How Volume Discounts Really Work
By The Velocity Wear Team
The per-piece price falls with quantity because the fixed work behind an order — separating artwork, making screens, digitising stitch files, mixing ink, setting up the line — costs the same whether fifty garments follow it or a thousand. Spread across more pieces, it shrinks per garment. Our tiers run 50 to 99, 100 to 249, 250 to 499, 500 to 999 and 1,000 or more, reaching up to 35% off the 50-piece price.
Why does the per-piece price fall at all?
Not because a bigger order is more welcome. Because of how the cost is built. Every job has a block of work that happens once: the artwork preparation, the screens or the embroidery file, the colour matching, the test pulls, the setup and teardown on the machine. Divide that block by 50 and it is a meaningful share of each garment. Divide it by 500 and it is close to noise. The fabric and the labour per piece barely move at all — that is why the discount curve flattens rather than continuing forever.
This also explains something buyers find counterintuitive: a complicated design benefits more from volume than a simple one. Four print colours means four screens and four setups, so there is more fixed cost to dilute. A single-colour chest print has less to spread and its curve is shallower.
Where do the tier steps sit?
At 50, 100, 250, 500 and 1,000 pieces of the same design. The step is what matters practically, because ordering 96 of something and ordering 104 of it can land in different tiers for the sake of eight garments. If your requirement sits just under a step, price both and compare the totals rather than the unit rates — quite often the larger order costs less in absolute terms, and you end up with spares as well. The current figures per product are published on the pricing page.
Does the discount ever stop?
Yes, and it should. The ceiling is 35% against the 50-piece price, and it is there because beyond a certain volume the remaining cost is fabric, labour and shipping, none of which vanish with scale. Any supplier whose discount appears to keep falling indefinitely is either padding the starting price so the percentage looks better or cutting something out of the garment. Compare the actual per-piece figures across suppliers rather than the percentages, because a big discount off an inflated number is not a saving.
Remember the discount is measured per design, on a single order. Three runs of 100 do not combine into a 300-piece tier, because each run carries its own setup. Consolidating designs and timing your orders so the volume lands together is how the tiers actually get used — and it is one reason buyers who understand what a minimum order covers end up paying less for the same clothing.
Is it worth ordering up to the next tier?
Only when you can answer two questions honestly. Will the extra garments get used within a reasonable window, and do you have somewhere dry and sensible to keep them until then? Stock that sells eventually is fine; stock that sits for three years in a damp garage has cost you the whole unit price rather than saved you a percentage. There is practical advice on that in storing merch stock without ruining it. The range of products the tiers apply to, including the items quoted per job, is set out on the wholesale page.
For staff kit and club orders the answer is usually yes, because headcount turns over and spares get used. For a speculative product with no demand history, the answer is usually no. Buying a discount you have to store is not the same as buying one you have to pay for.
