BULK ORDERS INFO- FAQ's and top tips!
Are you looking to order personalised clothing, a selection of items for an event or to order some prints or items for you to resell for your business. Please have a read of this info, we hope it will answer in detail some of the questions you will have a lot better than shorter replies via messenger or email, plus its all in one place too!
PRE ORDER INFO
Can I get a quote?
Yes of course, please give us as much detail as possible. Ideally we need to know
-What item(s) you are looking at ordering- if applicable the colour too
- A rough amount of the items with that design
-What the design will be and where on the item(s) it will go. Also if you have the design set up, what format it's in or what work you would like doing to it if not!
Can i get a sample sent out?
We are more than happy to send out single items however you would need to pay for these at a single item rate. Our wholesaler holds nearly 4000 styles of item(and then lots of those styles have size ranges!) so it would be impossible for us to hold stock of these items to send out as samples!
How do i know i have the right sizes?
Each of our products will have a size guide on it! the chest measurement is from 1cm under the armpit seam. Please make sure you check this when ordering. UK clothing is not standardised so one medium is another brands large! we can also send out more detailed guides should you need them, just pop us a message.
I can't find the items i would like on your website-can you get them?
Our website has a tiny sample of the items we can access, mostly our very popular items. In total our wholesalers hold around 5000 items, our website has a tiny amount of them listed! We can also provide other items. If you have a specific brand or product you would like pop me a message with what it is and i'll see f I can help.
We want the same colour for a range of clothing- can we have that?
Yes, absolutely, however we always recommend selecting your colour from the range with the least variety- if you are looking at adult and child zipped hoodies picking the colour from the children's zipped hoodies will probably mean you can get it in the adult range too! We can get similar colours across hoodies/tees/polos but due to different fabric make up, dyes etc they are likely to vary slightly. It is also worth checking your colour choices for very large or very small sizes as sometimes the ranges are limited here.
Do you charge VAT?
We do charge VAT. Al items are shown with a VAT inclusive price.
How long will my order take?
From December to March usually 3-4 weeks, outside of this time around 4-8 weeks.
Why does it take so long!?
We try and work through orders as fast as we can but there are a few factors that contribute to this wait, firstly we have to meet a minimum quantity at our wholesalers to order the items- we don't hold stock here of any items. It also takes time to produce a design from your logo to digital or stitch data. Finally the items have to be made. This can take anything from 10 mins to 1 hour per item. We work chronologically through orders and often work very long days to get orders through as fast as we can.
My event is in under 4 weeks- is there any chance you can help?
Sometimes we can. We hate to let people down and always try to when possible. To do this we may charge a rush fee to get it through in time. This will cover
1. The cost of getting your products alone from the wholesaler to us-postage is usually around £10-20 as all items are couriered out, it will also depend on how fast we need them (Saturday delivery/Pre 9am etc delivery is more than a standard delivery)
2- The cost of our time outside of work hours to get your work done. I work long hours but charge a small fee to cover the additional cost on our time, this is worked on a case by case basis.
3. Postage to you- again this can be anywhere between £6-15 depending on the postage needed.
Rush fees are only charge if needed and would be discussed with you before the order is placed. Usually these are only placed on orders with under a weeks notice.
If you need to order urgently please get in contact with us before ordering.
LOGO DESIGNS
What options are there for logo designs?
We currently offer three types of decoration depending on the product; single or full colour HTV print, embroidery or sublimation. Each of these decoration methods has its own strengths and weaknesses and we are always happy to advise if we think something won't work in your chosen method.
Can you design our logo?
We are happy to assist if we can but we are not graphic designers. If you have something really specific we would suggest talking to a designer first, but we are happy to work with a drawing and take it to the point you would like to get it to. As a rule this is the process we follow:
1- Your idea or drawing is taken and made into a digital design, as close to your design as possible. For printed or sublimated images this is the end of the design process. For embroidered designs we ask that you check the design at this point. Its far easier for a digital design to be reworked than a stitched design
2- If your design is being made into embroidery we will then make the stitch data. From this point we will send a final design to check colours, look etc.
Do you have any images you can use?
We do have some images, some youth group logos, and some very generic images, in various formats.
Name Prints
All name prints are done in Ration rather than font size, to prevent those with a very small name having a tiny name in comparison to the longest name on your order. This is usually 300mm for adult back prints or 100mm deep whichever comes first. 350mm or 100mm deep for adult arm prints. Child arms are sized based in arm width. Small names are 100mm wide on upper arms.
We are designing a logo, what are your constraints?
This varies product to product.
