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A shop should judge a supplier on four things: the minimum per design, the published production window, what the sample stage costs, and how much of the range can come from one place. Ours are 50 pieces, 10 to 15 working days from approval, £150 credited against bulk, and a catalogue that runs from caps to tracksuits. Compare on those, not on a headline figure.
What separates a supplier that suits a shop from one that does not?
Retail buying has a rhythm that other buyers do not have. You restock the things that sell, you correct the size curve as you go, and you need run two to look like run one on the same rail. A supplier that is excellent at one-off event kit may be a poor fit for that, and the way to find out is to ask about repeats before you ask about price.
Ask what is kept on file between orders, how a colourway is referenced on a repeat, and whether a restock has to go through proofing again. The wholesale overview sets out how our range is structured, and the pricing page shows how the tiers work as a run grows.
Which questions expose a quote that will move later?
Three, and they take a minute each. Which print positions does this cover? What is the quantity this price assumes? What is not included that will appear on the invoice? A quote that answers all three the same way twice is a quote you can plan a shelf price against.
Then check the method suits the artwork rather than the other way round. Screen printing rewards low colour counts, embroidery is priced by stitch count, DTF handles detail on short runs, and sublimation and 3D puff each suit specific jobs. Which printing method should you choose is a decision guide rather than a sales pitch.
How much of a range can come from one supplier?
More than most shops assume, and consolidating helps. T-shirts, polos, hoodies, joggers, caps, tracksuits and denim jackets all carry published from-prices, and so do towels and bottles (from £12) and keychains (from £5), with their exact price on quote. Other jackets and polythene bags are quoted per job against the specification you send. One supplier across the range means one set of labels, one delivery and one colour reference.
It also concentrates your volume, which matters when the discount is driven by quantity per design. Splitting the same spend across three suppliers means three orders sitting in the lowest band. Selling your clothing brand to retailers is written from the other side of that table and is useful for seeing how the maths looks to a supplier.
What should be agreed before the first order?
Who approves artwork on your side, what happens if a delivery is short, and where goods are sent. Those three get settled by every experienced buyer at the start and by everyone else during a problem. Put them in writing on the first order and they carry across every one after it.
How do you trial a supplier without risking a season?
Order one design at the minimum and judge the things that are hard to judge from a website: how fast a quote comes back, whether the proof matches what you described, whether the delivery lands when it was said to, and how a query is handled when something is unclear. Fifty pieces is a small enough bet to be a genuine test.
Watch the communication as closely as the garment. A supplier that answers a specification question precisely on the first run will answer a problem question precisely on the fifth, and that is what you are actually buying once the price and the product are acceptable.
Give the trial a deadline and a verdict. Write down before the order what would make you place a second one, then judge it against that rather than against how the week happened to feel. Shops that skip this step tend to stay with whoever they found first, which is a decision made by inertia rather than by evidence.
