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Pick a supplier the way you would pick a venue: check the minimum, check the lead time, and check what happens when something arrives wrong. For society kit that means 50 pieces per design with sizes mixed freely, 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval, and a £150 sample you can hold before the committee commits any money. The rest is detail.
What should a society committee ask before signing anything off?
Ask about the minimum first, because it decides whether the idea is affordable at all. Ours is 50 pieces per design, and the sizes inside those 50 can be split however the sign-up sheet falls. Then ask what the figure does at 100 and at 250, since a society ordering once a year usually sits near the bottom tier rather than the top. The schools and leavers page covers how education orders are handled, and the wholesale range lists everything that can carry a crest.
The second question is about artwork. Who checks the file, who signs it off, and does the production clock start before or after that signature? Ours starts at approval, so a committee that spends a fortnight arguing over the crest has added a fortnight to its own delivery date. Agree internally who has the final word before you approach anyone.
How do you compare two quotes that look nothing alike?
Put both on the same basis before you look at the totals. Take out delivery, take out the sample charge, and reduce each one to a per-piece figure at the same quantity. A price for 60 shirts and a price for 100 are not the same conversation, because the tiers run 50 to 99, 100 to 249, 250 to 499, 500 to 999 and 1,000 plus, with up to 35% coming off as you climb them.
Then check what decoration each quote actually includes. A chest print and a sleeve print are two positions. Screen printing is costed by the number of colours, embroidery by stitch count, and DTF sits somewhere between the two on a small detailed mark. A quote that does not name the positions will move once the artwork lands. Questions worth asking a manufacturer works well as a call checklist.
Who carries the risk if the finished kit is wrong?
This is the question committees skip, and it is the one that matters when 80 members have already paid. A £150 sample, credited back against the bulk order, settles most of it before the money moves: you see the fabric weight, the colour of the print against the garment, and whether the crest is legible at the size you chose. Nobody can argue with a garment on the table.
What does next year’s committee need from you?
Society treasurers change every year and the knowledge usually leaves with them. Write down four things and hand them over with the accounts.
- The exact garment and colourway ordered, not just the word hoodie.
- The artwork file that was approved, at the size and position it was approved at.
- The quantity band you reached, so next year knows what a bigger run would save.
- The date the order was placed against the date it arrived.
That last one is the most valuable, because it turns a guess into a count-back. If you also want to think about which blank the crest is going on, how to choose blank garments for printing explains why the same print looks different on two shirts.
Should the order go through the students union?
Many unions keep a preferred supplier list, and some require any purchase above a set value to be routed through their finance office. Find out the threshold before you get attached to a quote, because a rejection at the payment stage costs you the whole schedule rather than an afternoon of paperwork.
Where the union does handle payment, the approval chain gets longer and slower, so add at least a week in front of everything else. That is not an argument against it, since the union normally absorbs the payment risk and the accounting, but it is a reason to start the process earlier than a committee buying on its own card would need to.
