Hotels: Ordering T-Shirts in Bulk
By The Velocity Wear Team
Wholesale t-shirts for a hotel start at $13 a piece at our 50-piece minimum, and one design of 50 covers most single properties once you allow for the laundry rotation. The decision that changes the most is weight. A 150 GSM tee suits hot back-of-house work; a 240 GSM tee holds its shape where the shirt is guest-facing and goes through a commercial wash every shift.
Who in a hotel actually wears the branded tee?
In most properties it is three groups, and they want three different things from the same garment. Housekeeping wants something light that does not cling after an hour on a corridor. Spa and leisure staff want a shirt that looks tidy wet, because it will get wet. Kitchen porters and maintenance want a shirt nobody minds ruining. Front desk rarely wears a tee at all, which is worth checking before you buy a size run for them. Our wholesale t-shirts page lists the fabric weights and fits, and the same buying logic runs through hotel towels and spa linen if you are refreshing both at once.
How many shirts does a laundry rotation need?
Count bodies, not shifts. A member of staff who works five days needs three shirts on the floor and one in the wash to never be short, so budget three to four per person rather than one. A team of fourteen already clears the 50-piece minimum on that arithmetic. If the property launders in-house on a daily cycle you can drop to three each; if the bags go out twice a week, four is the honest number and you will still get complaints in a heatwave.
Which weight holds up to a commercial wash?
All our tees are combed ring-spun cotton between 150 and 240 GSM. Combed means the short fibres are pulled out before spinning, which is why the surface stays smooth instead of pilling at the shoulders after twenty washes. For hotel use the heavier end earns its money. A 240 GSM body resists the twist and drag of a hot industrial cycle and keeps its hem flat; a 150 GSM body is more comfortable in a laundry room or a kitchen in August but will show wear sooner. Many properties order the heavier weight for anything a guest sees and the lighter one for back of house.
How does the 50-piece minimum work across departments?
The minimum is 50 pieces per design, and sizes mix freely inside that 50. So one shirt with the property mark on the chest, ordered XS through 3XL in whatever split your team needs, is a single order of 50. What splits it is artwork and colour: a navy spa tee and a black porter tee are two designs, two runs of 50, because each needs its own screens. If you want departments visually separate without doubling the order, keep one garment colour and change the printed line under the logo only if you are using DTF, where a colour swap is a file change rather than a new screen setup.
What does it cost and when does it arrive?
Pricing starts at $13 per piece at 50 and falls as quantity rises, by up to 35% at the largest tiers, with breaks at 50, 100, 250, 500 and 1,000. A group buying for four properties at once usually lands in a better tier than four properties buying separately, which is the single easiest saving available to a hotel group. Production runs 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval, plus transit. If you want to see the fabric before committing, a sample is £150 and that £150 comes off the bulk invoice; the detail is in our fabric guide and how the minimum works.
Should the shirt carry the property name or the group brand?
Decide this before artwork, because it changes how many runs you are buying. A group mark on every shirt is one design, one run, and it moves with staff between properties. A property name on each shirt is one design per property, so a four-hotel group is four runs of 50 rather than one run of 200, and it also gives up the better quantity tier. The usual compromise is the group mark on the chest and nothing property-specific on the garment at all, with department distinction handled by garment colour, which is still a separate design but at least keeps the count low and the shirts interchangeable.
