Ordering Towels for Leavers Season
By The Velocity Wear Team
Leavers towels need ordering in spring for the last term. Production is 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval and transit follows, but the part that takes longest is not manufacturing — it is collecting a decision, a design and a headcount from a year group. Start that collection in February or March and the production side is comfortable.
When does a leavers towel need to be ordered?
Artwork approved by early May for a comfortable end-of-June delivery, which means the design settled through April and the quantity agreed in March. Exams sit in the middle of that window and remove both the students and the staff who would otherwise be chasing it, so anything that has not been decided by the start of study leave tends not to get decided at all. Working backwards from the last day of term is the only reliable way to set the internal deadlines.
How do you collect the order from a year group?
With a hard close date and one person owning it. Open a form, publish a deadline, and treat that deadline as real, because a leavers order that stays open until everyone has replied never closes. Collect the format preference at the same time as the count so the split is decided on data rather than a guess — the method in size splits for a bulk towels order transfers directly. The minimum is 50 pieces per design, so a year group smaller than that still orders 50 and has spares, which is usually welcome.
What personalisation is realistic in bulk?
A shared design with a list of names printed on it is straightforward. An individual name on each towel is a different proposition: it is effectively a run of one-offs, it takes longer to produce and it does not benefit from volume pricing in the same way. The middle ground most year groups land on is one design carrying the school, the year and a full list of names, which everybody gets and nobody has to be matched to. Getting that list right in the artwork matters — see artwork setup for custom towels for how text behaves on towelling, because a hundred names set small will not read.
How do you handle the late joiners?
Order spares rather than reopening the order. Adding pieces after production has started means a second run at a fresh 50-piece minimum, so building a margin of unsold stock into the original quantity is far cheaper than a corrective order in July. Work the total against the volume steps — up to 35% off the 50-piece rate at the highest tier — using the pricing page, and start the spec on the towels page. If the design is new and the names are going on the piece, take the £150 credited sample in March so legibility is settled before the artwork goes round a staff room.
Name lists need one more safeguard: someone has to check the spelling. A misspelled name on a keepsake is the single complaint that will follow a leavers order around, and it is entirely avoidable by circulating the list for correction before the artwork is finalised rather than after. Publish the list, give a short window to flag errors, and treat the version that comes back as final.
Delivery timing deserves the same care. Aim for the towels to arrive two or three weeks before the last day of term, not the week of it. That leaves room to check the delivery, sort it, deal with anything wrong and hand them out calmly. A consignment arriving in the final few days removes every option you have if something is not right.
One more thing worth settling early: who is responsible if the order goes wrong. Leavers merchandise is often organised by a parent group, a student committee or a member of staff doing it on top of a full job, and none of those arrangements survive an awkward conversation well. Agree at the start who signs the artwork, who holds the money and who talks to the supplier, and the rest of it tends to run itself.
