T-Shirts for Gyms: reordering
By The Velocity Wear Team
A reorder is a fresh production run with the same minimum: 50 pieces per design. What carries over is the artwork, the specification and everything you learned the first time. What does not carry over automatically is exact colour, since dye lots differ slightly between batches. Plan the second run before the first one runs out, because production is still 10–15 working days from approval.
Does a reorder still need 50 pieces?
Yes. The minimum applies to every run of a design, not only the first, so a gym that needs twelve more staff shirts is looking at a 50-piece order. That sounds awkward until you treat the extra 38 as the next two years of replacements, which is what they usually become. It is also why the first order is worth sizing generously: the marginal cost of ten more shirts inside an existing run is far lower than the cost of a whole second one.
The practical version is to order to your team list plus a replacement allowance, then reorder on a schedule rather than in an emergency. If you are still setting that first quantity, what a gym t-shirt order costs shows how the per-piece figure moves as you go deeper.
Will the second run match the first?
Close, and close is not identical. Fabric is dyed in batches and small shifts between lots are normal across the industry. In practice nobody notices two shirts from different runs on two different people; everybody notices them folded on the same shelf. So if you are selling members merch from a rail, keep runs separate on display. If it is staff kit, the difference disappears the moment people are wearing it.
Two habits keep it manageable. Keep one unworn shirt from every run, sealed, as a physical colour reference. And send that reference with the reorder rather than describing the colour in words. Print colours are more controllable than garment dye, so specify your ink colours by code once and reuse the same codes on every run.
When should you place the reorder?
Before the shelf is empty. Production runs 10–15 working days from artwork approval and transit sits on top, so a reorder placed the day you run out means three or four weeks of new starters in the wrong shirt. Pick a trigger level — when the middle sizes drop below a set count — and order at that point rather than when the last one goes. Repeat runs also skip the artwork stage, which is usually the slowest part of a first order.
Does a reorder get the same price?
It is priced on its own quantity, against the same tier structure: 50–99, 100–249, 250–499, 500–999 and 1,000+, with up to 35% off the 50-piece rate at the top. Each run stands alone, so three separate 50-piece reorders are all priced at the entry tier, while one 150-piece run is priced better than any of them. For a shirt you know sells or wears well, consolidating reorders is the simplest saving available. Our pricing page shows the steps, and adjust the size split each time using what actually cleared — gym size splits covers how to read that.
Should the reorder be identical to the first run?
Usually not quite. A repeat run is the one chance to correct the things the first one taught you: a weight that turned out too light for shift wear, a print position that sat wrong under a lanyard, a size curve that left four smalls in a cupboard. Changing the blank weight or the fit keeps you inside the same design as long as the artwork does not move — the options are listed on the wholesale t-shirts page. If you are extending the order across the rest of the kit at the same time, our gyms and fitness page shows what else can go on one run.
