Uniforms and Equipment: Fourteen Suppliers, and Every One of Them Sells to Your Students Too

Martial Arts Professional Directory · Uniforms and equipment

Fourteen suppliers were read for this entry. Every single one of them sells the same goods direct to your students, at published prices, from the same website you buy from. Not one operates a dealer-protected model, and not one publishes a minimum advertised price policy. That is the defining fact of this category, and almost nothing in the wholesale sales pitch acknowledges it.

Compiled 9 September 2026 from suppliers’ own published wholesale and retail pages · No supplier paid for inclusion or placement · Methodology, gaps and blocked sites at the foot

What the pro shop is actually competing with

Every school owner running a pro shop is running a retail business against the manufacturer that supplies it. That is not a scandal — it is how most of consumer goods works — but in this industry it is unusually complete, and unusually unacknowledged.

A parent who wants a belt does not need to ask you. Century publishes a double-wrap solid belt at $6.99, an adult BJJ belt at $17.99 and a deluxe black belt at $19.99, all buyable by anyone. AWMA publishes ProForce belts from $7.99 to $49.99. Fuji publishes its All Around Gi at $115.95 and its IBJJF-approved competition gi at $179.95. Those are the prices sitting one search away from the student standing at your counter.

What you are actually selling in the pro shop is convenience, fit, immediacy, the school logo and the fact that the belt arrives the day it is earned. Price it as that. The one thing that does not work is pretending the parent cannot see the alternative.

What each supplier publishes about trade terms

Read from each supplier’s own wholesale and retail pages on 9 September 2026. “Not published” means the supplier’s site does not state it, not that no such term exists. Tiger Claw and Swain are absent because their sites could not be reached at all — see the methodology.
Supplier	Published discount	Minimum order	To qualify	Free shipping to trade
AWMA Asian World of Martial Arts	“Over 50% off Retail Prices”, then 5% over $250, 10% over $500, 15% over $750. Extra 20% on a first order	Not published	Application collects business name, website and FEIN. No stated licence requirement	First order only, contiguous US. Retail otherwise $15.95 flat
Century Martial Arts	“Up to 50% off”, then 5% at $250, 10% at $500, 15% at $1,000, plus “up to an additional 15% off certain items”	Not published	School, gym, program director or dealer; a sales tax ID or resale licence; and a marketing document. Instructors may apply as a program director	No — wholesale freight is banded, then 12.9% of order above $200. See below
Macho Products	25% off a first order of $500, then an unpublished “Invoice Discount Program”	“No minimum purchase”	The strictest published gate: Federal ID number, proof of business licence, and proof of business by brochure, website or social media. “Must be a valid school owner”	Not published
Elite Sports	Not published as a percentage — but publishes actual wholesale prices openly	“We do not gate keep. Order as little as a single gi if that’s what you need”	Application only; no tax ID or licence stated. Mainland US only	Not published. Ships within 48 hours, delivery 5–7 business days
Fuji Sports	Not published	“NO MINIMUMS”	None published	Yes, over $250, UPS Ground contiguous US. Six days from the New Jersey warehouse
Combat Corner	Not published	None — states it removes “the burden of minimum order requirements”	None published	Yes, over $500. The only supplier here covering soft goods and cage and ring build-out on one account
KI International	Not published	Exists, amount withheld. “If you cannot meet the minimum for just initial order, we cannot offer a commercial/wholesale account”	Business licence or school brochure. California buyers also need a resale certificate and seller’s permit	No — wholesale pays actual weight-based freight while retail gets flat $8.95 or $6.95. Trading since 1974
Zebra Athletics Mats	Not published; no formal dealer programme published	Concedes that “some customized products also require quantity minimums” without naming any	Not published	Not published. Stock ships in 2–3 business days; freight transit 7–10 days
Ringside Combat Brands	Not published	Not published	Not published — the wholesale page contains no figures of any kind, only a named contact	Not published. Runs public sale and liquidation sections against its dealers
Hayabusa	Not published	Not published	Not published. Runs a “Find My Gym” programme whose mechanics, revenue share and discount are all unpublished	Not published
Tatami Fightwear	Not published	Not published	Not published. Two named trade tracks, Academy and Wholesale, both amounting to an email address	Not published. Public clearance section runs against academy accounts
Sanabul	Not published	Not published	Not published — the wholesale page is a contact form carrying no commercial terms at all	Not published
Dollamur Mats	Not published	Not published	Not published. Its published dealer categories are turf, international and cheer/gymnastics — there is no martial arts school dealer category	Not published. Sells home and workout mats direct online
BJJ Drop Drop-ship manufacturer	Not published	“No minimum orders for drop shipping” — order 10, or drop ship one at a time	Not published. No company registration, address or trading history is published; the contact is a free email address	Not published. The only supplier here with no consumer storefront

