Schools: Freshers Order Deadlines
By The Velocity Wear Team
For freshers kit in hand at the start of September, place the order in July. Production runs 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval, transit sits after that, and July is the month when the people who approve artwork start disappearing on leave. Ordering in August leaves no margin at all for a revision.
When does a freshers order need to be placed?
Set the date kit must be on site, which is usually a few days before the first intake event rather than the event itself, so cartons can be checked and sorted. Then subtract transit, then subtract three full working weeks for the build, then allow a fortnight for approval. That lands the order in the first half of July.
The summer break is what makes this different from a term-time order. Your side of the process slows while the factory side does not, so the buffer has to be bigger than it would be in October.
Name one person who can approve in July and make sure they are contactable. A freshers order that waits three weeks for a signature because everyone assumed somebody else was covering it is the single most common way this deadline is missed, and it is entirely avoidable with a sentence in an email before term ends.
How does July split across artwork, build and transit?
Roughly: the first week is deciding the garments and getting the logo in a usable format, the second week is approval, the following three weeks are the build, and the rest is shipping and a check against the order. That fills the month and a bit of August without anybody rushing.
If you want a sample first, it has to start in June. The £150 fee is credited against the bulk order, so the constraint is the calendar rather than the budget.
Do the decisions in that order rather than in parallel. Choosing the garment settles the price band, which settles the quantity the budget allows, which settles the tier, which is the number the finance side actually needs. Trying to fix the budget before the garment is chosen usually means going round the loop twice.
What can be decided later without moving the deadline?
Almost nothing that touches the artwork. Colour, wording, logo placement and garment choice all have to be settled before approval, because approval is the starting gun. What genuinely can wait is how you distribute the kit on arrival, and whether you sell the surplus at a later event.
Size split is a middle case: it can be adjusted right up to the point the run is committed, but not after. The broader calendar approach is in building a launch calendar that does not slip.
How many pieces should a freshers run cover?
At least 50 per design, which is the minimum and which a freshers intake clears easily. The more useful question is how far past that to go, since the price per piece falls through the tiers as quantity rises, by up to 35% from the 50-piece figure at the top end.
Ordering long for a September intake is usually right, because the surplus sells through the autumn rather than sitting dead. Term planning more generally is covered in autumn term apparel planning, and the garments are listed on the schools and leavers page alongside the wholesale range.
Keep the design free of the specific year, though. A freshers hoodie printed with a date is unsellable in November; the same hoodie without one moves all year and can be topped up rather than replaced. If the year matters for the occasion, put it somewhere small rather than across the back.
