Samples Before Bulk: A Guide for Restaurants
By The Velocity Wear Team
The sample is a finished garment in your specification, charged at £150 and credited against the bulk order when you place it. For a venue it settles the questions that decide whether staff will actually wear the thing: how it behaves under heat, how it looks after a hot wash, and whether the logo sits right when someone is carrying plates.
What is the £150 sample for in a restaurant order?
To move the risk before fifty pieces exist. A uniform that looks correct in a flat image can be too warm for a service, too thin at the shoulder, or cut in a way that rides up when arms go over head height. None of that is visible until a garment is on a person doing the job.
Because the fee is credited, the sample effectively costs you the days it takes rather than the money. Order it before the bulk run rather than alongside it.
It also gives you something to show the team before the decision is final. Staff who have handled the garment are far less likely to complain about it once fifty arrive, and if they do object, you have found out at the point where changing the specification still costs nothing but a conversation.
What should the sample be put through before approval?
- A full service, worn by someone on shift, not tried on in the office.
- Three or four washes at the temperature your team will actually use.
- A stain test, because oil and wine are the two things that decide a colour.
- A reach test with arms fully raised, which is where a bad cut shows.
- A look at the logo from across the room, at the distance a guest sees it.
The stain test is the one venues skip and regret. A pale garment that looks sharp on the rail is a laundry problem by week three, and that is a specification decision rather than a supplier fault.
Which staff member should wear it first?
Somebody who works a full, busy shift in it, and ideally not the person who chose the design. A manager who wears it for an hour will tell you it is fine. A server who wears it through a Saturday will tell you where it catches, where it shows sweat and whether the collar holds shape.
Get that feedback in writing and against a deadline, so the sample does not sit in a locker for a fortnight and eat the time in front of the 10 to 15 working day build.
How does the sample fee work against the bulk invoice?
The £150 is credited against the bulk order for that design, so it reduces what you pay when the run goes ahead rather than being refunded separately. Sampling two different garments means two fees, each credited against its own run.
What a sample cannot do is replace a proper look at the numbers, since quantity still drives the per-piece price through the tiers. The garments are on the restaurants and hospitality page, pricing is on the wholesale page, and the limits of a render are covered in AI mockups versus physical samples.
Sequence it properly and the sample costs you nothing in calendar terms either. Order it while you are still agreeing the size split and the quantity, so the testing period runs alongside work you were doing anyway. Venues that wait until everything else is settled turn a useful step into a two-week delay and then decide to skip it, which is the worst of both outcomes.
