Screen printers, embroiderers and DTF/heat press apparel decorators need to plan for this busy time of year
It’s easy for custom apparel decorators to get caught up in the day-to-day and find themselves with the holidays—Thanksgiving through New Years—suddenly upon them. If you’ve been in business for a few years or more, you’ll have some history to help you plan, assuming you’ve been good about keeping track of things like sales and production. If you’re new to the business, you’ll have to “best guess” it, while at the same time keeping track of how things go for next season.
This article is a guide to help you prepare for what most apparel and product decorators find is their busiest and most compressed production window of the year. Whether you’re a screen printer, embroiderer, direct-to-garment (DTG), sublimation, heat press/direct-to-film (DTF) or screen-print decorator, your preparation will be much the same. No matter what part you play in the holiday marketplace—as a producer, seller or both—there are several things you can and should do to make sure you’re prepared.
I have a friend who worked with a company that did a substantial part of its yearly business between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and every year he found himself working 16-hour days and nearly every weekend as a result of the fact the owners never prepared for the flow of business they knew was coming until the last minute. It meant long hours and ill-trained seasonal help. He eventually left the company in large part due to the owners’ regular yearly mistakes.
Let’s do better and dive in today, before the holidays are upon us.
Estimate Your Sales Volumes
If you were in business during the holidays last year, that’s your starting point. What dollar amount did you sell? How difficult was it to reach those numbers? How much business did you leave on the table because you were overwhelmed? If you’ve been in business multiple years, all the better. You can look at trends up or down for October, November and December with an eye to the future.
Is it possible this year for you to add to what you’ve done in the past with new marketing, products, graphics or staffing? Or in semi-turbulent times will you be happy to just maintain your previous sales numbers? Either way, project a number and work backward in order to achieve it without the extra hours and the pain, both physical and mental, of previous holiday seasons.
Projections are just that, a guesstimate of what we believe we can accomplish. For what it’s worth, your best guess is probably already more than most decorators do in the runup to their busy seasons. As the years go by and you track sales and production, these projections will become increasingly precise.
What’s Your Custom Apparel Shop’s Production Capacity?
Do you really know your current capacity? Unfortunately, most of us imagine our capabilities in a perfect world, not the world we live in day-to-day. It can be hard to admit where we are today is where we are production-wise, but we have to face reality. If you find yourself up at night worrying about getting orders out the door, you probably haven’t admitted to yourself the level at which you are truly capable of producing.
What is your current production capacity? Be honest with yourself in order to avoid having to struggle to meet deadlines. Image by KONSTANTIN SHISHKIN – stock.adobe.com
Again, be honest with yourself, and then start working toward the things you need to do to increase production. For this holiday season, you will need to work with what you’ve got. Short of a Christmas miracle, you’re more likely to miss deadlines than magically produce more goods simply by wishing.
I’ve worked with all too many companies that base their sales and production schedules on operating in a world where nothing goes wrong. I don’t know about you, but my production floor doesn’t exist in a sealed bubble of perfection. Scheduling must take unknown delays and issues into account. I’m not saying sell yourself short. What I’m saying is take off your rose-colored glasses and see what you can do right now, today.
When the new year comes, we can focus on becoming more efficient and more production centric. For now, though, the impending holiday season is not the time to shake up the way you do things.
Do you have the equipment, staff and capital to produce what you anticipate? Again, be honest with yourself. If you are already operating at your maximum capacity and expect an increase in sales this holiday season, you are going to need to adjust your plans.
Be Your Custom Apparel Shop’s Own Business Consultant
Have you seen no bump in your past end-of-the-year sales? This may very well be a missed opportunity for your business. Spend a little time thinking about ways to take advantage of this annual spike in decorating opportunities and get on board with your fellow decorators.
Most of us are of a mind that we do the best that we can. At the same time, we also probably know we could do better. I once wrote an article titled, “Be Your Own Consultant.” In doing so I drew my inspiration from the many consulting jobs I had done in the past in which the owners and managers already knew what was wrong with their businesses, they’d just never taken the time to fix them. Instead, they paid me to come in and document what they already knew.
With that in mind, what about your business are you already aware of that needs to be changed to make you both more efficient and more profitable? Sometimes it can be something as simple as rearranging your shop to create better workflow. While you’re at it, make sure everyone has good lighting. That will make a difference too.
Custom Apparel Decorating Equipment, Supplies and Staff
Take stock of what you currently have on hand to work with, whether it be equipment, employees, blank goods or supplies. Think about what all these things combined can potentially accomplish.
Does any of your equipment need some tender loving care? Is it time to replace or buy new equipment? Year-end tax savings can be a great motivator for making these kinds of purchases before the new year begins.
