Wholesale Bottles: minimum order
By The Velocity Wear Team
Fifty pieces per design is the minimum on branded bottles. A design here means one bottle specification carrying one branding setup. Change the bottle or change the print and you have created a second design with its own 50. Within a single design, though, the quantity is yours: 50 is a genuine starting order, not a nominal figure with conditions attached.
How many bottles do you have to order?
Fifty of one specification. That number exists because preparing a branding setup takes the same work whether it produces 50 bottles or 5,000, so there is a floor below which the setup cannot be justified. Once you are above it you can order any quantity, and the bands at 50–99, 100–249, 250–499, 500–999 and 1,000+ reduce the per-piece price as you climb, by up to 35% from the 50-piece rate.
In practice 50 bottles is a small commitment for most buyers. A gym with 40 staff and a handful of spares is already there; an office kit for a growing team clears it easily. The bottles page sets out what the product covers and the wholesale catalogue lists everything else on the same minimum, which matters if you are building a kit rather than buying one item.
Can you split the 50 across colours?
No, and this is the part most buyers get wrong. Garment orders let you mix sizes freely inside the 50 because a size change is not a setup change. A bottle colour change usually is, so two colourways are two designs and two lots of 50. If you want a black and a white bottle in the range, plan for 100 pieces.
There is a cheaper way to get variety, which is to vary nothing but the distribution. One bottle colour with one mark, handed to staff and members alike, looks deliberate. Two half-committed colourways look like indecision and cost twice as much to produce. The underlying principle is the same one explained in minimum order quantities explained for wholesale clothing.
What counts as a second design?
Anything that needs its own branding setup. A different bottle model, a different print colour, a different logo version, a different position on the body. What does not count is an ordinary variation handled during distribution, such as which department gets which batch of the same bottle.
If you are unsure, describe both versions when you ask for a quote and we will tell you whether it is one setup or two before you commit. That conversation takes a minute and prevents a budget built on 50 pieces turning into 150 at the point of order.
Is 50 bottles the right first order?
For a first run, yes. It is enough to hand out, see how the bottle performs in real use, and learn whether the mark you chose reads well in a gym or across a meeting room before you buy a year of stock. New brands under-test physical items constantly, which is the argument made in what a 50-piece minimum actually changes.
Once you have run 50 and know the specification is right, the reorder is where the tiers earn their keep. A branded bottle has no season, so buying deep on the second order carries far less risk than buying deep on the first.
Size the order for replacements too. Bottles get lost, left at gyms and handed to visitors, so a staff rollout counted exactly to headcount runs dry within months and new starters end up with nothing. Adding a quarter on top of the headcount is the usual allowance, and because the floor is 50 anyway, most small teams get that headroom without ordering a single extra piece.
It also helps to be clear about who the bottles are for. Staff, members, event guests and retail buyers all treat a branded bottle differently, and the quantity question is usually a question about which of those groups you are buying for. One design serving two of them at once is generally the efficient answer, and it keeps you on a single setup.
