How Societies Buy Hoodies Wholesale
By The Velocity Wear Team
University societies order hoodies at a 50-piece minimum per design, from $31 a piece, with 10 to 15 working days of production from artwork approval. The society-specific difficulty is that the people paying are students who join in October, the committee running it changes every summer, and the money has to be collected before the order can be placed.
When does a society need to order for freshers?
Later than you would think, and that is the trap. Members do not exist until freshers week, so collecting sizes before term starts is impossible for a society that recruits then. The workable sequence is to open the order in the first fortnight of term, close it hard at the end of week three, and have hoodies in hand by the middle of November. Count it out: three weeks of collection, a few days of proofing, 10 to 15 working days of production, plus transit. Societies that push the collection window into December end up delivering after the term everyone wanted to wear them in.
How do you collect sizes and money without chasing people?
One form, one payment link, one deadline, and no exceptions after it closes. Take the money at the point of ordering rather than promising to collect later, because a society that fronts the cost and chases forty students for it afterwards will not get all of it back. Put the size chart in the form itself. If members can have their own name or nickname on the back, make that a required field with a character limit, and show them exactly how it will be spelled. Names typed into a form at two in the morning are the single most common source of reprints.
Write the process down and hand it to the next committee. Societies repeat this order every year and lose the knowledge every summer, which is why the same group can run it smoothly one year and miss the term entirely the next. A single page covering the dates, the form, the artwork file and the sizes ordered last time saves the incoming social secretary a fortnight.
What goes on a society hoodie?
The university or society name across the back is the standard, with a small crest or logo on the chest and an optional personal name or committee role underneath. Keep the fixed elements identical across the whole run, because those are what get printed once for the entire order; only the personal line varies. Committee roles are worth including, since a president or a social secretary usually wants the hoodie to say so, and it costs nothing extra to vary text that is already being varied per garment. Decoration options and the from-price are on the wholesale hoodies page.
Who carries the risk if members drop out?
Whoever placed the order, which is why prepayment matters. The minimum is 50 pieces whether 50 people paid or 38 did, so a society with fewer than 50 committed members should either open the design to alumni and to a sister society, or build the shortfall into the price charged. The discount reaches up to 35% off the 50-piece rate at the largest tier, so a joint order across several societies on one design is genuinely cheaper per person, provided everyone accepts the same back print. Student groups that also organise for a school leaving cohort will find the same mechanics described on the schools and leavers page, and the term-by-term planning view is in autumn term apparel planning.
