Managing sizes and reorders for growing teams.

Apparel programs tend to fail six months in, long after the design is settled. By then the closet holds a stack of mediums nobody needs and the two new hires are a 4XL and an XS. The only record of who got what is a chat thread from March.

Our sizing guide covers fit and the collection form. This one covers what comes next, which is how many of each size to plan for and how to run reorders so hiring never strands stock.

Collect sizes with the share link.

Every collection in the Design Studio gets a share link. Each person opens it, sees the garments in your colorway and picks a size and a cut, and the order builds up from those picks.

• People choose better when they can see the piece. The hoodie is cut roomy, while the polo runs true and relaxes half a size after two washes. One person can need a different size in each, and the link shows them why.
• The roster writes itself. Every submission is a row with a name and a size, attached to the order instead of floating in a channel.

Give the link a five-day deadline and name a default: medium, or the person's last order. The stated default is what gets people to answer.

Size-mix planning tables for 25, 50 and 150 people

Sometimes you have to budget before the sizes are in, for a board approval, an event with guests or next quarter's hiring plan. The distributions below are planning estimates from mixed teams, so replace them with collected sizes before you order. Every product runs XS to 4XL at one price, and the tails cost nothing extra to include.

Read the table for its shape more than its digits. M through XL is about two-thirds of most teams, S and 2XL add another fifth, and the three outer sizes make up the rest. Small teams swing hard from this, because a 25-person engineering team and a 25-person warehouse crew won't share a distribution. Use the table for budgets and the link for orders.

On a real order, never round the tails to zero. The person who needed the 4XL notices, and so does everyone who watched them not get a kit.

How much buffer stock to hold

Buffer is stock you hold for people you haven't met. How much you need depends on whether the program is a one-off or evergreen, and the figures below are planning estimates.

Buffer is cheap when it's small and expensive when it's a guess about a whole cohort. The reorder from the file is what keeps it small.

How the reorder loop runs

You can place a first order from 15 pieces, and if you need fewer, tell us what you have in mind. After that the design and colorways stay on file with your size history, and a reorder is an email with sizes and quantities.

1. The trigger is an accepted offer, a promotion, a size change or a damaged piece.
2. Add the row to the roster with the name, size, cut, product and date.
3. Email the reorder. Say which tee or hoodie, the sizes and the quantity.
4. Receive it once production and shipping are done. Production runs three weeks from your approval of the order and shipping takes two, and each piece comes sleeved with the wearer's name.
5. Update the roster with the delivery date.

The arithmetic favors reordering over buffer. Give sixty people a hoodie at $23.96 and a tee at $17.02, each with one DTF print, and that's 120 pieces and $2,458.80 at list. The tee runs true. At the 50-piece tier those prices drop to $21.08 and $14.98, and the order comes to $2,163.60. Holding a 10% buffer means six guessed kits, $216.36 at that tier, some of them in the wrong size. A reorder is one kit in a size you already know. The pricing guide covers the 50-piece and 150-piece tiers.

Keep the design on file.

The loop only works if the collection stays stable, and two habits protect it.

• No dates and no campaign names on the garment. A collection built on the brand's permanent pattern language is reorderable for years, and our brand guidelines for merch guide covers how to build one.
• Change the colorway and keep the design. An annual colorway refresh gives long-tenured people a visible history without breaking reorders for the current one.

Tracking a size roster

The roster is one table, and it should be a boring one.

Add a hire when the offer is accepted, and re-collect from everyone once a year, because bodies change and nobody volunteers that. Keep the roster with the role so it survives a handover, along with a runbook that lists our email, the collection link, the roster location and the budget code.

A co-located team above about thirty people does better with a fit kit than a chart. That's one garment per size, S to 2XL, kept beside the office manager for a week, and afterwards it doubles as uniform buffer.

Six common size and reorder failures

• Ordering last year's distribution. The team has changed since, and the sizes need collecting again.
• Rounding the tails away. XS and 4XL cost the same as M, and leaving them out saves nothing.
• Buffering an evergreen program. That closet of mediums is the price of not trusting reorders.
• Letting the roster live in chat when it should be attached to the order record.
• Batching hires to make a reorder worth it. Reorders come from the file, so send the quantity you have. A hire who waits a month for a kit so it can go out with three others gets a bad first week for nothing.
• Redesigning instead of reordering. Every redesign counts as a new first order, with the minimum and the fresh approval that come with one.

Technology teams hiring in volume hit all six in one growth quarter, and what fixes them is the same loop run weekly instead of quarterly.

Related reading

• The Corporate Apparel Sizing Guide
• Team Onboarding Kits: run it as a program
• Uniforms for Franchises and Multi-Location Teams

Questions we get.

What size mix should I order for a 50-person team?

For 50 people, plan on 1 XS, 6 S, 13 M, 13 L, 8 XL, 5 2XL, 3 3XL and 1 4XL. M through XL covers about two-thirds of most teams. That's a planning estimate for a budget, and collected sizes should replace it before you order.

How much buffer stock should a team apparel order include?

For a one-off event, hold 5 to 10% extra, spread across M through XL. For onboarding kits, hold none, and for daily-wear uniforms keep one spare per size from S to 2XL. Because your design and size history are on file, a new hire is a reorder in the right size instead of a guess held in a closet.

How do reorders work once the design is on file?

The first order has a 15-piece minimum. After that your artwork and size list stay with us, and a reorder is an email with the quantity. A reorder goes into production the day you approve it, ships three weeks later and arrives two weeks after that, with each piece sleeved with the wearer's name.

How do I keep a size roster up to date as the team grows?

Keep one roster with each person's name, size, cut and last order date, attached to the order record instead of a chat thread. Add hires at offer-accepted, let people update their own size at each reorder, and re-collect from everyone once a year.