Two suppliers publish a ladder. One publishes a price. Eleven publish nothing.

AWMA and Century are the only two that publish a complete, checkable discount structure on an open page. Macho publishes an opening offer and withholds its ongoing tiers. Every other supplier in the table publishes no percentage at all.

Elite Sports is the only supplier that publishes an actual wholesale unit price without a login — its Essential adult BJJ gi at $29.99 against a $49.99 compare-at, with the equivalent gi on its consumer site at $47.05 on sale and $58.81 regular. It is therefore the only supplier where you can confirm your margin before applying for an account.

Everywhere else the sequence is: apply, get approved, log in, and only then find out whether the supplier was worth applying to. Century’s wholesale belt pages display product names and colour options with the prices hidden entirely.

The freight inversion at two suppliers, and it is checkable

You would expect the trade channel to be treated better than the retail one. At two suppliers, on published terms, it is not.

Century. A consumer spending $200 or more ships free. A wholesale account spending $200 pays 12.9% of the order — about $25.80 — and the site states the freight percentage is “calculated on the total before any discounts,” so your discount does not reduce it. Below $200 the wholesale account pays a banded rate from $14.40 to $24.80, against $16 to $25 at retail. Wooden weapons carry $2 each, swords $6, and puzzle mats are quote-only.

KI International. Retail gets a flat $8.95 or $6.95. Wholesale accounts are charged “actual shipping charge based on weight.”

Where free shipping does favour the trade it is clearly stated and modest: Fuji at $250 of wholesale, Combat Corner at $500, AWMA on a first order only.

Work out your landed cost, not your wholesale price
On a $200 Century order at the 5% tier, the discount saves you $10 and the freight costs you $25.80. Any comparison between suppliers that stops at the discount percentage is the wrong comparison. Price a realistic monthly basket — the belts, gis and gloves you actually reorder — delivered, from two suppliers, and compare those two numbers.

The two numbers nobody in this industry publishes

Eleven of the fourteen suppliers advertise custom logo work: embroidery, screen printing, sublimation, engraving, custom belt embroidery, private label. It is one of the most consistently promoted services in the category.

Not one supplier publishes a setup fee, a digitising or screen charge, or a minimum piece count. Those are the only two numbers that determine whether a branded-uniform order is viable for a school of forty students, and they are absent across the entire category. Exactly one supplier publishes a custom turnaround: Century, at “15-20 business days.” Zebra goes as far as acknowledging that some custom products carry quantity minimums, without naming one.

Ask for all three in writing before you design anything: the one-off setup or digitising charge, the minimum pieces per run, and the turnaround for a reorder rather than a first order. A school that commits to branded uniforms and then discovers a 48-piece minimum has committed to inventory, not to a uniform.

Drop-shipping to students: one real programme

The obvious answer to a pro shop competing with its own supplier is to stop holding stock and let the supplier ship to the student. Exactly one mainstream supplier publishes that as a programme.

AWMA publishes the full mechanism: the school sets its own pricing, collects student orders and payment, then places individual orders at wholesale rates and AWMA ships direct to the student’s address. It requires an existing wholesale account, offers a downloadable order form that can carry your logo and your prices, and states plainly: “We’ve removed all drop shipping fees since you’re entering your order online.”

