The checklist worth running before you pay for a group order

Ten minutes of checking prevents the three mistakes that ruin group orders: wrong sizes, wrong spellings and an order that arrives after the event.

A group order is a single purchase that goes wrong in more ways than a single item, because everything that can be wrong can be wrong once per person. The good news is that nearly all of it is catchable in one pass.

Spellings first

A misprinted name is the one mistake that cannot be quietly ignored, because it is on one specific person's shirt and they will be standing next to everybody else. Read the list back against wherever the names came from, rather than against your memory of them.

• Check accents and apostrophes, which are the most commonly dropped
• Check shortened names against what the person actually goes by
• Check for two people with the same first name, who may want surnames

Sizes second

Count the sizes and compare the total against the number of people. It is the fastest way to catch a name that was added without a size, or a size set twice.

The date

Work backwards from the event, not forwards from today. Printing to order takes production time and then shipping time, and standard shipping is measured in weeks rather than days on international routes.

Shipping is priced and estimated for your destination before you pay, so the delivery window is on the screen rather than a surprise afterwards.

One last look at the design on the real garment

Look at a preview on the actual colour you are ordering, not on white. A design that reads on a white shirt can lose its lightest element entirely on a dark one.

Then order once

Splitting a group into several orders costs more in shipping and arrives on different days. If somebody is undecided, order them the middle size and move on.