Tracksuits for Sports Clubs: samples
By The Velocity Wear Team
A sample costs £150 and that fee is credited against the bulk order, so for a club going ahead it is money moved forward rather than money added. What arrives is one complete set in your chosen fabric with your approved artwork applied, which answers the questions a committee cannot settle from a screen: how it fits, how it feels, and whether the crest reads at arm's length.
What does the £150 sample get a club?
One hooded top and its matching jogger, made the way the production run will be made. The fabric is the fabric, the crest is stitched or printed as it will be on all 50 sets, and the labelling is as specified. It is not a mock-up or a stock garment with a logo added — it is a single unit of the thing being ordered.
Samples are never provided without charge, which is worth saying plainly to a committee comparing suppliers. A garment made to order carries real cost, and the £150 covers it before being returned to you as credit when the bulk order is placed. Sets and options are listed on our wholesale tracksuits page.
What should the committee check when it arrives?
Put it on somebody the size it claims to be, and look at four things. How the top sits across the shoulders and how long the body is. Whether the jogger length works for the tallest and shortest people who will wear it. Whether the crest is legible from the touchline rather than from a table. And how heavy the fabric feels for the conditions the squad trains in.
Wash it once before deciding. A single 30°C cycle shows how the fleece behaves, whether the colour holds and whether the decoration sits flat afterwards. A sample approved straight out of the bag has told you about a garment nobody has worn yet.
How does a sample affect the season timeline?
It adds its own production and shipping ahead of the main run, and then the 10 to 15 working day production window starts after the bulk order is approved. For a club with a fixed season opener, that has to be in the plan from the first meeting rather than added once the quote is agreed.
The time is usually worth spending on a first order. A fit problem discovered on a sample costs a week; the same problem discovered on 80 sets costs the season. What a physical garment tells you that a rendered image cannot is covered in AI mockups vs physical samples. Club projects are outlined on our sports clubs page.
Is a sample worth it on a repeat order?
Usually not, if nothing has changed. Same artwork, same fabric, same sizes — the previous run is your reference and you already have garments to measure against. Where a sample earns its place again is when the fabric weight changes, the crest is redrawn, or a new colourway is introduced, since any of those makes the old kit an unreliable guide.
Keep one set from every run, unworn and unwashed, in a bag with the date on it. That becomes the reference for the next order and settles any argument about whether a colour has shifted. Fabric and fit considerations for the garment itself are covered in custom tracksuits for clubs and teams.
Photograph the sample properly while you have it. A committee needs images to sell the kit to its own membership, and a sample shot on a person in daylight does that far better than a supplier image of a blank garment. Those photographs also become the record of what was approved, which is useful evidence if anything about the delivered run looks different.
