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General => Industry News/ Announcements/Press Releases/Product Promotion => Topic started by: printavo on December 07, 2017, 08:20:24 AM
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Do you have $4.5 million sitting around for a Super Bowl Commercial?
Do you have software engineers, and developers standing by to build you custom websites?
Can you afford the backstop of an MLB game for ad space on primetime?
Do you have algorithmic fulfillment down from coast to coast with contract printers ready to produce work for you at a minutes notice?
Did you develop a design tool several years ago and were first to market?
If you answered yes to any of those, this blog is not for you. But if you answered no, like many, here is the truth..
Read full article: https://www.printavo.com/blog/stop-worrying-about-customink# (https://www.printavo.com/blog/stop-worrying-about-customink#)
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Another straight up to the point article. THANKS
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Great Article!
So has anyone plunged into the Design Studio World on their website? Has it been worth it?
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Haha! Love this article. I think these solutions are great. Take all of the customers who don’t value our services, don’t have art, etc. If someone doesn’t care, then let them go ahead to another shop. If they do care about the value we add then it’ll be a great relationship. So we don’t sweat customers who compare us to these sites.
Great Article!
So has anyone plunged into the Design Studio World on their website? Has it been worth it?
There has been talks of this here on the forums. General consensus seems to be that the online designers aren’t worth it. Would you really want to attract customers with no art but who feel they’re the best ones to do it, but have no clue how to do it so they use an online widget?
I recommended those clients visit our competitors!
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Haha! Love this article. I think these solutions are great. Take all of the customers who don’t value our services, don’t have art, etc. If someone doesn’t care, then let them go ahead to another shop. If they do care about the value we add then it’ll be a great relationship. So we don’t sweat customers who compare us to these sites.
Great Article!
So has anyone plunged into the Design Studio World on their website? Has it been worth it?
There has been talks of this here on the forums. General consensus seems to be that the online designers aren’t worth it. Would you really want to attract customers with no art but who feel they’re the best ones to do it, but have no clue how to do it so they use an online widget?
I recommended those clients visit our competitors!
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...and then, when the shirts turn out looking terrible, people will ask "hey who made your shirts?".....and I don't know about yous guys, but that doesn't sit well with me.....
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I send a ton of people to Custom ink,'
every one who wants one tee shirt
every one who wants me to design a shirt for them when they have no clue what they want
every one who comes in on Wednesday and wants a shirt or two by party time on Friday
every one who is price sensative we tell them go see about Custom ink you know those people who have the TV commercials .....get a price quote .........then come back to us we will beat their price by at least 20% They return with a quote and a design we print their order.
One element that is being missed here is using your competitions strength and weight against them.
Another point is the ton of dollars CI spends to aquire a customer. The web , the commercials, the marketing, the payroll, the elements we never see from here. This customer aquisition cost is going to be even greater when Amazon starts printing tee shirts for the universe. Custom Ink on steroids!!!!!
Lastly doesn't custom ink use shops just like you big guys out there to fill the orders they get?
The biggest threat they, CI, pose to us is the undeniable fact that the 18 to 34 year olds so called mellinnials out there and the newer generations that follow are physically disconected to the real world. They communicate, learn, live and breathe shop and buy food, cars, electronics, find husbands and wives, and more through a smart device constantly glued in their hands.The day will come when a Mellennials will be standing right in front of a brick and morter store motionless except for the frantic tapping on a smart device to order a product that they could simply buy within. There are over 75 million mellinnals out there and growing out numbering the boomers and the gen-xers. They can't be attracted face to face because social media is the new reality so the real threat to us is not custom ink or amazon printing tee shirts for the masses it is genetics and smart devices that will carve out the new economy
Custom ink in not the silver bullet to our future.
mooseman
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Who's Custom Ink?
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The biggest threat they, CI, pose to us is the undeniable fact that the 18 to 34 year olds so called mellinnials out there and the newer generations that follow are physically disconected to the real world. They communicate, learn, live and breathe shop and buy food, cars, electronics, find husbands and wives, and more through a smart device constantly glued in their hands.The day will come when a Mellennials will be standing right in front of a brick and morter store motionless except for the frantic tapping on a smart device to order a product that they could simply buy within. There are over 75 million mellinnals out there and growing out numbering the boomers and the gen-xers. They can't be attracted face to face because social media is the new reality so the real threat to us is not custom ink or amazon printing tee shirts for the masses it is genetics and smart devices that will carve out the new economy
This is where I disagree. As a side note, I’d love to see a poll for age on this forum.
