Delivery Times for Wholesale Hoodies
By The Velocity Wear Team
Hoodie production runs 10 to 15 working days from the moment you approve artwork, and delivery transit sits on top of that. We ship to the UK, USA and Europe. The part buyers underestimate is the front end: quoting, artwork preparation and proof approval all happen before the clock starts, and a slow approval round costs the same as a slow courier.
What is inside the 10 to 15 working days?
Fabric allocation, cutting, decoration, making, finishing, labelling, bagging and packing. It is working days, so weekends and public holidays extend the calendar span: 15 working days is three calendar weeks, and more if a bank holiday falls inside it. Count it on a calendar rather than in your head.
Outside the window sit the things you control. Getting a quote and confirming quantities on the wholesale hoodies page. Preparing artwork. Reading and approving the proof. Ordering a sample, if you want one, which is a whole separate cycle before the bulk clock begins at all.
Does the destination change the timing?
The build is identical wherever the order is going. Transit is not. UK and European deliveries are typically the shortest hop. A US delivery adds air freight time and a customs clearance step. Heavy fleece is the bulkiest apparel we ship by volume, so a large hoodie order is a freight consignment rather than a parcel, and freight moves on schedules rather than on demand.
Invoicing is available in seven currencies, which removes one common source of delay: an order waiting on a payment that has to be converted before it can be released. Settle the commercial side while artwork is in progress and the two run in parallel instead of in sequence. If you are then forwarding stock on to your own customers, building a shipping strategy for apparel ecommerce covers the leg after ours.
What actually makes an order late?
In order of how often it happens: a proof that sits unapproved, a size curve that is still being collected from a group chat, artwork supplied in a format that needs rebuilding, a colour change requested after cutting, and a label component approved a week after the garment. None of those are production problems, and all of them are fixable before you order.
- 1Confirm quantity, fit and weight, and lock the size curve
- 2Send print-ready artwork with colour references named
- 3Approve the proof the day it arrives
- 4Approve any label or tag artwork in the same round
- 5Settle payment terms while production is running, not after
How should you plan a fixed delivery date?
Work backwards, not forwards. Take the date you need the boxes in your hands, subtract transit, subtract 15 working days rather than 10, subtract your own approval time, and subtract a sample cycle if you are having one. Whatever date that lands on is your order date, and it is usually a fortnight earlier than people expect.
Then add a buffer. Not because the schedule is unreliable, but because the buffer is what lets you absorb one revision round without moving the date. The general shape of an apparel schedule is set out in apparel production lead times explained, and the per-piece figures that go with each quantity band are on the pricing page.