No other named supplier addresses drop-shipping at all. The only other offer found is BJJ Drop, a small manufacturer that will drop ship single items and produce in runs of ten — and which publishes no prices, no company address, no registration and no trading history, listing a free email account as its contact. That is worth knowing before you route student orders through it.

The invisible category: belts

A belt is the single most predictable recurring purchase a martial arts school makes. Every school knows roughly how many of each colour it will need next year, and every school buys them again the year after.

Not one supplier in this survey publishes a belt or rank supply programme. No rank-set bundles, no standing order, no per-rank pricing, no scheduled delivery against a testing calendar. Century and AWMA sell belts individually at retail with public prices; Century’s wholesale belt prices are hidden behind a login; AWMA offers custom bundles at special pricing only by telephone.

If you buy belts by rank set on a testing cycle, ask for a standing-order price. On the published evidence you will be asking for something the category has not thought to sell you.

What to establish before opening an account

Landed cost on a real basket, not a discount percentage. Include freight, and ask whether freight is calculated before or after your discount.
The retail price of the same item on the supplier’s own site. That is what your student can pay. If your wholesale cost is close to it, the account is not worth having.
Is there a minimum advertised price policy? No supplier in this survey published one. Ask anyway, and ask what happens to your margin during their clearance events.
Custom: setup fee, minimum pieces, reorder turnaround. All three in writing, all three before you approve artwork.
The minimum order, if the supplier admits one exists. One supplier states a minimum and will not publish the figure.
Drop-ship terms if you would rather not hold stock: who pays the freight, whose branding is on the packing slip, and who handles a return.
Returns, restocking and warranty. Century publishes a 30-day window, a 90-day defect warranty and a note that returns “may include an exchange fee or restocking fee” without naming it.
Whether custom and clearance items are returnable at all. Usually not, and that is where an inventory mistake becomes permanent.

Methodology

Every term was read from the supplier’s own published wholesale and retail pages on 9 September 2026 — not from third-party round-ups, marketplace listings, review sites or competitors’ comparison pages. Retail prices are quoted to establish what a school’s own students can pay for the same goods; they are not presented as the school’s cost.

Two suppliers could not be read and nothing has been substituted for them. Tiger Claw’s site failed TLS certificate verification on every attempt across four URLs, consistent with an incomplete or misconfigured certificate chain; no Tiger Claw term is reported here and its wholesale programme remains unverified. Swain did not respond at all. Both are long-standing suppliers to this industry and their absence is a limit of this method, not a judgement.

Several published wholesale URLs are dead as at this date and a school owner searching will hit them: Century’s /wholesale path, KI International’s wholesale-account page, Hayabusa’s /pages/wholesale, Tatami’s /pages/wholesale, and both of Zebra’s wholesale paths all return 404. The live pages in each case sit elsewhere on the site or on a separate wholesale subdomain.

Where a supplier publishes no figure, the table says so rather than estimating one. No supplier was contacted before publication, given advance sight of this page, or invited to review it. Any supplier willing to publish a custom setup fee, a minimum piece count or a belt supply programme is invited to do so, and this page will record it. Corrections are published under our editorial policy.

Disclosure

Martial Arts Professional has no advertising, affiliate or referral relationship with any supplier listed on this page and receives no commission on anything a reader buys. No fee was accepted for inclusion or for position; the table is ordered by how much each supplier publishes, not by preference.

One structural relationship in this market is worth naming because it crosses categories: Century Martial Arts created the Martial Arts Industry Association — Century states on its own site that “In 2001, Century created the Martial Arts Industry Association, or MAIA” — and the two co-host the industry’s largest trade show. MAIA is a commercial competitor of NAPMA, this magazine’s publisher. Both facts are stated so readers can weigh this page in either direction. The full picture is in the associations entry.

The magazine is published by NAPMA, the National Association of Professional Martial Artists, whose CEO and Chairman, Grand Master Stephen Oliver, also founded Martial Arts Wealth Mastery, a coaching company for school owners. Neither sells uniforms or equipment. If a commercial relationship ever exists between any of those organisations and a supplier listed here, it will be named in that supplier’s row.