Digital designs- these are a Hi-res image set up to print, or for us to take an embroidery design from. We cannot work from images on Publisher or Word- usually these don't send very well and are not in the correct format for us to work with. For no set up fees to be charged we usually require a digital image in one of two ways:
1- For clothing, bags- as a vector image, with a hairline cut line. Usually this comes as a .eps file It will mean the file can be made larger or smaller with no quality issues and we can print and cut it with very limited setting up.
2- For coasters, metal items, place mats, keyrings and badges- A high quality image, .JPEG .PNG are both fine to use, as are vector images.
We can assist you with turning your hand drawn image into a digital image- our set up cost for this is from £10
Embroidered designs:
It would be unusual for you to have the files for this, and we usually work from a digital image to create your embroidery design. Our set up for this is from £10 depending on the image we have to work from. As a rule we suggest keeping embroidered logos to 6 colours to avoid a surcharge, we are happy to chat through this with you.
ORDER INFO
How do I order?
We prefer it if you are able to use our webpage to order, all of our more popular items can be ordered from here and we have it set up to order both single and multiple items. We also find that if you are able to place the order we have less discrepancies- for example from our back office we can't see that a particular item doesn't come in a specific size, however you can from the front of the webpage, it also takes all of the information from you that we need.
However we do understand ordering on our website can be complex though and are more than happy for you to email us with your order. We don't have a specific order sheet as with so many items we would struggle to make something relevant or workable for all.
To order via email or messenger- Even if you have discussed your order with us before please give us full and complete order details
- sizes
- Items
- colours
- design- Please be very specific here "We would like an image of an apple embroidered on the left breast and then then printed on the back over 2 lines "Honey Farm Orchards" Print to be green. Is very different in interpretation to "Apple and Honey Farm Orchard"
- Plus your postal address and email address
Pop us an email to [email protected] or give us a ring on 07858 874659 if you don't hear back or don't get an invoice within a week please get in touch again- just in case we miss your order especially in our busy period.
If ordering via email/messenger we recommend you familiarize yourself with our terms and conditions and possibly even have a read through of our FAQ's :)
http://carrielou.co.uk/FAQ
http://carrielou.co.uk/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=5
How and when do you take payment?
We take full payment at the point of order. via bank transfer, cheque, paypal or card! If you have ordered on our website you will be directed to payment as you check out, if you are invoiced we will generate an invoice that will be emailed to you and will also forward the information on making payment.
I've ordered- whats next?
Once you order and payment is made you will go on our order list. We work through this in order of payment, some items may take slightly longer if they come from a different wholesaler.
We will send your design over to proof the design via email, once we have your approval we will start to make your items.
What can I change at approval stage?
1- The design, you are very welcome to make amendments to the design- for example a change of hair colour, a movement of a logo, change of text etc. Complex changes need to be made at the digital design stage if this applies to your logo. For example if you have an embroidered logo with the London Eye we cannot then change this to Big Ben at embroidered stage. We also limit the amount of changes, and really appreciate it if you can send all of your changes at once :)
2- Size/Colour/Type of item. Once this is ordered we CANNOT change this, for some we would charge a 25% surcharge if its possible to change it but usually by this point we have your items with us. Should you wish to change your items we suggest you get in contact with us ASAP, ideally within 24 hours.
We have a week to go, WHERE IS MY ORDER!!!
We always, always suggest ordering super early where possible. we fully appreciate lots of orders are based on people responding for events and can't be placed until final numbers are in however if you are ordering within or very close to our wait time its likely your order will be coming to you within days of your event, we can't drop everything to make sure your order gets done with lots of time to spare as it will likely mean others miss out. Please do feel free to check your order place at any time, however if you order for 4 weeks time it is very unlikely your order will be ready within two weeks.
On the other end of this spectrum, If your event is a couple of days away and you have not heard from us- please get in touch! If something has gone wrong (it does, we're all human, you may miss an email or we may miss a date! anything can happen!) if we know about it before you need your items, we can fix it. If your order for Saturday afternoon hasn't shown up and you tell us Friday night or Saturday morning, we're going to be really limited on what we can do!
How will my order arrive?
We post using DPD, they will usually give an hour timeslot on the day of delivery.
What do I do when my order arrives?
Check it! Please make sure you check your order is correct. we sometimes make mistakes- we check everything over this end but sometimes we do miss things, we can fix it if you tell us when it arrives, we can't if you tell us at the airport, or on camp or on your way to an event! We ask that as a minimum you check everything within 7 days!
FAQ's!
We're slowly adding to this as questions come through from customers!