Bulk Hoodies for Schools: A Buyer's Guide
By The Velocity Wear Team
Schools buy hoodies in bulk at a 50-piece minimum per design, from $31 a piece, with 10 to 15 working days of production after the artwork is signed off. For a leavers order that usually means placing it six to eight weeks before the date you want them handed out, because the name list and the proofing round eat more calendar than the factory does.
When does a school actually need to place the order?
Work backwards from the day of the handout, not from the end of term. Take the 10 to 15 working day build, add transit, then add the time it takes to collect sizes from a year group and get a final name list signed off by a head of year. That last part is the slow one. Schools that leave it to the last fortnight end up paying for a rush they did not need to. Two to three weeks of size collection, one week of proofing and three weeks of production is a comfortable shape. If you also run staff kit and PTA stock on a different cycle, hoodies for schools, staff and PTA covers how those orders differ.
How does a name list get printed, and what if someone is missed?
A name list is a single back print. Every hoodie in the run carries the identical list, so it is one piece of artwork, one set of screens and one price. The nickname a pupil answers to is not always the name on the register, which is where lists go wrong. Circulate the proof to the year group itself, not just to the office, and give a hard cut-off date in writing. Once screens are burned, a correction means new screens and a new run, and a new run is a new 50 pieces. A pupil who joins after the cut-off cannot be added to a print that has already been made.
What does a year group order cost?
At 50 pieces the entry rate applies. A year group of 120 sits in the 100 to 249 tier, and a two-form-entry secondary pushing 250 sits a tier below that again, with up to 35% off the 50-piece price in the top band. Because the discount is driven by the total on one design, combining Year 11 and Year 13 into one hoodie is far cheaper than two separate runs, provided both groups accept the same back print. Current rates are on the wholesale hoodies page, and the sizing and deadline detail schools ask about most sits on the schools and leavers page.
What if the year group is smaller than 50?
Then you order 50 and sell or hold the spares. A cohort of 38 still pays for 50 pieces, and the sensible move is to build the extra dozen into the price you charge pupils, keep a few in the office for replacements, and use the rest for the staff who taught the year. Schools sometimes solve it by opening the design to siblings or to the previous cohort. Size mixing inside the 50 is free, so the spares can be ordered in the sizes most likely to be asked for later.
Colour is worth settling early for the same reason. Each colourway is priced and made as its own run, so a navy and a burgundy version of the same design are two lots of 50, not one lot of 100 split in half. The autumn planning cycle, including when to lock colours down, is covered in autumn term apparel planning.
