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![]() Decoration Diversification Increases Service To Your Existing Customers
By Jimmy Lamb, Manager of Communications and Education — Consumer Division, Sawgrass Technologies
Are you looking for an untapped gold mine of business? Consider your existing customer base. Statistics show that it costs approximately six times more to create a new customer than it does to service an existing one, yet most businesses focus the majority of their energy on bringing in new customers. Why?
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Most likely, your current customers have needs that you can't fulfill with your current decoration capabilities. Most shops only offer one form of decoration, while the average customer has more than one decorating need.
For example, let's say you are an embroiderer who does a lot of work for schools. You likely produce caps, polos, sweats and a handful of other garment items with small embroidered logos. The question to ask is this: What else are your customers buying from other sources? Schools have needs for plaques, awards, ID products, spirit items, athletic uniforms, full-color T-shirts, etc. But if you are only an embroiderer or screen printer (or both), you aren't getting that business because you don't have the capacity to produce it. You are missing out on real income opportunities.
The secondary issue, which is far more serious, is the total loss of a reliable client. When your customer looks elsewhere for the items you can't produce and finds another source, they may discover that the new supplier also provides the same services you offer. In that situation, the customer may use this new source for all of their needs. You lost a customer not because of anything you did, but because of what you can't do.
Screen Printing
Most screen printers charge by the number of colors, since each additional color adds more time to the production process, and for art setup and screen creation. Screen printing works well for virtually any garment, and design size has little effect on the price. However, it has a lower perceived value than some other processes, so price can be a major issue in the marketplace.
One weakness for screen printing is color designs on dark shirts. It requires a more complex production process and the quality of the final product will depend upon the skills of the shop doing the work. Though screen printing can be done on caps, in general, embroidery fits better for headwear.
The main drawback for screen printing is that it's not an ideal short run production solution. All designs, no matter how simple, require a substantial amount of setup. Thus, on a cost-per-shirt basis, small runs are not nearly as competitive in price as large ones. Also, some things that would appear simple are not, such as adding personal names to shirts or jackets. A separate screen must be generated for each name. In contrast, an embroiderer can generate a name without any more effort than typing it on a computer keyboard.
Direct-to-Garment Printing
The benefit of DTG is the ability to quickly set up and produce small runs. In the time spent to prepare art, burn screens and set up a screen printing press for 12 T-shirts with a six-color design, you could produce, package and ship the same order using DTG.
Much like screen printing, DTG struggles to produce multi-color designs on dark fabrics and most users of the equipment avoid this process altogether. Also, most machines do not support cap printing. In addition, many of the machines are limited to printing on 100 percent cotton and 50/50 fabrics. Find out what your supplier's capabilities are before making any assumptions, especially if you need to print on poly-performance materials.
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Digital Transfers
For little investment, you can print T-shirts that are as high quality as those produced by a DTG printer. The main limitation is that you can't print dark garments with the digital transfer process.
Sublimation
![]() The limitation of sublimation is that it only works on polymer-based surfaces, which means some form of polyester. But with the surging demand for poly-performance apparel, sublimation is the ideal process to have in-house. Some DTG inks and screen print inks also work on polyester fabrics, but rarely do they have the vivid detail and color that comes from sublimation. And most of those inks are surface applications, whereas sublimation actually dyes the fabrics.
Embroidery Artwork must be digitized specifically for embroidery before it can be run on a machine. This is not a "scan and sew" process and requires quite a bit of time to accomplish, much like screen printing art setup. Therefore, it is typical to have a digitizing fee for each design that may be based on the total number of stitches and is usually quoted in "cost per thousand stitches." More stitches means more time to produce and a greater cost. In the case of plain text, it can be generated from a keyboard quickly and easily and rarely involves a setup fee. While embroidery is more expensive to produce than screen printing or digital printing, it has an extremely elegant and three-dimensional appearance (when done properly). This higher perceived value leads to higher margins.
Piecing it All Together Jimmy Lamb has more than 20 years of apparel decoration business experience including business startup, operations, techniques, marketing, sales, mobile, digitizing and management. He is currently the manager of communications and education for Sawgrass Technologies where he has been instrumental in developing their educational seminars and webinars. jlamb@sawgrassink.com This article appeared in the SGIA Journal, 1st Quarter 2011 Issue and is reprinted with permission. Copyright 2011 Specialty Graphic Imaging Association (www.sgia.org). All Rights Reserved.
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