I just turned 28 so I fit the range you identified. Lots of friends older/younger than me.
We don’t sell a product, we sell a service and an experience.
I think the biggest thing the older generation misses is right here in your reply. Millennials are just as connected to the real world. If anything, we are more connected through these devices.
You need to understand that the value and confidence you see in a face-to-face deal is something that millennials achieve with each other through the internet. You cannot discount the connections made between people just because they happen over the internet. You may not have the experience, but the connections humans make online are physical, emotional, and real. Just because the fleshy crap around our brains can’t bump into each other doesn’t mean we aren’t connected.
The real world is happening right in front of you. If you truly feel that the youth are disconnected from reality you should try to consider that the connections are real and so it IS reality.
We booked almost 400k this year and we don’t answer the phone. No walk ins. Email only. Are our relationships less valid because we interacted only online? Nope.
If I’m spending $1000 on anything I’m going to be sure I am confident and have trust in the provider. That trust and confidence can easily be built between two humans online, and these days that’s the most natural way for new generations to build relationships.
We don’t want face-to-face. We want human-to-human. That’s something Amazon and Custom Ink can never take away from us, and they’re not trying to.
It’s not the devices that’ll kill ya, it’s how you use them.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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The biggest threat they, CI, pose to us is the undeniable fact that the 18 to 34 year olds so called mellinnials out there and the newer generations that follow are physically disconected to the real world. They communicate, learn, live and breathe shop and buy food, cars, electronics, find husbands and wives, and more through a smart device constantly glued in their hands.The day will come when a Mellennials will be standing right in front of a brick and morter store motionless except for the frantic tapping on a smart device to order a product that they could simply buy within. There are over 75 million mellinnals out there and growing out numbering the boomers and the gen-xers. They can't be attracted face to face because social media is the new reality so the real threat to us is not custom ink or amazon printing tee shirts for the masses it is genetics and smart devices that will carve out the new economy
This is where I disagree. As a side note, I’d love to see a poll for age on this forum.
I just turned 28 so I fit the range you identified. Lots of friends older/younger than me.
We don’t sell a product, we sell a service and an experience.
I think the biggest thing the older generation misses is right here in your reply. Millennials are just as connected to the real world. If anything, we are more connected through these devices.
You need to understand that the value and confidence you see in a face-to-face deal is something that millennials achieve with each other through the internet. You cannot discount the connections made between people just because they happen over the internet. You may not have the experience, but the connections humans make online are physical, emotional, and real. Just because the fleshy crap around our brains can’t bump into each other doesn’t mean we aren’t connected.
The real world is happening right in front of you. If you truly feel that the youth are disconnected from reality you should try to consider that the connections are real and so it IS reality.
We booked almost 400k this year and we don’t answer the phone. No walk ins. Email only. Are our relationships less valid becaWeuse we interacted only online? Nope.
If I’m spending $1000 on anything I’m going to be sure I am confident and have trust in the provider. That trust and confidence can easily be built between two humans online, and these days that’s the most natural way for new generations to build relationships.
We don’t want face-to-face. We want human-to-human. That’s something Amazon and Custom Ink can never take away from us, and they’re not trying to.
It’s not the devices that’ll kill ya, it’s how you use them.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I think you just made my point
mooseman
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CI is not cheap, it sometimes is not quick, and often times it is not the best quality. That is because CI is a solution for someone with little industry knowledge or understanding, without regard for price or personal relationships.
Not Cheap - True and they get the price they ask. Not going to get into all their overhead, not my point. My point is they get a fair price for a fair product. Are you suggesting we get a lower price for doing a better job? I see daily on here where some seem to take pride in how low they can go. I don't understand that.
Industry Knowledge & Personal Relationships - We have customers that have been coming to us for years that know nothing of the process and could care less. Yes, we have a pretty good relationship with a few. I could count them all on one hand, the rest just want the order ready when they need it and don't give a rats rear end about getting personal.
