Storing Clothing Stock: Keeping Inventory Saleable
By The Velocity Wear Team
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Store clothing dry, out of direct sunlight, off the floor and folded rather than tightly compressed. The main risks are damp, light fading and permanent creasing, and all three are cheap to prevent and expensive to discover.
The Three Real Threats
Most stock damage comes from a small number of causes. Damp is the worst — a garage, loft or unheated outbuilding can produce musty stock and, in bad cases, mildew that no amount of washing removes. Direct sunlight fades dyed fabric noticeably over months, particularly on darker colours, and it fades unevenly so the affected pieces no longer match. And prolonged compression sets creases into fabric that steaming may not fully resolve.
Practical Storage
The requirements are straightforward and mostly free.
- Somewhere dry and reasonably temperature-stable — a heated indoor space rather than a garage or loft.
- Off the floor, on shelving or pallets, so a leak or damp floor does not reach the bottom boxes.
- Out of direct sunlight, and ideally in closed boxes so light exposure is minimal.
- Folded and boxed without heavy compression. Do not stack so high that the bottom layers are crushed for months.
- Polybagged if the environment is anything less than ideal, which also keeps dust and insects off.
Organise by Size, Not by Design
This sounds trivial and saves a great deal of time. Picking an order means finding a specific size of a specific design, and stock organised so that each size is immediately locatable turns a search into a reach. Clear labelling on the outside of boxes matters as much as the arrangement inside — a stack of unlabelled identical boxes means opening several to find anything.
“"Stock you cannot find quickly is stock that slows down every single order you ship."”
Know What You Have
Keeping an accurate count by size and design is what allows you to reorder before running out rather than after. Because production takes around 10–15 working days from artwork approval for screen printing and embroidery, plus 2–5 working days tracked UK delivery, a reorder placed when stock runs out means roughly three weeks with nothing to sell in your best-selling size. Counting stock regularly is what prevents that.
Rotate Older Stock
Where you hold multiple runs of the same product, sell the older stock first. Fabric does not spoil, but older stock is the stock most likely to have been affected by storage conditions, and it is also the stock most likely to differ subtly from a newer run. Selling in order keeps any variation moving through rather than accumulating.
Storage and Order Size
Storage capacity is a genuine input into how much you order. Bulk discounts reach up to around 35% as quantities rise, but a larger order that cannot be stored properly costs more in damaged stock than it saves in unit price. Orders start at 50 pieces with mixed sizes allowed, so scaling gradually as your storage allows is straightforward. Model the trade-off in the free instant price calculator.
