Sizing a Clothing Order for Retailers
By The Velocity Wear Team
Weight the middle and taper the ends. On a 50-piece run most shops do best with the bulk of the order in medium and large, a smaller block in small and extra large, and a handful at the extremes. Sizes can be mixed freely inside the 50 at no extra cost, so the split is a commercial decision rather than a pricing one.
What does a sensible first size curve look like?
For a general adult range, something close to five small, twelve medium, sixteen large, eleven extra large and six double extra large is a defensible starting point on 50 pieces. It is not a rule and it should not survive contact with your own data. If you already stock blanks, your till history is a better guide than any published curve, because it reflects your customers rather than the average one.
Category shifts it too. A gym-facing range skews larger, a fashion-led drop skews smaller, and a unisex fit pulls womenswear buyers down a size. The wholesale range lists what is available in which fits, and the pricing page shows how the per-piece figure moves with quantity rather than with size.
How do you avoid a rail of unsold extremes?
Buy the extremes shallow on the first run and deep on the restock. The first 50 is a test, and the sizes that sell out are the ones to weight next time. Ordering the same curve twice repeats whatever error was in the first one, which is how shops end up with three seasons of double extra large in the stockroom.
Fit is the other half of it. Two garments labelled large can differ by several centimetres across the chest, so publishing measurements rather than letters cuts the returns that create phantom stock. Apparel sizing and fit, and how to cut returns covers what to measure and publish.
Should the split differ between the shop floor and online?
Yes. A shop floor sells what is on the rail to the person in front of it, so the curve follows local demand and the middle carries more weight. Online sells nationally and returns more, so the tails matter more and the buffer needs to be deeper on the sizes that get ordered in pairs for fit.
If you run both from one stockroom, hold the middle for the floor and let online eat into the tails, then reorder against combined sell-through. Grading is not linear across a range, which is worth knowing before you assume an extra large is simply a large plus a fixed amount. How garment sizing is graded across a range explains the pattern behind it.
Does the size split change the price?
No. The per-piece figure is driven by quantity band and decoration, so a run weighted heavily to large costs the same as an evenly spread one. That is worth saying plainly, because buyers often flatten a curve to be tidy and lose sales doing it. Order the curve you expect to sell, not the one that looks symmetrical on a spreadsheet.
Where should the size data come from?
Three sources, in order of usefulness. Your own till history on comparable blanks, which reflects the people who actually walk in. Your returns and exchange log, which tells you where the fit runs off and in which direction. And, if you sell online, the pairs that get ordered together for fit, which flag the sizes customers are unsure about.
A shop with none of those is guessing, and the way to stop guessing quickly is to make the first 50 pieces deliberately narrow so the sell-out pattern is readable. Five sizes rather than eight gives you a clear signal within weeks instead of a muddy one across a season.
Record what sold out and in what order, not just what is left at the end. A size that cleared in week two and a size that cleared in week nine look identical on a final stock count, and they mean completely different things for the next order. A dated note beats a stocktake every time.
