ahyndman

Hey all, I have a few questions that I was wondering about and while I was able to answer most by searching previous posts in the forums, there were a few which I still could not find/were not answered correctly. So here goes:

1. INKS: I see a lot of times when people talk about quality of shirts/print and they use the term "soft ink". My question is what contributes to that effect of "soft ink"? Would it be the brand/quality of ink, the printing method or both?

2. WEBSITE DESIGN: When you hire someone to do a design for you whether it be website, myspace, etc. What happens if you need to have updates done to your site? I.E. If you need to add products to your site do you have to pay that designer everytime?

3. RETAIL: I was reading a few posts earlier dealing with retail and it seems as though it is really hard to profit when doing business with retail stores. Besides the exposure what are the pros and cons of having your line in a retail store?

4. TRADESHOW: Finally, what are the general prices that you have to pay to register your company to be in a tradeshow?

I fully understand if you don't have a answer to all these questions, but anything helps.

Thanks in advance
- Ash

 

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kimura-mma

1. There are a number of variables in achieving a "quality print." But in regards to softness, most people refer to Softhand Plastisol, Waterbase or Discharge. Softhand Plastisol are standard plastisol inks that get mixed with a softener additive to produce a softer print. It works its best when not underlayed, IMO. Waterbased inks produce a very soft print because the ink "embeds" into the shirt as opposed to laying on top of the shirt like plastisol based inks. Discharge printing is when the dyes used to color the shirt are lifted from the shirt. You can either do a straight discharge, which basically gives a "bleached" effect or you can have a pigment replace the discharged area. Waterbase and discharge tend to be pricey and have high minimums due to the complexity of the process.

2. I'm not much of a web guy, but I'd imagine you can set up a payment fee or monthly retainer so you can have regular updates done to your site by the company/designer that builds it.

3. I don't have much experience dealing with retailers, as I sell my brand direct to consumer, but I will offer this...
It seems that retailers want to get a good deal. So as a wholesaler, you have to understand that the value is in volume, not per unit profit margin.

4. Depends on the show. Could range from hundreds to thousands.

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ahyndman

Thanks. All of the information was really helpful. I also never ran across the concept of a "payment fee or monthly retainer" as you mentioned, so that helped a lot too.

If anyone else has any input or personal experiences on any of the above topics, I would greatly appreciate your input as well.

 

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Solmu

Quote: Originally Posted by ahyndman 1. INKS: I see a lot of times when people talk about quality of shirts/print and they use the term "soft ink". My question is what contributes to that effect of "soft ink"? Would it be the brand/quality of ink, the printing method or both?

Print method, quality of the printer (be it DTG or a human holding a squeegee: sometimes they'll overcompensate), type of ink, additives used, etc.

Quote: Originally Posted by ahyndman 2. WEBSITE DESIGN: When you hire someone to do a design for you whether it be website, myspace, etc. What happens if you need to have updates done to your site?

That depends on your own skill set (updating a website is a lot easier than building one from scratch) and how the designer set the site up (CMSs are becoming more and more common). Hopefully the answer to that question is "You update your website." If not, "You pay the designer to update your website for you."

Quote: Originally Posted by ahyndman 3. RETAIL: I was reading a few posts earlier dealing with retail and it seems as though it is really hard to profit when doing business with retail stores.

A lot of the difficulty people face is because they treat retail as an afterthought. They set their business up to sell online (effectively wholesale direct to public), then think "You know, I'd like a piece of that Main Street pie." At that point, they've already established themselves as a different kind of business. The difficulty then isn't in retail, it's in transforming one business model into another.

Quote: Originally Posted by ahyndman Besides the exposure what are the pros and cons of having your line in a retail store?

Money, exposure, credibility, money.

Quote: Originally Posted by ahyndman 4. TRADESHOW: Finally, what are the general prices that you have to pay to register your company to be in a tradeshow?

"A" tradeshow? That's like asking "How much does a car cost?" or "How much is a flight?" The major trade shows are $5000+ though.

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icusmiling

I can offer some web tips:

1. Depending on your web knowledge, you can find free templates to use, but they require some coding knowledge.

2. Content management systems are good, but often expensive. if you have a web person build it, he/she could set it up to be database driven, and create web based forms for updating the site. it might cost more at first, but you probably wouldn't need as many updates later.

3. A developer that uses dreamweaver can set up a site with templates and set it up to be accessed with Contribute (around $100) that will allow you to make changes yourself without having to worry about messing up the background code.

When you find a web developer, discuss these options with them, and figure out what would best suit your needs.

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brianmot

2. WEBSITE DESIGN:
YAY, i love questions about this stuff. As Solmu said, its a tad what you know how to do. What im seeing more frequently is companies buying PHP shopping carts (it comes with a front end that the customer sees and a user interfaced back end so people can add and manage products and orders easily) and having a designer layout a page and cut and splice it into the already existing .CSS of the shopping cart. The back end of the PHP carts are FAIRLY user friendly (takes a while to get used to interface) but it notifies you when you have a new order and allows you to go thru step by step to print invoice and finally ship it off. Adding products if fairly easy as long as you have the image of the product. The place i just did this for has me do their front banners and make their products look good. They dont really need me to add a product because all they do is click "ADD NEW PRODUCT" and fill out all the required fields and upload an image and it will show up in their store. Send me a message and i can show you the site i just did it to and the php cart we used and a bit more how it all works.

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jkruse

2. WEBSITE DESIGN: When you hire someone to do a design for you whether it be website, myspace, etc. What happens if you need to have updates done to your site? I.E. If you need to add products to your site do you have to pay that designer everytime?


Yes! You are having them do more work so you need to pay them more. All the stores and websites I build are on CMS, content managment systems, so you will be able to do everything yourself besides design changes. Myspace is a little more tricky. Usually you'll get a couple places where you can put in more info but it depends on how the myspace is built.

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