How to Set Up a Club Kit Ordering Window That Works
By The Velocity Wear Team
A kit ordering window is a fixed period, usually two or three weeks, in which every member of the club places their order, after which the window shuts and the whole lot goes to production as one run. It works because it turns a trickle of individual requests into a single consolidated order, and that is what moves you up a bulk discount curve reaching up to around 40% while paying setup once instead of five times.
The Trickle Is What Costs You
Clubs rarely overspend on the garments. They overspend on the pattern of buying. Three players want training tops in September, two more in October, a parent asks about a hoodie in November. Each of those is a fresh order that has to clear the 20-piece minimum on its own, carries its own setup for the print, and arrives on its own delivery. Run the same season through one window and you have a single run, one setup, one delivery and a price per piece nobody in the club will argue with.
There is a second cost that is harder to see. Every separate order needs someone to collect sizes, chase payment, check artwork and answer questions. A kit secretary doing that eight times a season is doing eight times the admin for a worse price.
Work the Dates Backwards From the First Fixture
Set your closing date by counting back, not forwards. Production starts at artwork approval rather than at order placement, and screen printing and embroidery typically run around 10-15 working days from that approval, with sublimated kit and more complex jobs nearer 15-20. Add tracked UK delivery, usually 2-5 working days after dispatch. Then add the part clubs always forget: the week or so between the window closing and artwork actually being signed off, because someone has to collate the numbers and somebody else has to look at the proof.
Count all of that back from the date you want kit in hands and you will usually find the window needs to close earlier than feels comfortable. Close it there anyway.
Fix the Range Before You Open
A window only consolidates if everyone is ordering from the same short list. Decide the range first: match shirt, training top, shorts, socks, a hoodie, maybe a coat. Publish it with the garment, the colour and whether names and numbers are included. The moment you let people request a different hoodie colour or a fourth garment, you have split the run into several smaller ones and given back most of the saving.
Personalisation is the exception worth allowing. Names and numbers are applied per item in vinyl anyway, so they do not fragment the run the way an extra garment colour does.
What the Announcement Has to Contain
Most windows fail because the message is incomplete and members hold off asking questions until the last day. Send one message that answers everything.
- The full range with colours, so nobody has to ask what is available.
- The closing date, in bold, with the year on it.
- The date kit is expected in hands, because that is the date members actually care about.
- A size chart with body measurements, not just S to XXL, plus a note on whether the fit is athletic or relaxed.
- One named person to ask, and a clear statement that orders after the closing date go into the next window.
Collect the Money Before You Close, Not After
Payment collected after the window has shut is the most common way a club ends up carrying kit it cannot shift. Make payment part of placing the order rather than a follow-up step. If your club runs a float and would rather order first and reclaim later, that is a legitimate choice, but make it a deliberate one with a limit on it, not an accident that emerges when three families do not pay.
“"An ordering window is not an admin habit, it is a purchasing lever. Every extra week you leave it open is money the club will never see again."”
Handling the People Who Miss It
Some will miss it. Be straight with them about what that means rather than promising a favour you cannot deliver. A top-up of four training tops is not an order anyone can produce, because the minimum is 20 pieces per order. The honest options are that they wait for the next window, or that the club aggregates late requests until there are enough to run.
This is why two windows a season works better than one. A main window before the season starts and a smaller one around the winter break covers new members, growth spurts in junior sides and the players who genuinely did not see the first message. Two windows is still consolidation. Eight is not.
The Detail Most Clubs Miss
Put the window before subscription renewal rather than after it. Members are already thinking about money for the season at that point, the club already has their attention, and you get one conversation about club costs instead of two. Clubs that run the kit window three weeks after subs go out tend to see a worse response, simply because nobody enjoys being asked for money twice in a month.
One more thing worth doing once and reusing forever: keep the size list. Every window you run builds a record of what each member wears, which makes the next window faster and stops you re-collecting the same information every year.