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screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: tonypep on November 09, 2012, 10:31:29 AM
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Nothing new but you have too love dealing with corporate. We do a lot of programs that involve Gildan who has partnered up with ESPN who is owned by Disney. This is where the fun begins.
Gildan: We need 20,000 shirts F/B by wed ESPN will supply the graphics
Us: Ok Bring them in on Monday have ESPN send the files ASAP pls
Gildan: Will do
Monday comes: nothing so we reach out to ESP
ESPN: We don't know what you are referring to we'll look into it.
Later: Oh I see you are doing the promo shirts for the Bowl Games here are the files
Us: Can't open them wrong format
Disney: Were were informed you are working with ESPN on the Bowl Game Promo program. Since you are not an approved vendor pls standby
Us to Disney: We are approved pls chk with so and so
Disney: So and so does not work in this division anymorewe will look into the matter
Us to Gildan: Still no blanks. Disney has us on hold also
Gildan: What blanks? Oh the bowl shirts.......I sent them ground should be there on wednesday
What do you mean they have you on hold? Did you get the new files?
Us to everyone: We have the files and are mocking up for approval. Disney has waived the approved vendor issue until they can find it. Shirts just arrived. Pls be ready for new e-mail approvals. Cannot run till we get official approval on all graphics
Hours go by........nothing
ESPN (11:00 Wednesday) All graphics approveds here are the ship to. Everything ships today correct?
Gildan: Are the shirts there yet?
ESPN: Two of the graphics are wrong we will re-send
We are printing the approved shirts
Gildan: Will everything ship today?
Us No ESPN is holding us up
ESPN: Are you printing design X? We just realised we gave you the wrong Pantone for the logo.
We of course had already printed it
Gildan: What? Well then ship balance thurs Fed-ex overnight (5K) pcs!
Other person at Disney (after we have completed the order) You are not authorised to produce this order pls return the goods and cancel the PO
Partially fictionalized for your entertainmet but this how it goes. Often much more complicated than this as the sales people have assitants following up with redundancy
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Holy carp. Bill them anyway, keep all correspondence and lawyer up if they don't pay.
All those hoops plus these big guys are nothing but low ballers anyway. Not worth the "prestige" if you ask me.
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ESPN head quarters is up the road from me, do you want me to go there and slap someone specific?
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That sounds like a real wonder team of clients you have there.
I admire your patience with them. I have precious little tolerance for high volume (by my shops standards that is) jobs with a rush but unresponsive parties. I always get and give cell phone number up front and single out one person for all approvals. It's their job to figure our what their organization wants, my job is to get it to them.
Thx for the morning funnies Tony.
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When the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.
Just hope the right hand is the one that placed the order, and the left is the one signing
the check!
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I'm surprised to see such large companies have this type of ordering process. I always thought they would have every "I" dotted and "T" crossed before a PO was written for 20k units? It looks like a cluster f of people shooting e-mails around playin tag with someone elses money. . So I guess in the end, do you expect to get paid seeing how they told you to cancel the order? How can you cancel a PO, isn't that as good as a written contract?
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Heres the funny thing.......they pay triple the amount from standard contract and overiight fed-ex 60 boxes stuff like that. Its like the inmates are running the asylum. Guess whos just as bad? Nike, Boxercraft, Addidas, New Balance, Coke, Hillfiger........just about every publicly held company.
But if you you learn how to control all their chaos you can attract a lot of business. With Boxercraft I sometimes felt I was running their company!
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BTW everything worked out and we were the heroes. After all this time I just smile because we expect this type of behavior. Everyone is apologetic and very thaankful after its over.
Until the next order
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I'm always amazed how much they will spend on shipping after asking for quotes on printing. I have printed jobs that have cost as much for shipping as the order.
Overnighting big orders to other countries = big profits for UPS FED EX.
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That does sound like a royal pita. While we do not come near your output every day, some of our clients hit those numbers a few times a year. One of them is a massive company that shall we say has a few events a year all over the country. And they know about their events months in advance. They even sell out in advance. But we will be printing up to the last minute and always blows my mind when people 2nd day 3000 shirts and overnight 500. Just a massive amount of wasted money. Profit right out the door for them. For us we make a killing but still just blows my mind
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why do you think we told Coke to go fly a kite? They were shocked we would say no to them.
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With companies like Coke and Disney and Hilfiger you must first pass a compliance audit........and guess who has to pay for that?
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I would love to know the cost. We overnighted 17k shirts one time to Michigan. The client would not tell me what it cost for anything.
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On a previous post I was bitching about UPS screwing up a delivery, they
screwed it up even more and had the packages returned to sender (us).
