How we built the Norma catalogue: decisions, standards, and things we turned down

How we built the Norma catalogue: decisions, standards, and things we turned down

When we started building Norma, we had two options for the catalogue. The first was to offer everything: hundreds of SKUs, every product type, something for every occasion and budget. The second was to build a short list of things we genuinely believed in, photograph them honestly, publish the specification in full, and not apologise for what we do not carry.

We chose the second. This is the story of why, and what it cost us.

Key takeaways

• The Norma catalogue is capped at 30 items. We add a new item only when an existing one is removed or retired.
• Every cotton item we carry is certified to the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS). We do not stock uncertified cotton apparel.
• All printing is done in the UK, at two facilities we visited in person before we approved the first order.
• We test fabric weights ourselves before listing. A garment listed at 350gsm that arrives at 310gsm goes back.
• We turn down requests for specific items every month. This is not a positioning exercise. It is how we stay honest.

Why we cap the catalogue at 30 items

The catalogue limit came from a practical observation before it became a principle.

When we were prototyping the platform in early 2024, we ran a test with a catalogue of 60 items and a catalogue of 18 items, showed both to a representative set of B2B buyers in People Ops and procurement, and asked them which produced more confident purchase decisions. The short catalogue won by a significant margin. The feedback was consistent: more options meant more uncertainty, more comparison, and more time spent wondering whether the thing they had not clicked on was better than the thing they were looking at.

That result is consistent with a body of behavioural economics research on what Barry Schwartz called the paradox of choice, but we did not need academic justification. We had direct feedback from the people we were building for.

The cap creates a discipline internally. Every item in the catalogue has to justify its place. When we are asked to add something new, the question is not "is this a good product?" The question is "is this better than the least necessary item currently in the catalogue?" If it is, we make the swap. If it is not, we decline. This is harder than it sounds. We have turned down some genuinely well-made products because the catalogue slot was occupied by something that served our customers better.

The number 30 is not magical. It is the number we found that covers the three main use cases (employee, client, event) without redundancy. Below 20, we would start missing important categories. Above 35, we would start stocking variants that exist to fill space rather than serve a distinct need.

How we test fabric weights

Fabric weight is the most reliable single proxy for quality in apparel. A 350gsm hoodie will survive washing and wear in a way that a 260gsm hoodie will not. The specification is also one of the easiest things to misrepresent.

Our testing process is simple. We order a sample batch of every garment before it enters the catalogue. We weigh a section of the fabric using a cut-weight test: a 10cm by 10cm square of the body fabric is cut, weighed on a calibrated scale, and the result is extrapolated to grams per square metre. We do this on five samples from the same batch and average the result.

The tolerance we accept is plus or minus 5 percent of the stated specification. A garment listed at 350gsm must test between 332 and 368 gsm to pass. Anything outside that range goes back to the supplier with the test data, and the listing is held until a compliant batch is provided.

We do this again periodically on production orders. Not every order, because that would add cost and delay without proportionate benefit. But we run spot checks on a rotating basis, and we record the results internally. Over two years of doing this, we have had three suppliers who failed a spot check. Two resolved it with a revised fabric source. One did not, and we removed their product from the catalogue.

This process is not unique to us. Any supplier with a serious commitment to specification accuracy does something similar. We mention it here because the testing record is what we point to when a customer asks how we know what they say is what they ship.

The decision to stock only GOTS cotton

In the summer of 2023, when we were finalising the initial product list, we had a choice about cotton certification. GOTS-certified cotton garments from UK-viable suppliers ran at a 15 to 25 percent unit cost premium over uncertified equivalents at the same fabric weight. That premium was real and it affected our price competitiveness on a category comparison.

We chose to absorb most of that premium and stock only GOTS-certified cotton. The reason was not primarily ESG positioning. It was about verifiability.

GOTS is a full chain-of-custody standard. A GOTS certificate number on a garment means the organic claim has been verified at every stage from the field to the finished garment by a third-party auditor. The alternative, "made with organic cotton," often means the fibre source is organic but the chain of custody is not certified. Cotton can be mixed with conventional fibre at the ginning or spinning stage without any mechanism for the buyer to know.

When a customer puts our heavyweight cotton tee in an employee welcome kit and asks "is this actually organic?", we can provide a GOTS certificate number and a verification link. That is the answer the question deserves. "We source from an organic-first supplier" is not.

The 15 to 25 percent premium compressed over two years to closer to 10 percent as our order volumes grew and as GOTS-certified supply in our weight range expanded. It is not a trivial premium. For some orders, it is the difference between being the cheapest option and not being. We think it is worth it, and we have found that the B2B customers we work with most regularly agree.

Why we print in the UK

We considered overseas production seriously. The arithmetic is straightforward: a screen print run from a facility in Eastern Europe or South Asia costs 20 to 40 percent less per unit than an equivalent run from a UK facility. On a 500-piece order, that is a meaningful sum.

We use UK printing for three reasons.

Lead times. A UK-based production run delivers in three to five working days. An overseas run requires three to six weeks for production plus shipping. For an onboarding programme where kits need to arrive before a start date, that lead time difference is not a margin question. It is a capability question. We decided early that we wanted to be able to ship a kit within a week of a signed offer letter, which ruled out anything that depended on overseas production.

