What Gear to Order When Your Company Doubles in Size

You used to order company swag the same way you did most things at a 15-person business: Someone had an idea, you picked a design, and you ordered 20 t-shirts. That ad-hoc approach broke down somewhere around employee number 50.

Suddenly, you’re managing a closet full of branded merch with mismatched logos in three different shades of blue. Nobody knows who owns the design file. And a new onboarding cohort starts in two weeks.

According to our 2026 Unsung Heroes Survey, nearly half of the people responsible for ordering custom gear report that merch logistics quietly became part of their workload without ever being formally assigned. That leaves you scrambling to figure out how to run it.

When your company’s headcount doubles, ordering larger one-off batches isn’t the solution to a sustainable swag program. You need a scalable system. Here is the operational foundation required to support hypergrowth, and how to start implementing it this week.

In This Article

• Signs Your Ad-Hoc Swag System Just Broke
• Build a Vendor Relationship, Not a One-Time Order
• Set a Product Standard
• Build a Sizing System That Scales
• Create a Reorder Process
• What to Order First
• Frequently Asked Questions

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Signs Your Ad-Hoc Swag System Just Broke

A few patterns show up right before a company realizes its swag process needs to change. If more than one of these sound familiar, you’re past the point where another one-off order fixes the problem.

• Nobody can find the design file from the last order, so every new order starts from scratch.
• Sizes are guessed, not collected, which means boxes of unclaimed shirts pile up in a supply closet.
• Quality varies order to order because whoever placed the last one picked whatever was cheapest at the time.
• New hires start without gear because nobody owns the process of ordering ahead of a start date.

Build a Swag Vendor Relationship, Not a One-Time Order

The single highest-leverage change you can make is picking one vendor and sticking with it, rather than re-shopping every order. A consistent vendor means a saved design file and a known price per unit at your new volume. It also means you have someone who already knows your logo, colors, and go-to product line when the next order comes in.

“The local Anchorage, Alaska FedEx Ground Facility celebrated 600+ injury free days. In a fast paced, rapidly growing company such as FedEx Ground the Team in Alaska faces many unique challenges. Through new management, new employees, building expansion and new processes, this team stays focused on the priorities, Safety Above all!”

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Featured Company Apparel from This Story

Gildan DryBlend 50/50 Pullover Hoodie

• 9 oz., 50/50 cotton/polyester with MVS Air spinning for reduced pilling
• Consistent fit and weight across reorders, so year two matches year one
• Sizes S–3XL, over three dozen colors

Build Standard Product Guidelines for Company Apparel

Keep a record of the specific styles your company orders by default: one t-shirt, one hoodie, one polo, and if your team wears daily workwear uniforms, one uniform style too. This does two things. It stops each new order from starting with a fresh product search, and it protects quality as your volume grows.

Durability, not price, is what B2B buyers actually value most. Seventy percent of PPAI’s top 100 distributors identify durability as the strongest indicator of a promotional product’s value. When budgets tighten, 60% of buyers cut order quantity before they cut customization or quality.

“‘A’ Locksmith is the highest rated locksmith company in Collier County with over 500 five-star reviews. We’ve doubled our sales since we began elevating our corporate image with the best looking trucks, marketing collateral, and uniforms. We now only trust our uniform shirts to Custom Ink. The high-quality printing and long-lasting shirts help us stand apart from the competition while instilling confidence and professionalism in our team.”

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Featured Product from This Story

Jerzees Spotshield 50/50 Jersey Polo

• 5.6 oz., 50/50 cotton/polyester jersey with SpotShield stain-resistant technology
• Resists oil- and water-based stains, holding a client-facing look through repeat wear
• Coordinates with a women’s fit for mixed-team uniform orders

Logo Design Templates for a Standardized Look

Inconsistent artwork files and outdated logo variations are the fastest way to dilute your brand identity. If your team is struggling with low-resolution assets or mismatched vector files, explore our production-ready logo templates in the Design Lab and select one that provides a clean starting point to standardize on. Click on any of the designs below to get started. Or browse our template library.

