Salons: the New Year Rush Order Deadlines
By The Velocity Wear Team
For kit on the floor by the first working day of January, place the order in the first half of November. Counting back from that date: allow a week for delivery, three calendar weeks for the 10-15 working day build, a few days for artwork approval and a fortnight if you want the £150 sample first. December holidays sit in the middle of all of it, which is why November rather than December is the answer.
Why is November the deadline rather than December?
Because the calendar loses working days at exactly the wrong moment. A build measured in working days stretches across more calendar days once public holidays land inside it, and couriers run their heaviest weeks of the year in the same window. An order placed in early December is not late by a week; it is late by whatever the holiday period does to a fifteen-working-day count.
There is also the salon's own December. Nobody wants to be approving artwork during the busiest trading fortnight of the year, and decisions taken in a rush are the ones that produce a reorder in February. Getting the approval done in November means December is trading rather than admin. The kit itself is set out on the salons and barbers page.
How does the November window break down?
Start from the day the kit must be usable, which for most salons is the first Monday of January rather than the first of the month. Take a week off for delivery. Take three calendar weeks off for production at the top of the range. Take another week off for artwork, colour confirmation and the back-and-forth that always happens. That is five weeks, landing you in late November with no margin at all.
Add the sample and you are in the first fortnight of November instead. Add a second design, which starts its own 50-piece cycle, and you want to be there anyway. The full wholesale range shows what can share one booking, and planning apparel lead times so you never air freight covers how to build the buffer properly.
What should a salon order for the January intake?
Uniform for the people you already have, plus enough spare stock in the middle sizes to cover the hires January tends to bring. A busy new year is the month new staff start, and the ones who start in week two should not be waiting on a production cycle. Order the spares as part of the same run rather than as a second order, since the volume discount of up to 35% is measured across what is on the one order.
Towels deserve their own line. January puts more wash cycles through a salon than any other month, and towels that were tired in December will not survive it. They are quoted per job rather than at a published from-price, so raise them in the first November conversation. Sizes, weights and branding for them are covered in wholesale towels for gyms, spas and hotels.
Check the artwork against anything else being refreshed over the winter. Salons often redo signage, a price list or a website in the same season, and a uniform printed from last year's logo file ends up standing next to a newer version of the same mark on the wall. Settle which version is current before approval rather than after delivery.
What if the November slot is already gone?
Then change the target rather than the timeline. Aim at the start of February instead of the start of January and order in December with a clear head, or split the order: place the staple design now so the floor is covered, and hold the second design until the quiet weeks. A part-order that arrives on time beats a full order that arrives in the third week of January.
What does not work is compressing the artwork stage. Approval is the one step where haste is expensive, because a mistake approved in a hurry is reproduced fifty times. If the date is genuinely fixed and tight, simplify the decoration rather than the checking.
