What is the production queue?
Despite having the capacity to print & embroider over 5000+ garments a day, we’re fortunate to be one of the UK’s leading suppliers, to some of the biggest and best brands. This means we typically have a lot of orders being produced at any given time.
To keep things fair, we have a production queue. This is the number of jobs scheduled into the production schedule. Every order that is placed is added to the end of the production queue, the queue is generally several days long. This method helps ensure a totally fair way of scheduling and ensures that if a big order is placed by another customer after your order they won’t be prioritised over you no matter how big or small your order is. It’s for this reason even small orders can take some time.
When does my order get added to the production queue?
Your order doesn’t enter our production queue until everything is approved/finalised.
It typically takes 24-48 working hours for orders to enter our production queue from the point of paying for your order (if ordering online), or approving digital mockups if ordering via email.
During that 24-48 hours, we do a number of quality checks to ensure everything is as required for your order to come out great (eg. artwork checks, print method allocation etc), alongside ensuring all of the stock is available.
If your order fails any of our quality checks, for example, the artwork is blurry or low quality, we’ll essentially put the order on hold – in this instance ensuring you don’t get a low-quality blurry print. We’ll then contact you about the problem. Only once the problem has been resolved, will your order go into the production queue.
As I’m sure you can appreciate, we can’t have orders sitting in the production queue without it fully approved and all elements finalised. Otherwise, when a customer doesn’t respond to our emails regarding a failed quality check (or makes changes etc), it’s a bit like getting to the checkout in a shop and only then deciding to fill up the basket. This system also removes the risk of anything being printed that is not up to the required standards.
How long is the production queue?
The Production queue makes up the majority of your lead time, only when your order enters the production queue does the lead time start. You can find our current lead times here.
Why has an artwork error resulted in a delivery delay?!
Printing a t-shirt is a pretty quick process and we usually use next day couriers for shipping. The bulk of your lead time consists of your order sitting in the production queue. With that in mind, if there is an issue with your order, the lead time only starts once that issue has been resolved.
We’ll typically get in touch within 48hrs upon identifying any issues, ensuring problems are resolved quickly and minimal delays. However, if you do take a long time to get back to us, or if there is a lot of back and forth required to get it fixed, your order may be delayed.
While this can be frustrating, it ensures nothing goes to manufacture where there are artwork errors or problems with the order. This ultimately ensures you always get the best quality products.