Custom ties are most certainly made by tie makers and for the most part are distributed, marketed or sold or all three by tie suppliers.

Tie suppliers may well encompass tie manufacturers and tie makers or they may also be companies dealing in many other types of uniform with custom ties just a part of their offering.

Alternatively, custom ties, also including company ties and corporate ties can be distributed by third parties offering other types of school uniform in tandem with school ties.

Tie makers or tie manufacturers are a very crucial part of the supply chain for all types of ties such as corporate ties, sports ties, school ties, matric ties and you name it really because all of these items fall under custom ties, in other words ties that are made for a purpose with a particular design or colours or stripes etc.

Also, it is important to note that tie suppliers are just as crucial to the process simply because it is one thing to make custom ties, but someone has to market them and sell them which is normally the job of the tie suppliers. There is an awful pot of work involved in being a tie supplier. For one thing, tie suppliers must stay in contact with a particular school or company in order to ensure that they are always on top of the school or company requirements.

With schools especially, it is very much a seasonal business when one is involved in the world of ties as a tie supplier. One normally finds that there are 2 main times in the year that school ties are required, this being the start of winter due to winter uniform and the other being end of the year which is in time for the start of the new year when all the schools reopen and start to issue or sell school uniform to the students and parents.

When it comes to corporate ties and corporate scarves for that matter, the uptake is rather different depending on whether the custom ties are manufactured by tie makers for uniform purposes or as a once off item.

If the corporate ties or scarves are manufactured for uniform purposes then normally ties will be ordered according to stock on hand and model stock levels keeping in mind that the time it takes to manufacture corporate ties and school ties from start to finish when working with printed ties for example is in the region of 6 to 8 weeks from start to finish.

When it comes to once off orders, these are very often required for a specific date which of course tie makers or tie manufacturers must adhere to otherwise they may not make delivery for a certain date for example an anniversary date which needs to be celebrated at a specific time or date.

Some schools also do this, especially when it comes to for example 50^th or 100^th anniversaries which need to be celebrated at that specific time before the interest for anniversary items dies down and the opportunity is missed.