Ordering Kit for a Rebrand Rollout
By The Velocity Wear Team
Phase it. Replace the most visible, customer-facing garments on day one and let everything else change at natural end of life, because replacing every branded item at once is the most expensive option available and rarely the best-looking one. Document the new specification precisely, then place the whole rollout as one consolidated order rather than department by department, since bulk discounts reach up to around 40% as quantities rise.
Decide What Has to Change on Day One
Sort every branded garment by how visible it is to the people the rebrand is aimed at. Customer-facing kit is the point of the launch: front-of-house polos, reception wear, anything worn on a client site, anything that appears in photography. Those change on day one or the rebrand looks half-hearted.
Then be ruthless about what is not in that category. Warehouse tees, workshop overalls, spare fleeces in a cupboard. Nobody outside the organisation sees them, and replacing them on launch day buys nothing except a large invoice.
What Can Wait for Natural End of Life
Most workwear is on a replacement cycle already: garments wear out, staff change, sizes get topped up. Let the rebrand ride that existing cycle for the low-visibility items and the changeover costs almost nothing extra, because you were going to buy those garments anyway.
The rule that works in practice: replace on visibility, not on inventory. A three-year-old fleece worn by a driver who meets customers is a higher priority than a nearly new tee worn in a stockroom.
The Real Cost of Replacing Everything at Once
A full simultaneous replacement has three costs, and only one of them appears on the quote.
The obvious cost is buying garments that still had years of life in them. The second is scrapping usable stock. The third is subtler: a total replacement forces every decision at once, so sizing errors, garment choices and placement all get committed on the same day with no chance to learn from a first batch. Phasing gives you a pilot group whether you planned one or not.
Running Two Identities Without Looking Sloppy
The objection to phasing is always the same: for a while some staff wear the old brand and some the new. That is a real cost, to be managed rather than dismissed.
What makes an overlap look deliberate rather than messy is grouping. If every person in a given place wears the same version, the mix is invisible to any individual customer, because nobody sees both. The mess comes from mixing brands inside one team on the same shift. So phase by location, department or customer-facing group, never by individual garment age, and set an end date so the overlap does not quietly become permanent.
“"A rebrand that appears everywhere on Monday impresses the board. A rebrand that appears where customers actually look is the one that works."”
Write the New Specification Down Before You Order
This step decides whether the rollout still looks right in two years. During a rebrand the new artwork lives in someone's head and in a design file. Six months later a manager orders ten replacement polos, gets a slightly different navy with the logo a centimetre lower, and the inconsistency is permanent.
Record the specification while the decisions are fresh:
- Exact garment style and fabric weight, not just a colour name, since navy varies between products.
- Decoration method for each garment type, plus thread and ink reference codes rather than colour descriptions.
- Logo size and placement measured from a fixed point such as the shoulder seam or collar, not described in words.
- The simplified embroidery version of the logo, since fine detail and small text have to be adapted to stitch.
- Who signs off apparel artwork, so future orders do not get approved by whoever is nearest.
Consolidate the Rollout Into One Run
The most common way to overspend on a rebrand is letting each department order its own kit on its own timeline. Each order sits in a low quantity band, and screen printing setup is charged per colour, so a design that pays setup once in a single run pays it again in every separate order.
Pull the day-one phase into one order across the whole organisation. The minimum is 20 pieces per order with sizes mixed freely within the run, and discounts reach up to around 40% as quantities rise, so consolidation is worth real money on a rollout of any size. It also guarantees colour consistency, which four orders placed across four months never quite manage.
Handling the Old Stock
Do not bin usable garments on principle. Old-brand kit still has jobs: back-of-house work, cover for staff waiting on new sizes, a spares box for the overlap. Anything genuinely unusable should go to textile recycling rather than landfill. If you want to make an environmental claim about the disposal, check the current CMA guidance on green claims first.
A Rollout Calendar That Survives Contact With Reality
Work backwards from launch. Screen printing and embroidery typically take around 10-15 working days from artwork approval, sublimation and complex jobs nearer 15-20, plus tracked UK delivery of 2-5 working days after dispatch. Production starts at artwork approval, so the sign-off round is what to protect, and rebrands generate more sign-off rounds than anything because everyone has an opinion on a new logo.
Give yourself a buffer, and a second one for the phase two order that always arrives sooner than planned. Preview the new artwork on each garment type in the free Design Studio before approving, and model the consolidated quantity against the departmental split in the instant price calculator. That gap is usually the strongest argument for running the rollout as one order.