50% Deposit Normal when selling a clothing line to retailers?
Go to Page...
Discuss the process of getting your t-shirt line into brick and mortar stores and selling offline. Topics include industry tradeshows, events, line sheets, sales reps and other retailing tips and advice.
50% Deposit Normal when selling a clothing line to retailers?
50% Deposit Normal when selling a clothing line to retailers?
Hi everyone, I was wondering does anyone do 50% deposit for orders? I was going to implement this policy, but hesitant as it may make buyer reluctant to place an order. Does anyone do this, or have experience with 50% deposit on orders?
No not crazy. With todays climate you have to be careful.
Our policy is for smaller orders (upto 500 garments) the first 2 orders are paid for up front then we will look at giving credit. (you will find most orders are one time only anyway)
Do make sure you make it perfectly clear your terms.
If people have a problem with paying a deposit more often than not they will have a problem paying an invoice. (Don't put yourself through the stress!!)
Unsure if this is the right forum for this post, to whom are you going to charge this?
If you're going to be dealing with retail stores with an already finished product, Net30 or payment upon delivery should be fine.
If you're doing customized printing, always take a deposit, 50% being quite normal, it gives you leverage if they decide to back out, it also gives them leverage if they determine there is an issue. Also get signatures confirming art in case something does come up!
I would say we do this with 50-60% of our orders as these are most probably one time only orders.
We used to find we would spend so much time trying to chase smaller amounts it was killing us!! so a change of stratergy definately paid off & as I said before the people you were chasing all the time would be the very same people who don't want to pay anything up front!!
A 50% deposit is pretty standard. A few folks have been burned by not collecting this up front. One way it covers you is if a customer decides to NOT return for their order, or not to pay you the balance for some reason, you are covered for your materials. Additionally, a 50% deposit means you are using the customers cash for supplies, and not your own operating capital.
A 100% payment up front might be a deterent, because that is not a "standard" across your industry. They may be uncomfortable paying in full without seeing the finished product. I would steer away from 100% payment in full, which is usually reserved for folks with bad credit or customers who have paid poorly in the past whom you still have a relationship with. A payment in full is kind of reserved as a punishment, lol, you could say.
But 50% upfront is normal operating procedures. Your competition will likely be operating under the same terms, so your customer will not bat an eyelash, as they've probably heard it before. Best regards.
Hey thanks for all the reply, great information. I love the idea of 100% upfront as a punishment, haha. I will definitely be collecting a 50% deposit upfront.
We always take 50% upfront, it's standard. Never had anyone refuse it, or complain. First proof is free, simple text art is free. Subsquent proofs are $10 a pop, discounted off the backend, upon completion of the order.
Hey, thanks for the reply. Can you elaborate on this? I apologize, not familiar with the terms. "First proof is free, simple text art is free. Subsquent proofs are $10 a pop, discounted off the backend, upon completion of the order."
For example ... a radio station wants it's logo on the front of 200 blue tees (an order we did last year). They had an old sample tee that was screen printed (we do direct-to-garment), and the logo they had designed for thier website for me to work with for a proof ... sample t-shirt, to make sure that is how all the tees should look. The sample tee, and the logo didn't really match (limited colors to screen printing), and he wanted to the pink in the design to be brighter. So, I had to print another proof ($10 up front). Second proof he liked the pink, but changed his mind, and wanted to go with an older logo that had different text across the bottom of the logo. So, another proof ($10 up front). There was no real artwork involved on my part save for color matching to the output of my machine, so no charge for the artwork. But, I did charge for the cost of the two additional proofs ... $20 ... and discounted $10 from it for the final order (basically the cost of the shirt and inks).
Example of simple text art I don't charge for ... someone comes in needed two words in this font, in the color purple, scawled across the front in all capitals letters ... I don't charge for the artwork. If they don't like the first proof, decide they want blue instead of purple, or whatever ... I charge $10 for the next proof.
Does that help? Mind you, this is custom printing with direct-to-garment ... other methods have other considerations.
We do 50% up front all the time...it's pretty standard and accepted. And, like Kelly said, it covers you if they don't return for some reason and you are using their money to buy the materials for their job.
We ask for 100% if they want the job done in 1 week or less. Our standard is 2 weeks. I know many folks charge an expedite charge but we haven't gotten to that point yet.
This is a discussion about 50% Deposit Normal when selling a clothing line to retailers? that was posted in the Offline Retail and Tradeshows section of the forums.
50% Deposit Normal when selling a clothing line to retailers? 
... "you can't take the sky from me"
