Buying Turkish Towels in Bulk: A Guide for Hotels, Spas, Beach Clubs and Boutiques

Buying twenty towels for your home and buying a few hundred for a business are different jobs. At home, if one towel is a shade off or a little thinner than the rest, nobody notices. In a spa where every treatment room is stocked the same way, or a shop where one design sits in a stack on a shelf, it shows straight away.

This guide is for hotels, spas, hammams, beach clubs and boutiques buying Turkish towels in quantity. It covers what to put in writing before you order, the questions to ask any supplier (us included), and how to test samples so the delivery matches what you approved.

Start with how the towels will be used

Hotels

Guest bathrooms usually call for terry, typically a bath towel and a matching hand towel for each guest. Think about laundering as much as feel. Hotel towels are washed far more often than towels at home, often in commercial machines, so durability and drying time cost you something every day. Our Damask Bath Towel (180 × 90 cm, 900 g) and its matching Damask Hand Towel are the pair to look at for this. For the pool or the hotel beach, a flat-woven peshtemal makes more sense.

Spas and hammams

The peshtemal is the traditional cloth of the Turkish bath, and it suits a spa for practical reasons. Flat-woven cotton is light, dries quickly between treatments, and takes less space in the laundry and on the shelf than terry. For guest robes, the Mini Diamond Robe is 100% cotton, 550 g, in sizes S to XL, and comes in 20 colourways.

Beach clubs and pools

Here you want size, colour and fast drying. Sand doesn’t cling to flat weave the way it clings to terry loops, and a peshtemal dries between guests far faster than a terry beach towel. Heavier peshtemals, like the 400 g Demre in ten colours, give guests something that still works as a wrap when the evening turns cool. Strong sun fades any dyed cotton over time, so ask about colourfastness and plan to rotate stock.

Boutiques and concept stores

Retail is about range and presentation. You want designs that photograph well, enough colourways to fill a display, and products that explain themselves on the label: composition, size and weight. Reversible double-face jacquards, robes and layered muslin blankets give a display variety in both pattern and texture. The line sheet on our wholesale page lists the current designs in each line and the number of colourways per line.

What to put in your specification

Write these down for every item, and ask the supplier to confirm them back to you in writing.

Composition

Exact percentages, such as “100% cotton” or “70% cotton, 30% linen”. Never just “cotton blend”. Composition affects absorbency, drying time, feel and how the towel stands up to laundering. If you resell, it also has to be right on your own labels.

Weight per piece

Agree the weight in grams for each item, and ask the supplier how much variation they consider normal between pieces. Woven cloth varies a little from piece to piece. Agree on that range before the order ships, so neither side is surprised.

Finished size

Give length and width, and state whether the length includes the fringe. For a beach club, a few centimetres either way may not matter. For a shelf of folded towels in a shop, it can.

Weave and finish

Name the weave: flat, double-face jacquard, terry, terry-backed or waffle. Then the ends: twisted fringe, knotted fringe or a hem. Fringe is part of the look of a peshtemal, but ask how it holds up to repeated machine washing, and test it in your own laundry before you commit.

Colour

Name the colour, and approve a physical sample of it. Screens and photos are unreliable for matching colour. If you plan to reorder over several seasons, ask how the supplier handles colour consistency between production batches.

Care

Ask for the recommended wash temperature and drying method, then compare them with what your laundry actually does. A towel that is happy at 30°C (86°F) at home may behave differently at the higher temperatures many commercial laundries use.

Colour consistency across batches

Yarn is dyed in batches, often called dye lots, and two lots of the same named colour can differ slightly. On a single towel nobody notices. On a stack of folded towels from two different orders, side by side, people can. A few habits help:

• Order everything one room or one display needs in a single order, so it’s more likely to come from one batch.
• Keep one unwashed piece from each delivery as your colour reference.
• When you reorder, send a photo of that reference piece and ask the supplier to compare it with current stock.
• Compare old and new stock in daylight before mixing them in the same room or display.
• Washed towels fade a little over time, so replace a room’s set together rather than one towel at a time.

Questions to ask any supplier

• What exactly is the composition of each item?
• What does each piece weigh, and how much does that vary?
• Are the sizes measured with or without the fringe?
• Can you send samples before I commit to an order?
• If I reorder later, how will you match the colours of my first order?
• What is the minimum quantity per design and per colour?
• How long will my quantity take to prepare and ship?
• What are the care instructions, and how do the towels behave at commercial wash temperatures?
• Do you ship to my country, and who handles customs duties and import taxes?
• How are the goods packed, and can you add my own labels or packaging?
• What happens if a parcel arrives damaged?

Ask us all of them. Put these questions in your inquiry and we will answer them for your order. Wholesale orders follow the terms agreed for that order, so settle how damaged or faulty pieces are handled before you confirm. For retail orders, our return policy covers it: email us a photo within 14 days of delivery and we send a replacement or a refund.

How to use samples properly

Our wholesale page invites buyers to ask for samples before committing to an order. Any supplier worth working with should be willing to do the same. A sample only helps if you test it, though. A simple routine:

• Weigh each sample on a kitchen scale and measure it before washing. Write the numbers down.
• Keep one sample of each item unwashed as your reference for colour and feel.
• Wash the rest the way your business will: same machine, temperature, detergent and drying. Repeat several times.
• Weigh and measure again. Some shrinkage is normal for cotton. You’re checking that it’s within what you can live with.
• Wash a white cloth alongside the darker samples and check it for colour transfer.
• After several cycles, look closely at the fringe, the hems and the side edges.
• Put the washed towels in front of the people who will use them: staff, therapists, a few regular guests.

Base your final specification on the washed samples, since that is how the towels will spend most of their working life.

Shipping and customs

We ship from Istanbul. Our shipping list covers 21 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and much of Western Europe. If your business is outside that list, our shipping page asks wholesalers to get in touch about wholesale global shipping options.

Retail orders go by priority shipping and should arrive in 3 to 5 working days, with occasional delays at customs. For wholesale quantities, ask about delivery timing in your inquiry rather than relying on the retail estimate. Import duties and taxes depend on your country and the goods, so check with your customs broker or local customs authority before you set a budget.

Sending us a wholesale inquiry

As our wholesale page and FAQ say, we work with international wholesalers on a regular basis. The inquiry form asks for your name, business name, email, website or Instagram, country, type of business, the product lines you’re interested in and a rough quantity range. The more specific your message, the more useful our reply. It helps to include:

• the products and colours you’re considering, named as on the line sheet;
• approximate quantities for each item;
• the destination country and city;
• how the towels will be used and laundered;
• whether you would like samples first, and of what.

We reply with our wholesale prices, and you can ask for samples before you commit. When you’re ready, send your list through the wholesale inquiry form.

Further reading: Turkish Towel Weight Explained: What 280 g, 400 g and 900 g Mean · How to Tell a Real Turkish Towel From an Imitation