity threshold means the next tier of the volume discount is close enough that ordering 250 instead of 180 lowers the per-piece figure, with up to 35 percent available as quantity rises. Setting up a rhythm rather than reacting each time is covered in our guide to running a reorder schedule.
Write the restock into the same calendar that carries your linen replacement cycle. Uniform tends to be the one thing that is bought reactively in a building where everything else is on a plan, and that is precisely why it is the thing that runs out.
Treat the restock as an inventory job rather than a purchasing one. Count what is on the shelf, count what is on bodies, and count what has been written off, then order the difference plus enough to cover the lead time. Properties that skip the first two counts almost always buy too much of the size that sits and too little of the size that moves. If several departments fall due at once, place them as a single order rather than three, because the combined quantity is what the discount tiers measure against, and the packing can still be split by department on arrival.
