How Bulk Jackets & Outerwear Are Packed
By The Velocity Wear Team
Bulk jackets are folded, individually bagged, boxed into cartons and stacked on a pallet. Cartons are packed either as a single size or as a mixed size run, and which of those you get should be a decision rather than a surprise. Ask before the order ships, because it determines whether unpacking takes twenty minutes or a whole afternoon.
How are bulk jackets bagged?
Individually, in a polythene bag, which keeps the decoration clean and lets a jacket go straight to a wearer or a customer without being re-handled. On outerwear the bag also stops zips scratching adjacent garments in the carton. Puffers are the exception worth discussing: compressing them for shipping is normal and they recover after hanging, but if they are going straight onto a retail rail you may want them packed less tightly. Say so at the quote stage. The styles and the options that come with them are on the wholesale jackets page.
What is a size run per carton, and do you want one?
A solid carton holds one size, which is what a warehouse wants, because it can shelve by size without opening anything. A ratio or run carton holds a mix, which is what a team handout wants, because one box covers a whole department. Neither is better in the abstract. If you are distributing by person, ask for mixed cartons and a clear label on each. If you are stocking for online orders, ask for solid cartons and keep them sealed until you need each size. Getting this wrong is a common first-order lesson, collected with several others in the mistakes almost everyone makes.
What actually arrives on the pallet?
Cartons, shrink-wrapped to a pallet, with a packing list that states what is in each box. Jackets fill volume rather than weight, so a jacket order takes noticeably more pallet space than the same count of t-shirts, and a puffer order more again. Check before delivery day that there is somewhere to put it and someone to receive it, because a pallet will not go through a standard office door and the driver is unlikely to carry it inside. Delivery is available across the UK, the USA and Europe, and invoicing is available in seven currencies.
How should a delivery be received and counted?
Count cartons against the packing list before the driver leaves, and note any damaged or missing box on the paperwork at that moment rather than afterwards. Then open a carton from each size and check the contents against the label. Full inspection can wait, but the count cannot. Once the boxes are checked in, the sorting and handout process is easier if you have planned it, which is covered in handing out jackets to a team. A sample at £150, credited against the bulk order, also tells you how one jacket is bagged before fifty arrive.
Ask what is printed on the outside of each carton, because that label is what saves you opening boxes you did not need to open. A useful carton label carries the style, the colour, the sizes inside and the quantity of each. If you are storing the order rather than distributing it immediately, note the carton contents on a list as they go onto the shelf, and the next person to need six mediums finds them in a minute. Packing and shipping terms, including ratio packs and solid cartons, are defined in the glossary.