Quality control. When something goes wrong with a UK production run, we can have someone at the facility within hours. When something goes wrong overseas, the correction cycle is measured in weeks. A print registration fault on 150 hoodies that are needed for a conference in eight days is a solvable problem if the production is in the UK. It is not solvable by the conference date if the production is elsewhere.

Verification. Both of our printing partners have been visited in person. We know the people who run the presses. We have seen the colour matching process, the QC station, and the dispatch process. We cannot offer that verification for a facility we have never been to. The visit is not a certification. It is a form of accountability that paper documentation does not fully replace.

What we turn down

We keep a log of product requests we have received and declined. It is one of the more honest internal documents we maintain.

We have declined requests for:

• Budget apparel below 150gsm. We have had customers ask for a tee in the £5 to £8 range for event giveaways. Those garments exist. They do not meet our fabric spec. We refer customers to suppliers who make them rather than offering a lower-weight variant under the Norma label.
• Plastic merchandise. Branded plastic pens, plastic key rings, and standard plastic water bottles. The category fails both our quality and our materials criteria. We do not stock it.
• Unverified recycled polyester. Several suppliers have offered us fleeces and outerwear described as recycled polyester without GRS certification. We ask for the certificate number and are told the certification is "in progress" or that their supplier is "effectively GRS-standard." We do not list those garments. When the certificate arrives, we revisit.
• Products with minimum orders above our default 25-unit threshold. Some excellent manufacturers will not work below 500 units. Their products are well made. The terms do not work for our customers, so we do not carry them.
• Items with no clear use case. Branded stress balls. Generic keyrings. Printed paper cups. These are not bad products; they are products that do not have a useful job in the employee, client, or event context we design around. We have politely said no to each of them.

The log is useful because it is easy to drift. If you add one low-spec item as an exception, the next exception is easier to justify. Writing the decisions down and reviewing the list quarterly prevents the catalogue from growing in ways that are individually justified but collectively inconsistent.

The catalogue review process

We review the full catalogue twice a year, in January and July. The review asks three questions for every item.

First: have our customers ordered this item at least 40 times in the past six months? Below that threshold, the item is either too niche for our customer base or has been superseded by something they prefer. Neither is a reason to keep it.

Second: has the supplier held their specification across the last three production batches? We check our spot test records. If there are two specification failures in the last six batches, the item is on notice. If there are three, it is removed.

Third: is there a demonstrably better version of this item available from a supplier who meets our criteria? "Better" means meaningfully better on specification, not marginally different. We do not swap for novelty.

The review produces a list of items to retire, items on notice, and items in active consideration for addition. In January 2025, we retired two items (a midweight tee that had been superseded by our heavier-weight equivalent and a 250ml bottle that customers consistently found too small) and added one (a 500ml insulated bottle from a supplier who had just achieved GRS certification on their recycled steel range).

We do not add items without retiring one unless we are below 25 active SKUs. We have been below that threshold once, when we retired a large batch of items after a supplier relationship ended in late 2024. We brought the catalogue back to 28 items within six weeks by qualifying two new suppliers, testing the fabric samples, and running the visit programme.

What the process looks like for a new supplier qualification

When a new product candidate arrives, the qualification sequence is:

1. Request the certification documentation. GOTS number for cotton. GRS number for recycled materials. OEKO-TEX number as a minimum floor for anything else.
2. Order a sample batch of 10 units for fabric weight testing.
3. Run the cut-weight test on five samples. Record the results against the specification.
4. Visit the production facility if the supplier is UK-based. For any supplier who would be producing garments with personalised printing or embroidery, the facility visit is non-negotiable.
5. Place a 25-unit test order with a client's design, run through our standard production and QC process.
6. Review the output against the specification, the colour match, and the print registration tolerance.
7. If all six steps pass, the item enters the catalogue on a provisional listing.
8. After three months and at least 30 customer orders, the provisional status is removed.

The process takes 6 to 10 weeks. It is slow. We have occasionally lost customers who wanted a product we could not list in time. That is a cost of the process, and it is worth it.

FAQ

Why does the Norma catalogue only have 30 items?

A shorter catalogue produces better purchase decisions for B2B buyers. It also creates an internal discipline: every item has to justify its place, and a new addition requires a retirement. The limit prevents the catalogue from expanding with products that fill space rather than serve a distinct customer need.

Does Norma only use GOTS certified cotton?

Yes. Every cotton garment in the Norma catalogue is certified to the Global Organic Textile Standard. We do not stock cotton apparel without a verifiable GOTS certificate number. The premium over uncertified cotton at comparable fabric weights is approximately 10 percent at our current volumes.

Why does Norma print in the UK?

Three reasons: UK printing delivers in three to five working days, which enables pre-day-one onboarding kit arrival. It allows in-person quality control when something needs attention quickly. And we have visited both production partners in person, which is a form of accountability we cannot extend to facilities we have not seen.

How does Norma test fabric weights?

We use a cut-weight test: a 10 by 10 cm section of the body fabric is cut from a sample garment and weighed on a calibrated scale. The result is extrapolated to grams per square metre. We test five samples per batch and accept a tolerance of plus or minus 5 percent of the stated specification. Batches outside tolerance are returned to the supplier.

What types of products does Norma not carry?

We do not carry apparel below 150gsm, plastic merchandise, unverified recycled polyester, or products with minimum orders above 25 units. We also do not carry products without a clear use case in the employee, client, or event context we design around. We turn down products regularly when they do not meet these criteria.