Your First Bulk t-shirt Order, Step by Step
By The Velocity Wear Team
A first bulk t-shirt order runs through six stages: enquiry, quote, artwork, sample, production and delivery. The minimum is 50 pieces per design with sizes mixed freely, tees start at $13 a piece, and production takes 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval. Most of the calendar is spent before production starts, which is the part first-time buyers underestimate.
What happens between the enquiry and the quote?
You tell us what you want and we price it. To price it properly we need the garment, the quantity, the decoration method, the number of print locations, the colours and the delivery destination. Send all of that in the first message and the first quote is the real quote. Send half of it and the number moves once the rest arrives, which is the most common cause of a bad first experience.
Quantity is the lever. The tiers run 50 to 99, 100 to 249, 250 to 499, 500 to 999 and 1,000 plus, and the discount rises to a ceiling of 35% off the 50-piece rate. It is worth asking for two quantities at once, the one you want and the one at the next tier, so you can see whether the step is worth taking. Current from-prices are on the wholesale t-shirts page and the tiers are set out on the pricing page. What to include in that first message is covered in briefing a supplier for t-shirts.
What does the artwork stage involve?
We take your files and lay them out on the garment: placement, size, colour separations and anything the print method requires. You get a proof back showing where everything sits. Your job is to check it properly rather than glance at it, because approval is the point at which the specification is fixed and the production clock starts.
Check the placement measurements, the Pantone references, the spelling of anything typeset, the size split and the label detail. A change made before approval costs nothing. A change after approval means re-approving and a fresh 10 to 15 working day window. Send vector artwork if you have it, because a small logo pulled off a website will not hold up printed at 25 centimetres across.
Is the sample worth taking?
On a first order, usually yes. The sample is £150 and it is credited against the bulk order, so for a buyer who goes ahead it functions as a deposit rather than an extra cost. What it buys is a physical garment: the actual fabric, the actual colour, the actual print in the actual position. Nothing on a screen tells you how a shirt feels or how a printed red looks in daylight.
It is also your reference for everything that follows. Approve on the sample, keep the sample, and check the delivery against it. Skip it if you have ordered the same garment before, if the design is a simple one-colour logo on a stock colour, or if the timeline genuinely will not take the extra week. The details are on the samples page, and the counter-question of whether you can order a single shirt is answered in can I order just one custom t-shirt.
What happens during production and delivery?
Production is 10 to 15 working days from approval. That covers the garment, the decoration, any private label work and the finishing. Working days means the clock ignores weekends and public holidays, which matters most around Christmas and the new year when a three-week window can occupy five calendar weeks.
Then delivery, which is separate from the production window and depends on the destination. We deliver across the UK, the USA and Europe, and invoice in seven currencies. Decide before production whether you want individual bagging and whether the cartons should be size-packed, because both are specified at quote stage. Check the delivery as soon as it lands rather than the week you need it: the process for that is in quality checks on bulk t-shirts.
