If you’ve never had mistakes when ordering uniforms, I think it’s fair to say you’re in the minority in this industry. If you did everything right with the order and the company failed, I’m sure you were frustrated – and had to deal with frustrated parents as well. However, when the uniforms come in and you can’t easily track back the mistake to know how it happened or who is at fault, it’s even worse. In our early years, we’d have the kids try on the fit kits, and we’d go ahead and order that size. We ran into a few problems: 

  1. Parents didn’t account for their child’s growth in the months between us fitting them for the uniform and the months until we actually competed. If you order early like I do, then it could be a five month difference at times. Kids (especially those experiencing puberty) can grow A LOT in five month’s time.
  2. Parents would insist they ordered a particular size and that we must have ordered it wrong. Because it was all done by word of mouth and us writing down the size, there was just no way to confirm who was right.

So, over the years we developed new systems. I thought I’d share my process this year so maybe I could save you the headache I experienced over the years. 

Here’s our process: 

  1. We do team welcome nights. There’s more about this in the All Star Academy, but basically we host a welcome night for all athletes where they do a series of tasks so they’re done and accomplished for the season. One of those tasks is uniform fittings. This means we’re not taking from practice time, and we’re getting it done early on. Just in case someone is on vacation during welcome nights, we’ve got a few weeks between the welcome night and the date we actually order uniforms as a buffer to get it done. This prevents our staff from chasing people down for a month asking them to come in for a fitting.
  2. Mom or dad is there to approve it. Even if you’re 17 years old, I require the parent paying for the uniform to be present for the fitting. Generally the parent has the last say on how it fits too. In 10 years, I’ve never had a parent want a size that looked ridiculous. They want it to look good too, so if they want to size it up a tad and get it altered so it lasts a little longer, that’s OK with me. They’re paying for it after all. 
  3. We then show the parent the size the athlete tried on so they can see it for themselves. We also ask them to complete the google form you can see here. As you can see, the parents complete the sizes and submit the order. They take any photos of the sizer they’d like and they upload it to the form. They get a copy of the form in their email, and we get a copy as well. The file they upload automatically goes to a folder in our Google Drive so we have the images in case there are any issues. To appease my personal OCD, our staff member at the fitting table also checks our email/spreadsheet to confirm the sizes the athlete tried on are the same ones the parent selected. (This helps the parent as well in case they click the wrong button in error.)
  4. We will do this for practicewear and warm up jackets this year as well. By doing this, the parent is always the one who will complete the form. We hold the company accountable, and we hold ourselves accountable as we have the spreadsheet available to us to order sizes. (If we make a mistake at that point, we definitely deserve to pay it.) 

I always tell my gym parents that I’ll be diligent to ensure our processes are in place so their money is never wasted. We’ll always take their purchases seriously and eliminate any chances of error. I hope this helps you with your fittings this year. Like I said, if you’ve never had an error, then you rock! If you haven’t but could see the possibility, consider developing a system or process like this for your gym!

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