Ordering Joggers for Freshers
By The Velocity Wear Team
Freshers joggers need ordering in July for a September arrival. The build itself is 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval, but a student society adds two stages a company does not have: a committee that has to agree the design, and a treasurer who has to release the money. Those two stages are what turn a three-week job into a two-month one.
Why does September delivery mean a July order?
Count it forward instead of backwards and it becomes obvious. A July enquiry produces a quote within days. Artwork goes back and forth while half the committee is away. Approval lands, production runs its 10 to 15 working days, then transit. If any of that slides into August, the boxes turn up during the second week of term, which is a week after the event you bought them for. The general shape of this problem is covered in planning apparel lead times so you never air freight.
Who actually signs the artwork off?
Name one person before you send the first file. Group approval by message thread is the single most reliable way to lose two weeks, because every new opinion restarts the proof cycle and no version is ever final. Give the supplier one contact, agree that the design is frozen on a stated date, and treat anything after that as next year. Write down who that person is in the very first email, so every proof goes to one inbox and comes back from the same one, and no version is ever approved twice by two people who disagree with each other.
How many designs can a society realistically run?
Fewer than the committee wants. Every design needs fifty pieces, and every colourway that needs its own screens counts separately, so three designs in two colours is six runs of fifty and three hundred garments to sell. One strong design in one colour, ordered at a hundred or more, gets a better unit price and a far better chance of selling out. Sizes inside the fifty are free to split however the sign-up sheet falls. The from-price of $22 a piece at fifty is on our wholesale joggers page.
How do you size a garment for people who have not arrived?
Open hems help, because they do not have to fit an ankle. Beyond that, take pre-orders with sizes attached rather than guessing, and weight the middle of the run heavily: the extremes sell last and sit in a cupboard all year. A loopback jogger in a neutral colour is easier to shift in the summer term than a heavyweight in something specific. There is a proper method for this in how to split sizes on a first order.
Is a sample worth it on a student budget?
It costs £150 and it is credited against the bulk order, so on a run of a hundred it effectively disappears into the invoice. What it buys is certainty: the committee sees the actual fabric and the actual print before three hundred pounds of society money turns into the wrong garment. Order it in early July alongside the quote, not in August. Our samples page sets out what you get.
Sort the money out at the same time. Society funds usually move through a students union process with its own approval steps and its own pace, and that process does not speed up because a deadline is close. Find out what the treasurer needs, in what format, before the quote arrives, so the paperwork is ready the day the design is agreed. Committees that miss freshers almost never miss it on production; they miss it because the payment took three weeks to clear an office that was half closed for summer.
