This guide walks your committee through how to do it: organising the order, choosing your apparel, and knowing exactly when to place it.

• Start in the off-season, not January — early orders move faster and avoid the peak-season queue.
• A full custom (sea freight) order needs roughly 13–15 weeks, plus a delivery buffer for regional and remote areas.
• Organise everything — rosters, sizing, numbers, approvals — in one place with the C2C club portal.
• C2C makes kit for basketball, netball, AFL, soccer/football rugby league and more — from playing kits to training and supporter wear all from one supplier.

Every year it's the same story. The season's a wrap, everyone's ready for a break, and uniforms are the last thing on the committee's mind. Then January arrives, registrations spike, and suddenly you need kit for a hundred new players by round one — along with every other club in the country ordering at exactly the same moment.

There's a much calmer way to do this, and it starts now.

Why should clubs plan uniforms this early?

Three reasons, and they're all about giving yourself room.

You beat the peak. Order in the quiet months and you're not sitting in the same queue as every club scrambling in January. Your order moves through faster simply because it went in earlier.

You've got time to get it right. Early planning means you can actually think about your design, sort your sizing properly, and run changes past the committee — instead of signing off on the first thing that'll arrive in time. Rushed decisions are how clubs end up with kit they're stuck with for three seasons.

You're covered for round one. The single biggest cause of players missing out on kit for the season opener is a late order. Start now and that just doesn't happen to you.

What's the easiest way to organise a club uniform order?

The hardest part of a uniform order has never been the uniforms — it's wrangling the information. Who's playing, what size they are, which number they've got, and who's actually approved the spend.

That's what the new C2C club portal is for. Instead of chasing it all across emails, group chats and a shared spreadsheet, your club's order lives in one place. Rosters, sizing and numbers sit together, and the portal's numbering engine keeps every player's number unique across your club so you're not untangling duplicates later. When the details are right in the portal, they're right on the order — which means fewer errors, fewer reprints, and a lot less back-and-forth for whoever's holding the clipboard.

If you're setting up for 2027, getting your club into the portal is the first job worth doing. Everything after it gets easier.

What uniforms and apparel can a club order?

Once the admin's handled, the fun part. C2C makes gear across basketball, netball, AFL, soccer and rugby league, so whether you're a single-sport club or running half a dozen programs, it's all from one supplier.

You're not just picking a playing singlet, either. There's your on-court or on-field kit through Design Your Own, training and warm-up gear to match, and off-court and supporter wear for coaches, committee and families who want to fly the club colours. Need something quick? The Express range covers fast-turnaround items, and the C2C Stock range is perfect for print-on-demand merch and one-off orders.

The practical tip: think about the whole club, not just the playing kit. Ordering training tops, hoodies and supporter gear in the same run as your uniforms saves you a second round of organising later in the year.

Don't forget to factor in design time

If you're refreshing or upgrading your kit for next season — not just reordering last year's design — there's a step that happens before the production clock even starts: the design itself. And good design takes time.

It begins with a design brief: your club colours, logos and sponsors, any theme, milestone or anniversary you're marking, and an honest note on what's working (and what isn't) with your current kit. The clearer that brief, the faster and sharper the result — vague briefs are what send designs round in circles.

From there it's a bit of back-and-forth: concepts, revisions and committee sign-off. That's normal and worth doing properly — rushing the design is exactly how clubs end up with a kit they'll regret for three seasons. Build a design runway into the front of your plan so it isn't eating into your production window. In practice, a refresh means starting the conversation even earlier than a straight reorder.

When should we place our order? The production timeline

This is the part committees most often underestimate, so here's exactly how long each option takes and when to get it in. A custom uniform isn't pulled off a shelf — it's designed, approved, produced and shipped — so the further out you order, the more choice you have and the less you pay for speed.

For the full detail on how ordering works, click here for our ordering guide.

Add a little for where you are

C2C Sports ships globally through trusted delivery partners. Australia's a big place, so delivery buffer days go on top of the base timelines above depending on where your kit is heading.

A few things that add time

Some orders need a little longer to make — worth knowing when you set your date:

Working backwards from your first game: if you want the full custom order (the best value and the most choice), allow those 13–15 weeks plus your delivery buffer and aim to place it at least 16 weeks out. Associations, give yourselves closer to six months — there are simply more teams to coordinate. Left it later than that? You've still got options; the faster pathways above are exactly what they're for.

Plan your season in two minutes

To make this easy, we've built a free 2027 Uniforms & Merch Planner — a simple spreadsheet where you enter the date you need your kit by, and it works out your recommended order-by date for each pathway automatically. Pop in your season opener, your presentation night, your club anniversary merch, and see at a glance what needs ordering when.

Ready to start planning for 2027? Get in touch and we'll help you set up your club in the portal and map out your timeline.