Sampling Hoodies Before a Bulk Order
By The Velocity Wear Team
A hoodie sample is £150 and the fee is credited against your bulk order when you place it. Samples are never free. What you get back is one finished garment in your chosen fabric, weight, fit and colour, decorated with your approved artwork, so you can judge hand feel, print position and sizing on a real body rather than on a screen.
What does the £150 actually cover?
It covers a single-unit production run. Cutting a garment on its own, setting up decoration for one piece and finishing it takes the same steps as a batch of 500 without any of the efficiency, which is why the figure is what it is and why it is not waived. The credit is the part that matters: place the bulk order and the £150 comes off it, so the real cost of sampling is time rather than money.
You can sample more than one variant. Two weights, or a classic against an oversized fit, is a common pairing and it answers a question that no photograph can. Each variant is its own sample. Details and current turnaround are on the samples page.
What should you check when the sample arrives?
Put it on. Then measure it flat and compare against the size chart you intend to publish, because that is the number your buyers will use. Check the print position against the shoulder seam rather than by eye, check the drawcord and eyelets, and look at the inside of the neck where a woven label would sit.
Then wash it. Inside out, 30 degrees, line dry, and look again. This is the test most buyers skip and the one that catches the things you cannot undo at 500 pieces: a print that cracks because it was under-cured, a fleece that pills at the cuff, shrinkage past what the chart allows. A sample that has never been washed has only told you half of what you paid for.
- Chest, body length and sleeve measured flat against your published chart
- Decoration position, size in inches and colour under daylight
- Hand feel at 280 GSM versus 350 or 450 GSM if you sampled more than one weight
- The same checks repeated after a wash and a full dry
How much time does sampling add?
Treat it as a separate cycle that runs before the 10 to 15 working day bulk build, not inside it. Sample production, transit to you, your own assessment and any revision round all sit ahead of the main clock. If you are working to a fixed date, add the sample loop before you count anything else backwards.
That is also why a rendered mockup is not a substitute, only a faster first filter. A render shows placement and colour approximately and tells you nothing about weight, drape or wash behaviour; the gap is set out in AI mockups versus physical samples.
When can you skip the sample?
When you have ordered the same garment before and are only changing the artwork. When the order is small, the audience is internal and a slight fit surprise costs you nothing. When you have a physical garment in hand from an earlier run that answers the fabric question already.
Sample when you are launching a product you will sell, when you are choosing between weights, or when someone else has to approve the garment before you commit. If the weight decision is the open question, read midweight versus heavyweight on hoodies first, then sample the two that are still in contention and price the winner on the wholesale hoodies page. The volume tiers that decide the final per-piece figure are set out on the pricing page, and the sample credit comes off whichever tier you land in.