Left them with one day to get the packages back across the country, they ate
$2500 in overnight freight. Granted it doesn't cost them that, but still on the same scale
of ridiculousness as these other companies.
Once they get that large they need to break into divisions or something. At some point
these places get so convoluted they just can not operate competently. Yet they still make money?
Reminds me of printing for a major auto manufacturer. No one at the company could provide a
usable copy of their shiny new model logo. Loops and loops and loops through the phone system.
Ended up finding it on a fan site.
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On a previous post I was bitching about UPS screwing up a delivery, they
screwed it up even more and had the packages returned to sender (us).
Left them with one day to get the packages back across the country, they ate
$2500 in overnight freight. Granted it doesn't cost them that, but still on the same scale
of ridiculousness as these other companies.
Once they get that large they need to break into divisions or something. At some point
these places get so convoluted they just can not operate competently. Yet they still make money?
Reminds me of printing for a major auto manufacturer. No one at the company could provide a
usable copy of their shiny new model logo. Loops and loops and loops through the phone system.
Ended up finding it on a fan site.
Hey, did you ever look into World Wide Express like we were talking about? Just curious
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I haven't yet.
Once I got ahold of my rep (didn't think to call them first for some reason?)
UPS got their act together reallllll quick.
I'll take a look now though!
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Tonypep glad you know how to work with a control headache...just to many chiefs in that deal
Darryl
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I happen to know the buyer for ESPN unless he's been reassigned from last year. (They move you around every two years). This guy is somewhat of scatterbrained as a buyer but is smart and a nice guy. Married to another buyer who was promoted to Manager of the softline buyers. So, he's got "a little security". As a buyer, he's a last minute guy. Partially his fault and partially the garment blanks provider. This example is nothing new to them on events. Happens every time. To work with them, you have to be ready to deal with it. I am surprised to see they are even using Gildan at all. For one, Disney has a contract with Hanes ( except for ESPN). But ESPN has or had a contract with Champion. So I would figure Disney would carry the Hanes over to ESPN if The Champion contract is up.
In the mean time, if you ever get caught up in a haggle with them, give me a call and I will drop names and give you direct phone numbers that will help straighten those buyers up. Going over there head will not get you anywhere as those over there head don't want to deal with that. The effective part is that when the buyers hear of the call, they will not push you around anymore. They will be your "partner". I would love to startle them a bit. LOL.
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Corporate bullsh*t will never make you money..
in fact, after the smoke clears, it will have cost you money.
Funny how that works.
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I believe that Chadwick,
That's why, if they came to me with an order, I'd not take it from them. They work in such a way that you need to already be a large profitable shop in order to deal with them so you can obsorb the losses easily and accept that as part of the business with them. One day they are your partner and tomorrow they make a decision without blinking an eye that shuts you down. Seen it happen. How do they feel about that guy losing his business? Nothing. They move on. Just collateral damage. Next day, they deal with a new vendor doing the same thing.
There is a risk involved in doing business with them. It can be a major one. Like the sharks say, "I'm out".
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ok, stupid question - why don't these large companies have their own print shop? If Disney owns ESPN, and ESPN needs an order of 20k pieces, wouldn't it be in their benefit to run them throught Disney's print shop? Or does it not work that way?
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Funny you should ask, That helps segue into my being able to gripe more.
It can work that way and has. I'm sure one day they will re-invent the wheel and do it again. THey really should, but at that time, they ran into a major snag and wanted to abandoned the snag that was married to the Print shop. They said they wanted to focus on being a Theme Park and not a Vendor, but I know the real truth behind that story.
About the same time I started at Disney's Park Printing facility, it was in existence for 15 years prior. Since 1983. In Dec. of they 1999 closed it and sold to another vendor of Disney's (Fortune Fashions) who was #1 for years in Impressions top 100 volume printers. For years, they printed there own traditional and best selling pose, The Standing Mickey as seen below. When they sold to Fortune, It came with a contract for 7 years. The catch to that, was that Disney had another...well...I digress. I probably should not post (all the details) for legal reasons. I can say this, ... Well, I have more stories, that well, lets just say "It is indeed a small world after all". Anyways,
Later, a few years before I came, they were delving into more difficult printing. They were starting sim process and were not doing as good as there other vendors. It had it's ups and downs, but for them, mostly there were downs. They were apparently ready to sell (because of the "snag" that a major head of that division had committed to and working on the plans to sell at the same times I was hired to improve the print production quality. Why they would hire me specifically to improve the quality at the same time they were building plans to sell, I can only assume that they wanted to make the print shop look more like a major competitor to the outside vendors. Something that they would want to get out of the road maybe. I don't know. Thats really speculation. It gets deeper than that, but it's a long but interesting story. One that adds to the "issues of working with Disney as a vendor".