Had to vent a little and this seemed like a good place to do it.
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Custom Ink doesn't worry me. Some day though someone will get that model right, they just will.
We don't answer the phone, in fact we barely let people in here. If you want to buy from me you will literally email me, pay me up front, and you will wait our quoted time line for work. Hell some of our higher end art you will pay up front and wait in a month long line for it, then another line when you want to print. That's how it works. Things are going well, really well, another year of double digit % growth. Maybe I am missing the boat and we'd be bigger if we answered phones and took walk in's, that is entirely possible. However I do not care at all. We have our way and frankly believe it or not we get complimented on it all the time. Even from some that resist it in the beginning. Ill see comments like "I wasn't sure about just emailing you a order and trying you out or not talking to you on the phone, but your process makes sense now". Customers for life. Whats funny is MOST of them never even question prices or anything.
You know who questions prices? Every time we let some new customer come in here, every time they want 13 shirts with $500 of art time and they want it all for $4 each all in. No thanks, ill let some other shop clip art their way through that mess.
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I think you just made my point
mooseman
You totally missed my point if that’s all you got from my post. Ah well.
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Great Article!
So has anyone plunged into the Design Studio World on their website? Has it been worth it?
I've used the base inksoft design studio on my website for a little over a year. It's $99 per month. People use it, but I don't get enough order conversions to justify the cost anymore. Starting in 2018 I'm going to cancel it. I can spend that extra $1,200/year in a better way.
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We get tons of custom ink, customers bring there art I end up redoing the art from scratch, because 95% of the time it's there reference art proof, and if we can't help a customer we only tell them about other printers we do biz with, other than that we don't advertise for Customink or any other place we do not work with.
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It's not Custom Ink that scares me. It's the next startup or even Amazon that gets into the game and gobbles up market share, just like the did with Uber, AirBnB, etc.
Custom ink is overpriced and the quality is hit or miss.
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It's not Custom Ink that scares me. It's the next startup or even Amazon that gets into the game and gobbles up market share, just like the did with Uber, AirBnB, etc.
Custom ink is overpriced and the quality is hit or miss.
I bet Custom Ink is scared of Amazon! Or they should be. That's a huge hit to their market, which should create a competitive price drive downward, which I personally think will ultimately kill BOTH of them or hurt them pretty badly. Will it affect us? i don't think so. Amazon, no matter how much they automate, still have to have a human load, pretreat, reload, print, cure and box single shirts with super expensive printers that require MUCH more maintenance than their manufacturers lead the buyer to believe. If Amazon wants to take a loss on their project for a few years solely to bury custom ink, then so be it.
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Custom Ink has a decent formula in ways and wrong in others. Amazon wont be able to be personable at all. Mix some of the 2 together and change a few other things and wham. With some capital someone could put half us out of business in a couple of years.
Custom Ink or someone like it just needs to produce it in house 100%, lower prices, better service, and scale it, quickly. It will happen.
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Custom Ink or someone like it just needs to produce it in house 100%, lower prices, better service, and scale it, quickly. It will happen.
I thought Custom Ink already tried to do that?
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Custom Ink or someone like it just needs to produce it in house 100%, lower prices, better service, and scale it, quickly. It will happen.
I thought Custom Ink already tried to do that?
Which they or someone like them will eventually get right.
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Maybe I'm completely off base, but a huge percentage of my business has always been local and has always been based on referrals. I have lost customers for different reasons like any business, but I also have many loyal customers and many customers who have no interest in ordering shirts online. They want to be able to see samples, talk through details with a real person, pick stuff up and pay in person, etc. I get lots of business from people who have tried customink and similar services and weren't happy with the experience. I don't see local shops going away anytime soon.
For those shops that have gone with the email only online only business model, I could see it being a bigger threat of course, but I have never run that kind of shop.
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I think you just made my point
mooseman
You totally missed my point if that’s all you got from my post. Ah well.
.... not judging, just observing...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed-5Zzdbx0E (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed-5Zzdbx0E)
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For those that don’t take calls, do you have a voicemail or recording?
I’d like to hear it if anyone’s willing to share.
