Minimum Order for Wholesale Denim Jackets
By The Velocity Wear Team
The minimum on wholesale denim jackets is fifty pieces per design. Sizes inside that fifty are yours to allocate however you want, so nothing forces an even block across the run. What does start a second fifty is a change that needs its own setup: a different garment colour, a different wash, or artwork that differs from the first design rather than simply moving.
Why is fifty the floor?
Because of setup, not fabric. Getting a design ready to run on denim means preparing artwork, building a stitch file or making screens, matching thread or ink, and setting the machine. That work costs the same whether twelve jackets follow it or five hundred do. Below fifty, the setup dominates the per-piece figure so heavily that the price stops looking like wholesale. Fifty is the point where the garment cost leads and the setup becomes a small share of it. The denim jackets page shows what that buys, and the pricing page shows where it goes from there.
Does each colour need its own fifty?
If the colourway needs its own screens, yes. Two garment colours are two setups and two runs, so an indigo jacket and a black jacket are a hundred pieces between them. The same applies to two washes of the same shade, because a washed and a rigid denim are handled as different garments. What does not trigger a second minimum is a size range, a sleeve name, or the same artwork placed at a different position on the same garment. If budget is tight, the standard move is to fix one garment and vary the decoration placement inside it.
The distinction catches out buyers who think in terms of an order rather than a run. Production is scheduled per design, so two designs placed together are two schedules, two setups and two cutting plans that simply happen to share a purchase order and an invoice. Knowing that before you build a budget stops a hundred-piece plan turning into a two-hundred-piece one at the last minute.
Can the fifty be spread across sizes?
Freely, and you should. A run of fifty jackets in one size is almost never what anyone needs, and there is no rule saying each size takes an equal share. Put the weight where your wearers are. A staff order follows the team; a retail order follows the middle of the curve. What matters is deciding it before artwork approval, since the cutting plan is built from the size breakdown and changing it afterwards means rebuilding it. Our size split guide works through how to weight a fifty-piece run without ending up with unsellable ends.
What are the options if you need fewer than fifty?
Three, and none of them involves a smaller run. Combine requirements: two departments, two sites or two societies on one design reach fifty faster than any of them alone. Order the fifty and hold the balance as replacement stock, which suits any organisation with turnover. Or order the fifty and sell the surplus, which is how independents with small teams usually justify it. A sample at £150 lets you check the jacket before committing to any of them, and that amount comes back off the bulk invoice. Since the fifty also applies on a repeat run, our notes on reordering denim are worth reading before you decide how much to hold.
There is a planning benefit to the floor that is easy to miss. Fifty forces you to think about who wears the jacket a year from now rather than only this month, and buyers who plan that far ahead usually order once instead of three times. Spare pieces sitting on a shelf cost less than a second production run, and they are guaranteed to be the same shade as the first. That last point matters more on denim than on any other fabric in the catalogue.