So, yes, they had a print shop. It's not the first. They also had a paper printing facility...that they also sold to another local vendor just a few years before I got there. That shop I think it called Moran Printing.
It would take someone intelligent with an interest in screen printing that works there to finally go back and look into the numbers and prove that it is more feasible for them to print it themselves and to get the big heads to buy into it.
As I said, They announced the reason they closed as "to focus on being a Theme Park". but like any good story, there is more.
(http://img1.etsystatic.com/000/0/6284767/il_fullxfull.344802781.jpg)
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why do you think we told Coke to go fly a kite? They were shocked we would say no to them.
My old shop told Coke to take a flying leap too, after a 150K order, back around '80. They paid like crap, and expected us to continue to produce very small quantities for the same price, $0.125 (yes, twelve and a half cents). I still drink it though...
Steve
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I would think that one reason that the really big boys don't print their own stuff is that it actually takes away from their ability to absolutely dictate price.
Until they can figure out a way to get employees to work for free, they will always hit a plateau of cost cutting.
Some outside vendors, on the other hand, will still bite and give in to ridiculous demands, and poor margins.
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I wonder if Frog nailed Homer's question? Maybe these big guys realize they are often asking for pricing and service that is not profitable for whoever is doing it. Let someone else, the printer, run the non-profitable part of getting this product manufactured.
The game for the printer would be to try and beat that trap- take their work and actually profit. Tony seems to have figured out how to do that (and stay sane) pretty well. Or, conversely, avoid that work during times when it's market price makes the jobs not profitable or during times when your operation is not geared to handle it.
It could also be that they want to focus on what they do, whether it's selling cans of pop or sports news advertising, and not on imprinting garments.
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I take it with sort of a wink and a nod. We get it.
BTW Dan I worked for Fred at Fortress Fashions (our term) You want to talk about knife throwing? Some stories there but better left untold unfortunately.
Well maybe a few. Each department had to wear a diffferent colored embbroidered polo. If you were a red (screenprint) person spotted in a blue (embroidery) department then you were subjected to questioning. We had a full time temp agency occupying a double wide trailer outside the building with 24/7 security. The "Roach Coach" was actually a full blown portable restaurant and was quite good actually.
I'll save the backstabbing stories for when I retire.
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Ha, I hear ya. When I think about it, I have enough stories that should go in a book. I know plenty of people that worked there that did well on writing books about the kingdom. Some tell all stories. One good one is called "Storming the Kingdom". That one is more about the almost hostile take over in the 80's. It's a good read. I recommend it to any business minded person interested in potentially working with Disney. Give a good history of the Co and mind set. On another note, somehow, when negative stuff pops up in books about the Co. you can see them disappear soon. I think they are being bought out most often. They do a good bit of public relations reputation control.
Over all, the idea behind Disney is a great one. It's just a business today. You have the facade of the Happiest place on earth and then you have the business that goes on behind it. It can be both pleasant and brutal for vendors and even pleasant and brutal for employees er "cast members". Much of the day to day motto's, creeds, and slogans are only faceless words.
I'm by no means a disgruntle employee. Well, I was at the way they were operating and taking the dream away from cast members, but like I said, the idea behind Disney made it great to work there. As time passed, the writing was on the wall (for those who had worked at other large company's before and went through layoffs and downturns. 7 years before my layoff, I predicted what they would do with our department in the next five years, but it took 7. It came true down to every step. As a business decision, it was what they should do (financially) and they did it. They took our creative department, cut it in half and made the remainder a style guide and approval department. For people that loved (and dreamed to work at Disney), it was a shock and a life changer. For me, I was mentally prepared.
I was one of 20 that was laid off and that doesn't look as bad as if I were the only one, but I would have been the one to volunteer to be if they were to ask for only one. We were laid off in 2009. We had another layoff is 2005 I think it was. At that time, they laid off a large majority of hourly employees (and that hurt the parks) on the front end and was not the best move. In addition, they also took volunteers. About 5 from our department took the vol package in 2005. If you volunteered, you got a nice package. Those Vols were all salary. They had a goal of laying off 5000 total people both salary and hourly company wide at that time and got it. They paid salary members a flat amount right off the bat and then another couple k for every year served up to a cap. Some left with 25k in their pocket and started businesses or banked it or blew it.
Next time around (my turn), they did it differently. The amount was not the same of course and then, they paid it out each pay as if you were still working there till the set amount ran out so you did not get one lump sum. That was unfortunate for me, since I had hoped for the lump sum so I could start my business.
