Picking a Clothing Supplier: Sports Clubs
By The Velocity Wear Team
A club should choose a kit supplier on four commitments: the minimum per design, the production window from artwork approval, what is retained for reorders, and whether a paid sample is available before bulk. Ours are fifty pieces, 10-15 working days, full artwork retention, and a £150 sample credited against the order. Compare those answers, not the brochures.
What should a committee ask before signing off?
Start with what happens next season. A club is not buying one order, it is starting a relationship that has to survive a change of committee, a change of sponsor and a change of squad. Ask what is stored between runs, who holds the artwork, and how a repeat is placed by someone who was not involved the first time.
Then ask about the garment itself: the fabric, the weight, the decoration method for the crest and for the sponsor. A supplier who answers those in specifics has produced club kit; one who answers in adjectives has not. Our sports clubs page sets out what we produce and how.
How do you compare quotes when the garments differ?
Line up the things that actually drive the price before looking at the total. Fabric weight, decoration method per position, and the quantity tier each supplier priced at. The tiers run 50-99, 100-249, 250-499, 500-999 and 1,000 plus, and the discount reaches up to 35% from the 50-piece rate, so two quotes at different volumes are not a comparison at all.
Then check the exclusions. Numbering, neck labels, packing arrangement and transit are the four items most often left off a quote and added later. Ask for each explicitly. The general checklist is in questions worth asking a manufacturer.
What does a supplier need from the club in return?
More than most committees expect, and gathering it early is the single biggest thing a club controls. Vector artwork for the crest and every sponsor, a colour reference, a complete size list against names, the numbering list if there is one, and one named person who can approve a proof without convening a meeting.
- Crest and sponsor artwork as vector files.
- Colour references, not a photograph of last season's shirt.
- A finalised size and numbering list with a deadline attached.
- A single approver with authority to sign off the proof.
Clubs that supply all five get kit on the date they wanted. Clubs that supply three of them do not, regardless of which supplier they chose. The full range and service list is on the wholesale overview.
Should a club commit to a multi-year arrangement?
Only once a first order has been through the whole cycle, including a reorder. A supplier looks the same in a quote and reveals itself at the repeat stage, when the question is whether the second run matches the first and arrives when promised. Kit choices for a club with several sections are covered in custom apparel for golf clubs, which deals with the same committee dynamic.
What should the club agree internally first?
Budget, garment and who pays, in that order, before a single supplier is contacted. A committee that approaches suppliers without those settled ends up using the quotes to have the internal argument, which wastes everyone time and produces a comparison of three different specifications rather than three prices for one.
Agree the colour reference too. Club colours are often described rather than specified, and two members can hold quite different ideas of what the club green is. Pin it to a physical reference the club already owns, and supply that to whoever prices the job. It removes the single most common source of disappointment when the first box is opened.
