Ordering Tracksuits for the New Year Rush
By The Velocity Wear Team
Order in November for tracksuits you need in the first week of January. Production takes 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval, December loses working days to public holidays, and carriers are still clearing a seasonal backlog into the new year. November leaves the sets time to arrive before the intake does.
Why does a November order suit a January launch?
Because December is not a full month of working days and the transit network is at its slowest. Approve artwork in the first half of November, production completes before the holidays, and the sets sit on your shelf while everything else is still queued. That is a calm version of a timeline that looks frantic once you start it in December.
Gyms and studios feel this hardest, since January brings the new members and the kit is part of what they are buying into. Stock landing in the second week of January has already missed the reason you ordered it.
How many sets does a January intake need?
Fifty sets per design is the minimum and for a gym or studio it is usually about right for a first run. Sizes mix freely inside it, and because the top and the jogger are picked independently you can build a run that matches a real membership rather than a tidy grid on a spreadsheet.
If the sets are staff kit rather than retail, count the rota instead of the headcount. People on shift need more than one, and a staff member with a single set ends up wearing it damp. The pricing bands show what happens to the set price once the quantity moves past the first band.
Think about what the set is doing as much as who wears it. A gym selling kit at reception is running a retail line and needs a proper size spread. A studio handing sets to instructors is buying a uniform and needs durability more than range. The two orders look almost identical on a quote and behave completely differently once they are in use.
What does the December shutdown do to the plan?
It quietly removes days from the middle of your timeline. Working days exclude public holidays, so a build that occupies three calendar weeks in March can stretch well past that across late December. Transit behaves the same way for the same reason, and neither is something a supplier can compress by trying harder.
Anyone promising a January date off a December order is quoting the floor with nothing underneath it. Apparel production lead times explained covers what the range is made of and why the top of it is the number to plan around.
Can you order in December and still open on time?
Only with simple decoration, a stock colourway and artwork finished on the day the order goes in. Our custom tracksuit sets start at $53 a set at the fifty-set minimum, and holding the print to one colour is the single most useful thing you can do for the schedule.
If nothing about the date is flexible, run a design you have produced before. Approved artwork removes the longest uncontrolled stretch of the schedule, and a colour you have already seen on fabric removes the second longest. Most genuinely rushed orders that land on time are repeats rather than new designs. Ask for the dispatch date in writing as well as the delivery date, because dispatch is the part a supplier actually controls.
If the date cannot move, order a sample first and treat the £150 as the price of finding out early instead of late. It is credited against the bulk order, so what it really costs you is the week it takes, and that week is far cheaper in December than a wrong delivery is in January.
