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screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: Sbrem on January 29, 2015, 06:06:51 PM
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But I'm not totally all of that work would be worth it. I have a customer, a community center, that does a lot of different items with us, and are wondering if there is a way for them to be able to order online from us. I'm guessing we would need to set up a store on our website. They would have 4 - 6 designs maybe, and I'm thinking keeping transfers on a shelf, or cutting vinyl is simple enough. We've never tried anything like this, so I need all the advice I can get. And where better to ask than here? (a little flattery always helps)
Steve
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we're doing this same thing with about 6 schools at the moment. Rob (whitewater) showed me this company, agpestores.com
so far so good, seems pretty simple....
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I would set up a bigcartel.com store, up to 5 products free, you can customize the look, make a subdomain on your site which redirects ( for example http://dougfir.annexfulfillment.com (http://dougfir.annexfulfillment.com) )
Super simple, paypal does the transactions. Here was one I did that we took preorders and printed in batches ( http://oregonscreen.com/webstores/pge125years/ (http://oregonscreen.com/webstores/pge125years/) ). Did a few rounds, worked beautifully well, then all the customer has to do is promote their stores. You handle the accounting, fulfill the orders, or produce them once you get a batch, send them out, and then cut a check to your customer with the remaining profit margins.
There are other ones that would work as well, storenvy.com is completely free, but in checkout it shows other companies products which is a con.
I enjoy doing short run stores, and like taking preorders when possible, like a ghetto teespring.
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You can also build simple order forms with pictures via JotForm.com. Basically a form per customer.
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Wordpress with some plugins wouldn't be a bad option either.
We do a little fulfillment but we don't do much of the front end.
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We have an online store for over 60 car clubs world wide various made to order items in there as well as screen printing pre-orders for some of them time to time. There are so many options for this free and paid. We personally use a paid option which means it's supported and it's always up. Some of the free options in the past would go down and id have to fix them and I just don't have the time to do that. So consider each way depending on how important that store will be to you being up 24/7.
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So if you don't mind sharing what your using it would be appreciated.
We are running Inksoft stores now, went that way for the design features and you could have private stores which users need a password for. But as it turns out there are so many glitches in the system it's becoming a burden. Some of them "known" some being discovered.
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We use 3dCart. I think it's $99 a month.
You can see it here:
http://www.store.graphicdisorder.com/Club-Stores--Members-ONLY_c_7.html (http://www.store.graphicdisorder.com/Club-Stores--Members-ONLY_c_7.html)
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this is great guys, thanks. Something to read over the weekend, even during halftime Sunday.
Steve
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And don't forget GoDaddy........... that's what we use. Very user friendly and a ton of options. We use it a lot for fundraisers for different orgs. Customers like it when they can pick up shirts and a check for there cause... I like it because the money is already in the bank. Great for adding options as well.... like long sleeve, hoodies, crews...... names and numbers. Print them all at one time and easy money!
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I'm trying to get away from GoDaddy right now... I'm just in too deep. :(
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I'm trying to get away from GoDaddy right now... I'm just in too deep. :(
I left Godaddy as they did not support IMAP, that was a deal breaker! We are with 1and1 for last 10+ years and they are OK. TSB is with 2by2 host and they are very responsive with developers available if needed. 1nad 1 has prepackaged e-commerce solutions, 2by2 should have it too. If you try them, I think they have some sort of referral program, so let me know.
pierre
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FYI, GoDaddy does have IMAP... it's more expensive, but it's there.
Now, one of the reasons I want to leave is because of their IMAP. I have a client that has over 20k emails in his inbox and they don't sync much passed that. So this causes problems for him from time to time that I have to clear room for his emails to work. Granted, it's kind of a unique problem and one that I haven't fully solved with other hosting providers yet. :(
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FYI, GoDaddy does have IMAP... it's more expensive, but it's there.
