Why does custom logo embroidered apparel take so long?

This is a question we get asked almost every day. It’s a good question and one for which there is a logical answer. 

Actually, creating custom logo embroidered apparel does not take any longer than it did ten years ago. Part of the answer is that our expectations have changed. With Amazon Prime and companies like Zappos, many of us have been trained to think items can be pulled off the shelf and shipped the same day in order to arrive the next day.

A logo being embroidered

The broadest answer to the question is that we are making a custom product. No two orders that leave our facility are the same. Everyone is different. So we are manufacturing each order to the specifications of each and every customer. That takes time and that prevents us from being able to manufacture items ahead of time so they are ready to ship out when the customer is ready to buy them. 

The second reason it takes longer is the fact that we do not carry any inventory of the items we embroider. We have to order in those items from the manufacturer when they are ordered from us by customers. We can usually get those items fairly quickly, but it does take time as we are not pulling anything off the shelves. 

One of the reasons we do it is this way is because it keeps our costs and prices down. It would be a huge expense for us to physically inventory every size and color of every shirt we offered. scanned-logo-proof Logo on a black shirt. Valencia Harvesting Original art from customer. 

Logo on a black shirt.

Original art from customer.

And finally, it takes time to set up the artwork for each specific logo that we embroider. Every logo has to go through a set-up process where we take the flat graphic image we get and create a custom image for embroidery. That process can also take a couple of days to make sure we get it right. 


So while our turnaround time of about 10 business days is among the fastest, we are not able to ship orders as fast as companies like Amazon. Primarily because they are shipping products that have already been manufactured and we are creating something custom specific to each customer’s needs.