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For those that don’t take calls, do you have a voicemail or recording?
I’d like to hear it if anyone’s willing to share.
Our vm box is full. Call the shop all you like we never answer. 4234342230 I think haha.
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That video is too funny and too true! So many differences between generations.
We also depend heavily on local relationships. I bet 95% of our orders are local in our city.
We build genuine real relationships over the internet all day long. There’s an art to it. People can go online and order from a form on Amazon or Custom Ink, or they can deal with a real human. I know which I prefer! Anyone can upload a file to Amazon, but a lot of clients want a real human eyeball on things before it goes to press.
Our answering machine says something like this: “Thanks for calling. We are probably printing! The best and fastest way to get in touch or get an order started is to visit our website”, with a couple details like the web address and whatnot.
Our phone rings off the hook, but we track the missed calls and a lotttt of people who hear that voicemail end up sending us an email. The ones that don’t probably hate email or think they ‘need’ to talk on the phone, so we let our competitors do that hand holding.
Not trying to butt heads or anything, just feeling like human interactions online are being looked down on.
That video had a funny line. “Learning to text is the only way you’ll have a relationship with your son.” Or something like that. Too true. Humans communicate differently now.
People probably thought the phone was crazy too. “Wait, you mean I can only hear their voice?!”
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For those that don’t take calls, do you have a voicemail or recording?
I’d like to hear it if anyone’s willing to share.
Our vm box is full. Call the shop all you like we never answer. 4234342230 I think haha.
Last week I sold 2 jobs for $2k each in under 30 mins - 1 to oracle - by answering the phone. One lady remarked to me that we were the first people to answer the phone ha. In my part of the world there’s always someone with a. Lot of cash who has a T-shirt problem. the shorter the timeline the faster / easier they close and the ones with short timelines call. The time wasters also call, just gotta weed em our.
Custom work all day baby!! $2k for 50 hoodies and $2k for 200 T-shirt’s hahaha :D Whereas I just got $880 on a contract job for 1000 tees?? So $500 per hour va $100-150 / hr or something like that... I’m good with answering three phone g but I’ll take the easy contract money also.
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For those that don’t take calls, do you have a voicemail or recording?
I’d like to hear it if anyone’s willing to share.
I got a cheap Google Project Fi phone number for my shop. I don't answer it, but there is an app that will send an automated text message to the person after we don't answer. It prompts them to fill fill out the quote page on our website. Obviously this isn't going to work for someone calling from a land line, but most the time people are calling from a cell phone these days so it works out. Not everyone like's this system, and those clients are not for us. I can't stand doing quotes over the phone and I can't stand people who can't follow simple directions.
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For those that don’t take calls, do you have a voicemail or recording?
I’d like to hear it if anyone’s willing to share.
Our vm box is full. Call the shop all you like we never answer. 4234342230 I think haha.
Last week I sold 2 jobs for $2k each in under 30 mins - 1 to oracle - by answering the phone. One lady remarked to me that we were the first people to answer the phone ha. In my part of the world there’s always someone with a. Lot of cash who has a T-shirt problem. the shorter the timeline the faster / easier they close and the ones with short timelines call. The time wasters also call, just gotta weed em our.
Custom work all day baby!! $2k for 50 hoodies and $2k for 200 T-shirt’s hahaha :D Whereas I just got $880 on a contract job for 1000 tees?? So $500 per hour va $100-150 / hr or something like that... I’m good with answering three phone g but I’ll take the easy contract money also.
That's great. We all get to run our shops how we see fit and that works or doesn't work depending on our processes. 99% of our work is custom, so answering the phone for a job or email is really for the same type of work for us. I can do the email more efficiently so we choose to. I don't care what I lose on the phone. I literally don't at this stage. Someday I suspect we may staff the phone... but for now things are going really well my way.
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I mostly stopped answering the phone too. I am not going to take a $10.00 or $10,000.00 without getting the details in writing. If the client can not email they will not fit in to our process anyway.
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Id be real interested how you all are dealing with a phone call and sending proofs and confirming details verbally... I am guessing you aren't. So that means you are doing it by email to some level. So why not drive it there to start with. You are opening yourself up for "I told you on the phone" which you will NOT be able to argue yourself out of.
