Your First Bulk polo shirt Order, Step by Step
By The Velocity Wear Team
A first bulk polo order runs in six stages: enquiry, quote, artwork, optional sample, production and delivery. The minimum is fifty pieces per design with sizes mixed freely, polos start from $18 a piece at that quantity, and production takes 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval. Everything before approval moves at whatever speed you supply information.
What does the enquiry need to contain?
Five things, and having them ready turns a week of messages into a day. Quantity and a rough size split. The garment you want, meaning fabric, weight and collar or placket preference. Your artwork, in the best file you have. Where the decoration goes and roughly how big. And the delivery address and the date you need it in hand.
The date is the one people leave out and the one that changes the advice. A delivery needed in seven weeks and a delivery needed in three lead to different recommendations about samples and about how much of the artwork conversation can be done properly. Start on the wholesale polo shirts page, which lists fabrics, colourways and the current from-price.
How does the quote work?
The quote prices the garment, the decoration positions and any private label elements separately, plus delivery. The garment moves with quantity through the tiers: 50–99, 100–249, 250–499, 500–999 and 1,000-plus, with up to 35% off the fifty-piece price at the top. Decoration is priced per position, so a chest crest and a sleeve mark are two lines rather than one.
Ask for two quantities if you are undecided, because seeing fifty against a hundred and fifty is what makes the tier decision obvious. The structure is laid out on the pricing page. We invoice in seven currencies, so a UK business buying for a US site can be billed in whichever suits, and that is worth settling at quote stage rather than at payment.
What happens at artwork stage?
Your files are prepared for the chosen decoration method. For embroidery that means digitising: converting the logo into a stitch file with its own underlay and density, which is a rebuild rather than a conversion. For screen printing it means separating colours into individual screens. For DTF and sublimation it means colour profiling for the fabric.
You then get a proof showing the design at its finished size on the garment, with measured positions. Check it properly: spelling, colour references, the size of the mark against the garment, and the position measurements. Approval is the point the clock starts, and it is also the last point at which changes are free. Getting placement right here saves the most trouble later, and print placement on polo shirts covers what works on a polo body.
Is the sample stage worth it on a first order?
On a first order with a new garment and a new logo, almost always. A sample is £150 and is credited against the bulk order, so it is brought forward rather than spent, and it answers the two questions nothing else can: does the colour look right in real light, and does the decoration sit where you imagined. Build it into the timeline in front of production rather than assuming it overlaps.
Skip it when you are reordering a known garment or when the timeline genuinely cannot carry it. After approval, production runs its 10 to 15 working days, the order is checked, packed and shipped to the UK, the USA or Europe. Before you place anything, it is worth reading GSM explained for bulk polo shirts so the fabric conversation is short, and what a UK brand should settle before its first bulk order for the decisions that sit around the garment itself.
