Minimum Orders Explained for Societies
By The Velocity Wear Team
The minimum is 50 pieces per design, with sizes mixed freely inside it. For a society that means one garment, one colour and one piece of artwork adding up to 50, not 50 of each size and not 50 per member. A second colour of the same hoodie counts as a second design, and therefore a second 50, which is the rule that catches most committees out.
How does a society reach 50 pieces?
Usually by selling, not by guessing. Open the list at the start of term, take payment at sign-up, and close it on a fixed date. Societies that hit the number reliably tend to do three things: they show a physical garment at the sign-up stall, they set one price rather than tiers, and they give members a deadline that is genuinely final. A society with forty members can still clear the minimum by counting alumni, committee spares and the pieces it intends to sell at events. The schools and student pages cover the same approach for other groups.
Do different colours count separately?
Yes. A navy hoodie and a burgundy hoodie carrying identical artwork are two designs, each needing its own 50 pieces. This is the decision that most often doubles a society budget by accident, because offering members a colour choice feels generous until the order is placed. The usual resolution is a single garment colour with a choice of print colour where the artwork allows it, or a second product entirely rather than a second colourway. The mechanics are explained further in our overview of what a 50-piece minimum changes.
Can several societies share one run?
They can if the design is shared. A union-wide garment carrying the same artwork across five societies reaches 250 pieces without difficulty and moves several tiers down the discount scale, up to a ceiling of 35 percent off the 50-piece price. Where each society wants its own crest, that is a separate design and a separate minimum, no matter that the garment is identical. Some unions solve this by running one shared garment and letting societies add their own cap or tee separately. Browse the wholesale range to see what works as a shared base piece.
What if sign-ups stall below 50?
Order the 50 anyway and plan for the remainder, or move the deadline once and only once. The spare pieces have obvious homes: sold at a later event, issued to next year committee members, or kept for open days. Because the run is priced per piece at the minimum, the committee is not paying a penalty for the shortfall, it is simply buying stock it will use later. Price the member contribution against 50 pieces from the start and a quiet sign-up period stops being a crisis. The per-piece figures are set out in our note on what societies pay for kit.
Keep the leftover pieces logged and stored flat. Committees change every year, and an unlabelled box in a union cupboard is how good stock becomes forgotten stock.
Sign-up timing does more to the total than any other lever a committee has. A list opened in the first week of term, while everybody is joining things, fills faster than the same list opened in week five once budgets have gone. If the society runs an event early in the year, tie the kit deadline to that rather than to a date nobody remembers. And publish the number you are aiming at, because people respond to a visible target of fifty far more reliably than to an open invitation with no end point.
Keep the list somewhere the whole committee can watch it fill. A shared sheet that updates as people pay turns the minimum into a visible goal, and it means nobody has to ask the treasurer for a total before deciding whether to chase the last ten sign-ups.
