Merch for a Crowdfunding Campaign: Only Print What Is Funded
By The Velocity Wear Team
Order after the money lands, never before, and quote a fulfilment date built from real steps: your artwork approval, then around 10-15 working days of production for screen printing or embroidery, nearer 15-20 for sublimation or complex jobs, then 2-5 working days of tracked UK delivery, then your own packing and posting time. Add a buffer on top of that and publish the later date. Backers forgive a cautious estimate; they do not forgive a missed one.
Print Nothing Until the Campaign Closes
It is tempting to get ahead while momentum is high, especially if the campaign hits its target in week one. Resist it. Pledges can be cancelled, payments fail at collection, and stretch goals change what people expect to receive. Stock ordered against enthusiasm rather than cleared funds is stock you are storing in a spare room in eighteen months.
What you can do during the campaign is everything that is not printing: finalise the design, get the proof approved in principle, confirm the garment and colourway, and set up your size collection. Then the moment funds clear, the only decision left is quantity.
How to Quote a Date You Can Keep
Write the chain out in order and be pessimistic about the parts you control. Campaign close, then funds clearing, then final artwork approval, then production, then delivery to you, then sorting and posting to backers. Most campaigns underestimate the last step badly; packing several hundred parcels by hand takes evenings, not an afternoon.
The critical point is that production does not begin when you place the order. It begins when artwork is approved. If you are still moving the logo two millimetres a week after the campaign closes, that week comes out of your fulfilment window and nowhere else.
Design Your Tiers Around One Garment
This is the thing most first-time campaigns get wrong, and it is a money problem, not a design problem. The minimum order is 20 pieces per order with sizes mixed freely inside the run. So a reward tier that only nine people choose still commits you to a full run for that item. Four clever tiers with four different garments can turn a funded campaign into a loss.
Build the tiers around a single garment instead, and vary what is cheap to vary: size, colourway, print placement, or an extra item like a sticker pack. One tee design at three tiers keeps every pledge inside one production run, which also means one setup cost and better bulk pricing as the numbers rise.
Collect Sizes Before People Lose Interest
Backer surveys have a decay curve. The people who reply in the first week are the majority of the people who will ever reply. Send the size request as soon as funds clear, chase once, then set a deadline and order without the silent ones, allocating them a middle size or holding their piece until they surface. Publish garment measurements in the survey itself so nobody has to guess.
Choosing a Method for an Unknown Quantity
Your method should follow the funded number, which is why the decision waits for the close.
- Modest run, detailed or full-colour artwork: DTF, which has no per-colour setup and works on cotton, blends and polyester.
- Large run, bold artwork with few colours: screen printing, which is cheapest at volume but charges setup per colour.
- Soft hand feel on cotton for a fashion-led piece: DTG, remembering it is cotton only.
- All-over prints or sports-style pieces: sublimation, which needs polyester and light bases, and sits nearer the 15-20 working day end of production.
- Premium tier upgrade: embroidery, with the design simplified and any small text removed before it goes to stitch.
“"Fund first, print second. Enthusiasm is not a purchase order."”
Overs, Spares and the Backer Who Moves House
Order a small number above your pledge count. Parcels go missing, someone gets the wrong size, and two backers will change address between pledging and delivery. A handful of spares turns each of those from a crisis into an email. Any left at the end are your sample stock, your press pieces and your first sales if you carry on selling after the campaign.
Say Less, Then Deliver Early
The strongest position in crowdfunding fulfilment is a conservative published date and a parcel that arrives before it. That is not a trick, it is just arithmetic done honestly at the start. Work out the real chain, add your buffer, publish the later figure, and then spend the campaign getting your artwork finished so that production can begin the day the money clears.