For Buyers, Marketing, Merchandising Managers – Screen Printing
Are you are looking for the vendor to produce promotional T-Shirts for your company? You need a competitive quote and your favorite search engine has made it easy for you to find a wide variety of options. A typical search result on “t-shirt screen printer” will return about 1,680,000 results.
Not all will be commercial results, of course, but you will be looking at many possible options for sure. How do you select the top contenders among so many results? How do you pick a winner who will offer you the best deal? Looking for in-depth information
Let’s start by defining “best deal.” A best deal can’t be the cheaper choice. ‘Best’ implies competitive pricing and best quality of service and products.
Our suggestion is to look at your business goals.
Are you an non-profit organization looking to create awareness or a company getting ready to go to a trade show? Perhaps a museum buyer looking to reproduce fine art on t-shirts for the latest exhibit? If you are representing your company or institution with the t-shirts you are about to screen print, you do need to care for quality of the product as much as pricing.
Some may say that a t-shirt is just a t-shirt. But you can say that about pretty much everything, can’t you? I mean, using a food analogy, a burger is just a burger. But you would not ask a waiter of a nice restaurant why the 1/4 pound cheese burger on the menu is $16.95 when you can buy it at McDonald’s for $2.99. No! You instinctively know that you are paying more for the service, the experience and the quality of the ingredients.
You deserve better quality and so does the company you are working for. It is the same with t-shirt screen printing. You can send ten requests for quotes and just select the lowest bid or you can take a little time to research your best option. Select the company that will be the best match for your business and that will offer you the quality that your business requires, and the service that you deserve. T-shirts are powerful promotional items and a key component of your marketing mix or branding efforts.
When it comes to representing you business and your brand it is important to select you screen printer carefully to assure that the quality of the end product will speak about your company in a way that you, your employees and your users can feel proud about.
Screen printers can be messy shops, small under-capitalize shops, one person garage want-to-be’s or they can be professional operations that take enormous pride in quality and attention to detail. You will be able to tell right-away just by looking at some web sites.
Sure, on the web a small companies can appear big and capable, but the best companies will never look small and cheesy. The best companies are the best because they see quality not as a sales pitch, but as reflection of their own values.
The best companies care about details on their web site pages as much as they care about the details on your t-shirts, labels, polly bags, shipping, etc. The best will pay attention to the user experience of their web site as much as they will pay attention to you as a valued client.
A web site full of free offers and flashing banners may be insecure of their own abilities and qualifications to do a superior job. That is way some over-compensate by offering so much for “free.” Be aware of this.
Here are a few tips:
1. Getting a quote. Once you have narrowed down the field to say 2 or 3 shops go for a quote request. Many screen printers offer quick quote forms where you can get a price in seconds. Not so easy. Quote forms can’t hardly capture your real needs and that is why the best don’t have them.
Professionals will rather invite you to call to discuss your unique needs because they are not trying to reduce customer service calls costs. They are interested in building a relationship and offering excellent service, and to work with you to make your project a success.
Some people don’t value this. The less human contact the better, the cheaper the merrier.
Some people feel attracted to cheap and quick and will gladly pick www.cheaptshirts.us or the many other cheap-t-shirt dot com’s out there just like they would eat at a fast food restaurant.
Value is a subjective concept.
But you are a professional working for a serious company and your job is to produce the best products. Your choice will be a reflection of your own work. You want to do a good job and produce the t-shirts that people will want to wear.
How would you feel presenting your boss a recommendation for cheap.com? Would it not be better to present a recommendation for the best screen printer, proudly sharing their client list, a sample and a quote I can defend with confidence? Pick the best!
2. Pricing is flexible. The tip to keep in mind is that there is a great deal of flexibility in Screen Printing pricing. You can select from a variety of t-shirt brands and techniques to adjust your budget. Talk to your account manager about your limits and have him/her give you suggestions for how to make your budget work.
From selecting digital printing, classic screen printing or contract printing, to letting the shop buy the products for you. Each option has pros and cons and your job is to know the alternatives to make the best decision. Ask about the process and understand what is involved in production.
Each case is different and may have different costs. It is a good thing to be mindful of this in order to judge if pricing is high or low. It is so easy to ask the vendor to lower their prices but some costs are fixed so you are basically asking to sell you the products at cost or at a lose.
If you don’t allow your vendor to make a profit on your jobs how will you expect more from them in terms of intangibles. Remember, you have ten other deadlines. Pick a t-shirt Screen Printer that offers account management rather than sales reps. Yes! this means that a big chunk of your job will be taken care by an experience professional whose job is to function as your personal project manager.
A person that is happy to guide you along the way and care about your projects as if they were his/hers making your work life easier. This is priceless! Please visit this website