My problem with the phone is one of the parties always being interrupted doing actual work to answer that call. So I am buried in something working away and I have to stop, answer the phone, shift to those details. Meanwhile ive stopped doing whatever I was doing and created opportunity for a issue on that project. OR ive missed that persons call, they leave a message and I call when I am free to which they are likely tied up in whatever they do all day creating a start/stop point for them in their day. People may argue its efficient.... but its not.
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Id be real interested how you all are dealing with a phone call and sending proofs and confirming details verbally... I am guessing you aren't. So that means you are doing it by email to some level. So why not drive it there to start with. You are opening yourself up for "I told you on the phone" which you will NOT be able to argue yourself out of.
My problem with the phone is one of the parties always being interrupted doing actual work to answer that call. So I am buried in something working away and I have to stop, answer the phone, shift to those details. Meanwhile ive stopped doing whatever I was doing and created opportunity for a issue on that project. OR ive missed that persons call, they leave a message and I call when I am free to which they are likely tied up in whatever they do all day creating a start/stop point for them in their day. People may argue its efficient.... but its not.
agree 100%... we still answer the phone, however if the subject is quoting, they are immediately directed to email. I want a paper trail of our conversation, it eliminates the BS, " I said 5 small, not 5 medium"....usually with our phone calls, they are asking if we offer a certain product like vehicle graphics, wraps, signs, whatever. and we do so our conversations are typically short. I do have a few customers that it is easier / faster to understand through a phone call than email..... so it goes both ways in some cases. I answer the phone but I also don't run production. . .
Walk-ins...now THAT'S another topic.....
and for the record, custom ink makes us a ton of coin. Can you match this price? you bet!....
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and for the record, custom ink makes us a ton of coin. Can you match this price? you bet!....
I love people giving me a quote from Custom Ink.
We haven't answered the phone in over two years here. Hell, we don't even have a phone plugged in. Our number just directs people to either text or email for service. The only reason we keep a phone number is because it is a package deal with our fax line.
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See here we go again comparing to custom ink? Everyone has there business plans and business practices. Custom inks formula obviously helps some and hurts others but they do combine everything being discussed her. on-line design and ordering, yes they answer the phone, I think most buyers like some kind of human contact at some point in the process and we all know with a strong on-line presence the conversion rate IS much higher with a human follow up. But that's not everyone's model. The bottom line is what custom ink is doing works and fills a market apparently none of us were able to fill. That's why its important to just be happy and focused in whatever lane your in as long as your making money. With 35 years in this business I am no expert and have been a failure more times than I would like to discuss but was a custom ink printer for 5 years and understand there model.
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We all seem to forget that the average customer can't even tell you the difference between a poor print and a average print or between a average print and above average print. Screen printing isn't rocket science folks. We are not changing the world. We are not doing special work. We are just printing shirts. Custom Ink is nothing more than a bunch of people just like the rest of us here...printing shirts. Some are better, some aren't. But over all its not as complicated as some pretend printing is.
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We all seem to forget that the average customer can't even tell you the difference between a poor print and a average print or between a average print and above average print. Screen printing isn't rocket science folks. We are not changing the world. We are not doing special work. We are just printing shirts. Custom Ink is nothing more than a bunch of people just like the rest of us here...printing shirts. Some are better, some aren't. But over all its not as complicated as some pretend printing is.
Printing for the most part isn't complicated...dealing with people can be.
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We all seem to forget that the average customer can't even tell you the difference between a poor print and a average print or between a average print and above average print. Screen printing isn't rocket science folks. We are not changing the world. We are not doing special work. We are just printing shirts. Custom Ink is nothing more than a bunch of people just like the rest of us here...printing shirts. Some are better, some aren't. But over all its not as complicated as some pretend printing is.
Printing for the most part isn't complicated...dealing with people can be.
For sure I agree with you on that part.
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Printing for the most part isn't complicated...dealing with people can be.
This I agree with, some people are hard to get on the same page with for many different reason's
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Printing for the most part isn't complicated...dealing with people can be.
This I agree with, some people are hard to get on the same page with for many different reason's
And actually the more I think about it we tend to think of only customers, but to a lesser extent it's employees too.