Now, one of the reasons I want to leave is because of their IMAP. I have a client that has over 20k emails in his inbox and they don't sync much passed that. So this causes problems for him from time to time that I have to clear room for his emails to work. Granted, it's kind of a unique problem and one that I haven't fully solved with other hosting providers yet. :(
yeah, when I left it was not an option at all. There were other issues with them, too so I never looked back.
pierre
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FYI, GoDaddy does have IMAP... it's more expensive, but it's there.
Now, one of the reasons I want to leave is because of their IMAP. I have a client that has over 20k emails in his inbox and they don't sync much passed that. So this causes problems for him from time to time that I have to clear room for his emails to work. Granted, it's kind of a unique problem and one that I haven't fully solved with other hosting providers yet. :(
This is not a problem with the hosting providers as much as it is with the imap protocol itself. It ends up taking too much time for the server process to scan the inbox folder to see what the user has read or downloaded.
Tell your customer to start to use folders... the problem will go away.
honestly tho, no where near as bad as the old Outlook 2gb .pst file bug.
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FYI, GoDaddy does have IMAP... it's more expensive, but it's there.
Now, one of the reasons I want to leave is because of their IMAP. I have a client that has over 20k emails in his inbox and they don't sync much passed that. So this causes problems for him from time to time that I have to clear room for his emails to work. Granted, it's kind of a unique problem and one that I haven't fully solved with other hosting providers yet. :(
This is not a problem with the hosting providers as much as it is with the imap protocol itself. It ends up taking too much time for the server process to scan the inbox folder to see what the user has read or downloaded.
Tell your customer to start to use folders... the problem will go away.
honestly tho, no where near as bad as the old Outlook 2gb .pst file bug.
2 gig bug... sheesh, tell me about it. Honestly that was about 90% of the calls I would get from my oil platforms. Easy fixes, but what a pain.
Tell him to use folders eh? HA! I explained to him that this is how most people work and it just baffles him. I told him out my oil field guys have folders for each platform as well as key personnel in the office. He said, "But I do work for 70+ different hospitals, am I supposed to have a folder for each one?!" "yes, Mike, yes, you are... that would actually be low compared to some of my clients." "That's ridiculous, I couldn't work like that!" "I understand, I will see what other solution we can find for you." ::)
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Just tell him that due to sarbanes Oxley compliance the emails have to be deleted after 4 weeks. . Lol.
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I used 3d cart before.. Now we use agpestores now. They may even be at the AC show. Simple to use. We have i think 6 different teams we do it for. Awesome support with any questions. Its wicked easy. Let me know if you have any questions.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Hi everyone,
So where exactly on agpestores.com do I find more info on their custom stores setup?
We are currently searching for the ability to quickly set up SpiritWear campaigns for our local schools and have them accessible only by passcodes.
I see the demo site they have available but I can't seem to find any info on what they charge, how to set them up or how they integrate with your current website.
Thanks,
Jason
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Order my gear .com
You will thank me later. Expensive upfront costs, but the back end will save you so much time and headaches. We have done everything for spirit stores. This is the best.
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we use AGP and I have put a stop to all e-stores, it became a huge pain, have to constantly triple check funds vs unauthorized orders. So many issues with it, I can't even explain....I will look into this order/gear stuff though. Are there any example stores anywhere? I don't see any on their website.
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My site is ran through squarespace, and every site comes with a commerce section. I think the year is $230 and that includes the domain and as many items you want to have.
It is very easy to use and keeps inventory and all of that. Simple drag and drop.
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homer..on the order my gear they called me and they sent me a webinar or something like that last year. It does look pretty sweet, but yea large up front cost.
I have not had any issues really with AGP like homer had.
BUt the order my gear does look better.
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homer..on the order my gear they called me and they sent me a webinar or something like that last year. It does look pretty sweet, but yea large up front cost.
I have not had any issues really with AGP like homer had.
BUt the order my gear does look better.
I got them to drop my set up fee to like $1200 I think. We did $50k on it in 6 months, so it was worth the investment.
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I got them to drop my set up fee to like $1200 I think. We did $50k on it in 6 months, so it was worth the investment.