Automate Apparel Sizing Before Your Next Hiring Surge

Guessing apparel sizes for 15 people is manageable. Guessing for 150 employees is how you end up with three boxes of unclaimed 2XLs and a waitlist for mediums. Our group order feature eliminates the guesswork and manual spreadsheet tracking entirely: Employees receive a single link to select their own sizes and enter their direct shipping details, streamlining the process as your headcount grows.

Pro Tips:

• Automate New-Hire Onboarding: Embed size and address collection directly into your standard HR onboarding paperwork. Capturing these details on day one prevents delayed shipments and eliminates manual follow-up emails.
• Order Core Sizes for Hiring Surges: Order a 5–10% buffer in your highest-demand sizes (typically Medium and Large) above confirmed counts. Hiring acceleration rarely aligns perfectly with your last headcount snapshot, and having core sizes on hand keeps new-hire kits shipping on schedule.

Create a Company Swag Reorder Process

Standardizing your vendor and product lineup means your second order takes five minutes instead of five weeks. Save your design file, lock in product selections, and define who owns placing the next order before this one is even finished. A company that’s doubled once will very likely double again. The buyer who has a repeatable process in place before that happens isn’t rebuilding this from scratch every single time.

1. Name one person as the standing owner of reorders, even if it’s a shared responsibility day to day.
2. Set automated triggers, such as headcount growth of 10% or a new hiring cohort, that prompts a reorder review.
3. Keep saved designs and past order details in one shared location so the next order starts from a template, not a blank page.

What to Order First: Your Core Product Lineup

If you’re building this system from scratch this week, start with the two things that touch every new hire and every existing employee. Order a welcome kit for incoming hires and a uniform refresh for everyone already on the team, so the whole company looks like it’s operating from the same standard at the same time.

“This is our entire organization at our All Hands Retreat 2013 in Destin, Florida. We meet once a year for a week. The fleece jackets were such a hit because it got cold and no one had brought a jacket. Working with CustomInk was fabulous and will definitely do it again.”

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Featured Product from This Story

Harriton Full Zip Fleece Jacket

• 100% spun soft polyester fleece with an anti-pill finish
• Dyed-to-match zippers, front pockets, non-roll elastic cuffs
• Matching women’s cut, sizes YS–5XL, also in tall

Shop Company Swag

You don’t need to build a perfect swag system on day one. Focus on getting three basic elements in place: choose a vendor, establish a written product standard, and name a standing owner for reorders. Everything else becomes easier once those pillars exist—and they are the exact difference between your next order feeling like an automated process instead of a panic drill.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What should we order first when our company doubles in size?

Start with a new-hire welcome kit for incoming employees and a uniform refresh for the existing team, so the whole company is operating from the same product standard at the same time.

Q: How do we handle sizing when hiring quickly?

Use a group order link that lets each employee confirm their own size and shipping address directly, and build that step into new-hire paperwork so it’s automatic rather than a follow-up task someone has to remember.

Q: Are bulk discounts available as our order volume grows?

Yes, we offer bulk discounts that scale with quantity, so a growing company’s per-unit cost improves as headcount and order size increase.

Q: How far in advance should a fast-growing company place orders?

Standard orders arrive in about two weeks with free standard shipping. If you know a hiring cohort is coming, place the order as soon as headcount and start dates are confirmed rather than waiting until the week they start.

Q: Can multiple offices or locations order from the same company swag standard?

Yes. Once a product standard and saved design are in place, any office or team can reorder the same items rather than each location choosing its own products and colors independently.

Q: Can I get design help standardizing our look across a larger team?

Yes. Our design experts can review your existing logo files and help you build a consistent look across apparel styles, and our Design Lab includes templates if you’re starting from scratch.