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How To Plan Your Orders
How To Plan Your Orders

Planning sampling and bulk production, when to start

Sarah avatar
Written by Sarah
Updated over a week ago

Pro Tip: If you are already late, or don't want to plan so long ahead, just use our shop. You can order samples to review in less than a week and then follow up with a bulk order straight away. This can make the whole turnaround from first sample to bulk products in hand in less than 16 weeks. If you skip sampling, it's less than 3 months altogether.

Below planning is for you who seek to develop manually customized products, not via our shop.

Remember, most swimwear products are sold during the summer months – this means that you need to have your products ready well in advance to ensure that people have time to search through your store, browse your products, and place their orders before the summer hits. To have your products ready by summer time, we have some suggestions to help you plan your process.

Have Your Bulk Products In Hand At Least Two Months Before Summer

This one is absolutely critical. Not only will it ensure that your inventory is well-stocked, but it’ll also give you the time that you need to conduct photo shoots, launch your marketing campaign, and prepare your ordering infrastructure for the massive influx of customers.

Sample At Least 6 Months In Advance

Sample your products at least four months before placing your order, which you want to have received at least three months prior to the start of summer. This means you should be sampling at least 5 months out. And for larger orders, we’d recommend that you begin sampling your orders anywhere from 6, to 9, to 12 months out!

These are two simple tips that many swimwear brands fail to follow, ultimately putting themselves behind the eight ball when summer comes. If you’re ready to ensure that your brand is up and running well before the summer time comes, all you have to do is plan, plan, and plan!

Bali Swim Lead Times

* Limited to seasonal availability and slots

Samples

Peak season: Jan-Apr
Shop (Ready Design) Samples: 5-6 business days
Manual (Ready Design) Samples: 2-4 weeks
Custom Design Samples: 4-6 weeks

*Working days, per order

Developing Custom Design can be a lengthy process. Expect 2-6 months from first to final sample completion. Longer timeframes are for multiple/more designs and if this is your first time developing own designs. If this is your first season and you are developing own Custom Designs we recommend starting 9 months before you expect to have bulk products in hand with first development. Remember that using our Ready Designs will shorten this process.

Bulk

Peak season: Jan-May
Standard lead time is 12 weeks for stock fabrics - add 4 weeks for importing fabrics not in ready stock.

Production clock starts when deposit has been paid and received. All design details including brand labelling have been confirmed and finalized between MD (Merchandiser) and Client. This is followed by a PPM (Pre-Production Meeting) in which all production details are concluded, and deadline is finalized and communicated to Client by MD.

Recommended seasonal planning for manual orders

Northern Hemisphere, Summer: Jun-Aug

USA, Canada, Europe, Hong Kong, Taiwan

Bulk products in hand: 1 April
Bulk start (stock fabrics): 1 Jan - order handover, paid, completed: End of Dec
Bulk start (import fabrics): 1 Dec - order handover, paid, completed: End of Nov

Prior to your bulk order samples must be ordered and developed.
Below estimate plan for a few rounds of samples.

  • 100% Ready Design - 1-2 months

  • Custom Design or mix RD/CD - 2-4 months

Southern Hemisphere

Australia, New Zealand, South Africa
Dec-Feb

Bulk products in hand: 1 Sept
Bulk start (stock fabrics): 1 Jun - order handover, paid, completed: End of May
Bulk start (import fabrics): 1 May - order handover, paid, completed: End of Apr

Prior to your bulk order samples must be ordered and developed.
Below estimate plan for a few rounds of samples.

  • 100% Ready Design - 1-2 months

  • Custom Design or mix RD/CD - 2-4 months

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