Ordering Joggers for the New Year Rush
By The Velocity Wear Team
Order January joggers in November. The production window is 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval, and the word working is doing the heavy lifting: the holiday period removes calendar days without removing production days, so a build that looks like three weeks on paper can span five weeks on a wall planner. A November order lands in December and is ready when the intake starts.
Why does the holiday period stretch the calendar?
Lead time is quoted in working days because that is what production actually consumes. Public holidays, and the days most offices quietly take off around them, are calendar days that pass without progress. Add transit, which also slows in the busiest freight weeks of the year, and a December order that would normally be comfortable becomes tight. Mark the holidays on the plan first, then count. The underlying arithmetic is the same one used in ordering joggers for Christmas, but the shutdown is what makes this deadline different.
What sells into a new year intake?
Gyms and studios buying staff kit want something that survives constant washing, which points at a denser loopback rather than a soft brushed fleece that will pill on a hot cycle. Brands selling to members want the opposite: warmth and a soft inside, because the customer judges it by touch. If you are doing both, they are two designs and two runs of fifty. The from-price on our wholesale joggers range is $22 a piece at the fifty-piece minimum, and the tiers take up to 35% off that as quantity rises.
Is November too late to sample?
Early November, no. Late November, probably. A sample is £150 and is credited against the bulk order, so the money is not the constraint, the calendar is: it needs to be requested, made, shipped, looked at and approved before production starts, and every one of those steps competes with the holidays. Our samples page covers the process. If you have ordered the same garment before, skip it and work from the previous approval instead.
How do you stop the order arriving in February?
Freeze the artwork before the end of November and get the approval in writing. Do not add a second colourway in December. Do not leave the size split to a group thread. If something has to give, cut the number of designs rather than the quantity, because each extra design carries its own fifty and its own proof cycle. Useful buffer thinking is set out in building a launch calendar that does not slip.
Should you buy for January or for the whole quarter?
Buy for the quarter if you can fund it. The intake spike is short, but the discount tiers reward the larger number, and stock bought at the 250-499 rate still sells in March at the same price as stock bought at fifty. The risk is only ever the design: a plain, well-made jogger with a small embroidered mark stays sellable long after a dated slogan does not.
There is a second reason to buy the quarter in one go. Splitting it into a January run and a March run means two dye lots, and two dye lots in the same stated colour will sit marginally apart. Nobody notices that on a shelf; everybody notices it when two members of staff stand next to each other in supposedly identical kit. Ordering the full quantity at once keeps the colour consistent and removes a second artwork approval from a quarter that is already busy.