So the set up for quick custom stores for SpiritWear campaigns is very easy with ordermygear?
Any chance you have a dummy / demo store available that I could look at on your site? I didn't see a demo store at all anywhere on the ordermygear.com website. =/
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We use Bigcartel for one of our customers. It's easy and cheap, but has limitations, like only 1 custom field per item, which we use to pick the shirt size. But if you want a 2nd color shirt it's a whole new item. When it's time to process all the orders, sorting through them gets a little confusing. Next time around I think I'll be researching some of these other options listed above here.
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order my gear has come a long way since this thread if anyone is curious, they offer a trial now. really good for teams and schools, not so much for onsie twosie orders
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I'm going down this route too, but I'm probably taking the longer less costly way.
The easiest way has probably already been mentioned in having some type of store front setup by way of inksoft or Deconetwork or the likes - Unless you're deep into this though the cost is rather high.
The benefit here is a total integration and a standalone piece of software to take care of fulfilment, costing and a host of other features - Probably shipping integration too which I didn't look into with either of these. There were some problems in these that didn't entirely work for me either, but that's more a local issue than the respective software themselves.
The other alternative would be the myriad of storefronts like Big Cartel, Volusion, shopify etc etc etc. One of these I did seriously look at which may be of use to you is ECWID back-end to a facebook store. ecwid.com. They have a free setup whereby you can build a facebook store in your clients current facebook page - Most people or groups have one of these pages anyway so it's a sensible option. ECWID clips the ticket on the way through but they handle all credit card processing and provide the tools to set it all up. It's a very simple system and if you decided to take a subscription to have more than the 10-15? products the free setup allows, the pricing is pretty reasonable.
Of all of them, I thought the ECWID solution was best bang for the buck and reasonably simple all round. So it really is worth taking a look there.
Myself, after all the looking and testing decided the Wordpress/Woocommerce system worked for me and where i want to go. It ties in with the back end accounting system I use (Zoho suite) so I can keep track of inventory through sales, I also pay for an add on that splits the transaction so I immediately get my portion of the sale of the item, and the remainder goes to the client hosting the website/facebook page.
I just didn't want to deal with taking the whole sale, working out the profit after transaction fee's, having to pay the store owner, working out invoicing for him and back/forth. This way I just get my money and whatever the other guy does with his share is his problem.
Selling the item online is no problem, producing the item and delivering that item is also no problem - It's that void of paperwork between two parties to deliver the item to the end user is what I found an unnecessary problem, so I took a longer route to cut this problem out.
Shipping is also handled through the back end Zoho suite. I'm not double handling anything or copy and pasting shipping addresses.
Essentially an order comes in saying what store it's from, the garment, garment size, garment colourway, gives me an item code that matches a visual/proof I have, gives me a shipping address, and also gives me the pre-determined amount to produce and send the item.
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I have quite a big picture of where I see myself heading though. So, whatever I'm doing now, I'm looking to take the route that is a simple system to follow, but chews up the least amount of profit for when I have 200-1000 of these stores.
At the moment I actually have no stores! ;D The reason for that though is I want to be entirely confident that the procedure is down pat and solid. I wan't to make sure the system works and functions as it should so I can hand it over to someone else to take care of, and we're not all going to be buried in paperwork and some confusing and ropey garbage.
It probably reads confusing and ropey already - It's not though. I found when I was getting into it and looking through these systems is they can grow out of control if you just dive in and don't look at every step. I've tried to account for a bunch of variables - Half of them I've probably forgotten anyway, but I've ended up where i am through realising a lot of pre-made systems simply wouldn't work for me as I was looking at them or trialling them.
What you describe though is what I'm doing. Producing transfers to hold in stock. Someone orders and I just order the garment, brand it, ship it out. A LOT of small quantities. 1 of this, 1 of that, 4 of those, 25 of something else. At the moment I just handle it manually which I've made easy enough. But the goal is to have it all online through multiple stores so it's simply a case of a client logging into their store, filling a shopping cart of whatever they want, me receiving an email order, processing it, and moving onto the next one.