How long does it take to make and ship a custom hat order? The standard turnaround time is 2-4 weeks, but many factors can influence that timeframe. We’ll go over the full custom hat process today, from when you start designing your hat to the day it arrives at your home, including:
- The Design Phase,
- The Production Phase,
- The Shipping Phase, and
- What Factors Affect Your Order’s Speed
The Custom Hat Design Phase
Before getting started on making the hats, it takes time to design them. Whether you’re following a guide or hiring a professional, somebody needs to decide how the hat will look and what will go on it. Designing a hat includes the following steps:
- Knowing your audience and existing brand.
- Deciding on what style of hat you’ll use.
- Either adjusting your existing logo to work with a hat, or creating a brand-new one.
- Matching your logo’s colors with the hat’s for the best aesthetic.
Each of these steps requires thoughtful decision-making and research, and depending on how in-depth you go, it can increase the time to make your hat. Practice, and/or working with professional designers, can help things go faster.
The Custom Hat Production Phase
After your design is set, it’s time to upload it to the manufacturer’s website so that they can work on production. For them, this means:
- Converting the design image to a digital format that can be used with printers or embroiderers.
- Acquiring the base materials to make the hats,
- Carefully applying the logo to the rounded surface of the hat, without causing damage.
- Potentially creating samples for review, before full-scale production.
The Custom Hat Shipping Phase
Now that your custom hats are made, it’s time for the manufacturer to get them to you. Shipping is easy to take for granted, but it plays a major role in how quickly you get your hats on heads.
- Shipping Services: Who you choose to handle the shipping obviously matters. Several options are available, but the manufacturer you work with may have a preferred vendor.
- Rush Services: This can affect both production and shipping, but often for an extra fee, your hats can be prioritized for early delivery.
- Location: Sometimes overlooked, the manufacturer’s location can play a major role in when you receive your custom hats. For example, a manufacturer on the West Coast will take longer to ship to the East Coast, and vice versa.
Key Takeaway: If speed is critical, look for a manufacturer who is centrally located and offers rush services to get your custom hats as fast as possible.
Factors That Affect Custom Hat Order Speed
Now that we’ve looked at the process of creating a custom hat and getting it to you, let’s turn our attention towards some factors that can affect how those steps play out, including:
- Decoration Method
- Design Complexity
- Seasonal Demand
Logo Decoration Method
- Screen Printing and Heat Transfer/DTF are generally the fastest, taking 7-12 days.
- Screen Printing Definition: A logo application method where stencils are made for the design, then ink is pushed through in different layers for each color.
- Heat Transfer/DTF Definition: A logo application method where logos are printed onto transfer paper, then glue is used to transfer the ink directly to the clothing article.
- Embroidery takes a bit longer than that, normally 10-14 days.
- Embroidery Definition: A logo application method where threads are stitched through the fabric, creating a raised image of the logo.
- Finally, patches take the longest to produce, with a typical turnaround time of 2-3 weeks.
- Patch Definition: A logo application method where the logo is made separately, on a patch, that is then affixed to the apparel item.
Logo Design Complexity
- The more complex a logo’s design, the longer it will take to translate it to a printing format, and the longer it will take to apply it to a hat.
- This is compounded with some decoration methods like embroidery, which take additional time per hat for added detail.
- Screen printing, meanwhile, can take longer for logos with several colors.
Seasonal Demand
- Like any other industry, hat production follows annual business patterns.
- Around the holidays, promotions tend to attract more buyers.
- In Autumn, with school starting up again, demand for custom hats is high.
- This repeats in the Spring for spring sports such as baseball.
Start Your Hat.Co Custom Hat Order Today to Get Your Hats ASAP
Hat.Co offers an experienced team of custom hat and apparel designers who are there to help you from the design stage to the day you finally wear your custom hat. We offer rush service options and are conveniently located to ship hats nationwide.
Call us at (636) 926-2777 or get a quote online today to start designing your hat – the sooner we start working together, the sooner you start wearing your new favorite hat!