As for blank apparel and other supplies, be aware everyone else is looking forward to what they hope will be increased holiday sales as well. Don’t be left scouring the internet trying to find product at the last minute. Are you planning to custom decorate Christmas stockings? Buy them now, before you find yourself on the “estimated delivery in January” list.
Focus on the Custom Decorating You Do Best
When prepping for the holidays this year, think about what it is you do best and most efficiently with an eye toward maximizing your profit potential. These in turn should be the products and processes on which you should focus your attention and marketing. Promoting what you do best and what brings in the most money only makes sense.
I was once talking with a decorator who told me he hated doing a particular type of order. My response was, “Why are you showing it on your website homepage then?” Help your customers find and buy what you do best and the things you want to sell.
Promote your specialty and the products and services that make you the most money per order. This alone can make you more money this season while putting in the exact same amount of production time and effort as last year.
Working with Contract Custom Apparel Decorators
If you don’t yet have the ability to meet your production goals this season, what are your options? Basically, you could take fewer orders (not good!) or you could get some production assistance. Keep in mind, though, that contract decorators are planning for the rush the same as you. If you wait too long to get a slice of their production schedule, they may be booked up.
Do you know any niche market decorators who don’t participate in holiday sales? They might be your perfect partner. Back when I sold exclusively to the fraternity/sorority market, I was always looking for contract work between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, and all summer long. If practical, ask for references—preferably from customers who aren’t your direct competitors! Anyone who has been in the custom decorating game long enough knows some decorators are better than others. Poor quality work or late delivery could sabotage your entire holiday sales plans.
Working with Temporary Employees When Screen Printing
Plenty of college students have six or even eight weeks off each holiday season, during which many would love the opportunity to make some extra money before going back to school. The more flexible you are, the greater the pool of potential employees. After-school high school students (or full time when they’re on break), stay-at-home moms and dads, individuals looking for second job opportunities to help pay for the holidays, can all make for great temporary workers.
Scheduling in a Saturday shift for six weeks or more can also add substantially to your productivity. Similarly, an evening shift can broaden your staffing potential to include people who work full-time day jobs but would love the chance to make some extra holiday spending money.
Have a great employee who can lead these extra shifts? Great! Give them the opportunity to head up those extra hours, so you’re not working seven days a week, night and day. By doing so, you may also find yourself discovering a new manager capable of relieving you of some of your burden year-round.
One thing: be sure to hire and train before the rush. Yes, you’ll spend a little more money on payroll on the front end, but you’ll gain more productivity in the heat of the season. It’s far easier to train someone when things are calm as opposed to rushing through the nuts and bolts of the job at the same time a backlog of orders is stacking up.
Marketing, Social Media for Apparel Decorators
If you’re not taking advantage of promoting on social media, you are leaving holiday dollars on the table. Don’t know where to start? Offer a holiday social media internship at the local college for an enterprising marketing student. They can get you and your company in front of thousands of eyes in no time at the same time they’re adding to their own resume and portfolio.
And yes, people are interested in seeing you printing a T-shirt, or embroider a hat, or heat pressing DTF transfers. To you it may be just another sweatshirt, but to people browsing the internet, it’s something creative, amazing and even magical.
Season Sales and Delivery Deadlines
For most of us, the last big deadline will be the day before Christmas. This includes the time to get the blank apparel or product, create the finalize, customized product and then deliver or ship it in time. No one wants their holiday order a day late.
If you’re new to this, pad your deadlines a bit. It can be hard turning down orders, but it’s better to require a shorter window for placing an order than end up being unable to deliver on time.
Be sure and give your regular customers a heads up that the holidays may stretch out turnaround times, i.e. “be sure and place your orders now so you’ll be at the front of the production line.” This will not only be appreciated by your customers, but also subtlety let them know you are a serious and in-demand decorator.
If you’re selling to customers who are reselling holiday-related goods, offer a discount for early orders. Same thing if you’re selling to end consumers. That will open more space in the schedule for new orders closer to the holidays.
Let me end with this thought. Your employees might like to give the same gift items they’re boxing and shipping out for you every day. At my shop, every year I would have a special and unique holiday graphic created. Employees could then place orders for garments decorated with this same graphic at cost, and on a specified date we would print all the employee gift items as part of a single production run. Happy employees made for a happier holiday season all around. Help your employees have a happier holiday, and you will undoubtedly find yourself having a happier holidays as well!
Terry Combs is a 40-plus-year veteran of the garment decorating industry and has managed production shops large and small across the United States. Terry is the co-host of the 13-year running industry podcast, 2 Regular Guys, (2regularguys.com) and is in sales and training with New Jersey-based Equipment Zone (equipmentzone.com).