I've been taking the long route ever since but I'm happier. If they were to offer me another job, I'd not. A few of the 20 laid off went back to work about a year or two later in other positions and some freelance for them. I'd not even freelance for them. Just not my cup of tee shirts. ')
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That pretty much mirrors what went on with Nike. At one point they were operating two facitlites on the east coast because they felt that would have better control of their products but after a decade or so the bean counters figured out it was smarter to outsource. Which it was.
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We had a chance to contract print for Russell and they took us on a tour of there plant and outlined everything they would want us to do, sounded great but on the back side we would give up all our customer base due to the fact we would have so much work to do for them, in the end we said no. Now I still can't wrap my head around 12.5 cents and most likly never will, I was telling my wife that the other day when she gave a customer a price of 5.99 I hate the 99, anything but the ninty nine..now on thet half a cent who gets it?, how does it work, to me it just causes more math headaches.
Darryl
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Disney is awful,we did 1 order through a vendor of those, all weekend on stand by with labor on hand as hour by hour, play by play the orders were being sent via blackberry during a weekend festival. Simple 1 color front and back, but it was ridiculous. They didn't want to commit to running the whole order, held up everything till the weekend of the event, we paid 6 people to be on hand plus we had ourselves, by end of day Sunday printed everything they had sent here, only to have the vendor who coordinated the whole deal come back tearing in his eyes that someone in Disney's media dept. sent out the wrong graphic, even though mocks were approved through several people. We got stiffed on the whole thing, the vendor went belly up as it was not the first time they did this to him, they demanded every single shirt, even miss prints, we didn't get paid a dime. NEVER AGAIN, people who, in Central Fl salivate at the chance to print for an organization like that need to realize it's a pipe dream dangling a gold and diamond mine in front of you that you'll never get. Almost like a smaller shop like us was targeted for this type of situation. No wonder why the bigger places who normally print for them wouldn't do the job. Ya live and learn.
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Companies like those are the 800 lb gorilla to be sure. You just need to know how to manage your customer which can be an aquired skill. Interestingly enough they flew me and our sales rep and artists out to cali to ride the rides, visit the park, and take notes on new design. It was uber cool to see how things work behind the scenes.
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That is unique that they would cover your cost to come out and do research. They (in the past) did not do that for most unless they "really thought they needed you". This is a good thing in most all cases for business. Knowing what I know, I can see only one reason why they would do this. Again, this is good but it comes with some need for more isight.
Feel free to call me directly. I would be happy to fill you in on a few things that will have a great impact and improve your business with them at the same time. For free even. No charge. ;)
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Same thing happened with the 1996 Olympics. We cranked shirts out night and day running only 2 shifts, it was 12 on 12 off for 2 weeks. We never got paid. About 36K in work.
That hurt.
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Are there very many other industries where price is dictated by the purchaser and not the vendor?
WalMart and their price point Vlassic pickles comes to mind, but nothing else I can think of.
BS if you ask me.
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Same thing happened with the 1996 Olympics. We cranked shirts out night and day running only 2 shifts, it was 12 on 12 off for 2 weeks. We never got paid. About 36K in work.
That hurt.
WOW, who stiffed you on that one?
pierre
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Hanes.
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Are there very many other industries where price is dictated by the purchaser and not the vendor?
WalMart and their price point Vlassic pickles comes to mind, but nothing else I can think of.
BS if you ask me.
Big box stores in general. One of the reasons that many times, an almost identical model of television or lawnmower may not be.
I heard a guy from Snapper years ago talking about how outfits like Walmart not only expect a lower price, but that that price must keep dropping on subsequent contracted orders!
The Snapper guy was saying that they had to stop being a vendor because they didn't want to put their name on the product as it had more and more corners cut to be able to still make a profit.
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Big box stores in general. One of the reasons that many times, an almost identical model of television or lawnmower may not be.
I heard a guy from Snapper years ago talking about how outfits like Walmart not only expect a lower price, but that that price must keep dropping on subsequent contracted orders!
The Snapper guy was saying that they had to stop being a vendor because they didn't want to put their name on the product as it had more and more corners cut to be able to still make a profit.
I don't think I like this model of business/capitalism. That Snapper said no brings them up quite a few notches in my eyes.
Actually they were pretty high up as is. My buddy got an old (like 1970's) ride on mower of theirs and the thing just keeps on
going. Sat outside for who knows how many years.
Which makes me wonder about all of those good 'ol boys in the midwest shopping at Walmart.
They must know better?
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mk, how was Hanes able to back out on their PO? That's crazy. Not to dig up bones, just curious.
I worked at a greenhouse/perennial farm years and years ago and Home Depot would place sets of PO's for their stores in the region, ahead of season of course, you have to grow the plants, and, when it came time to deliver they would try to reject the delivery. Presumably, they ordered from multiple vendors and had lower sales than expected on petunia baskets or whatever. The guy that owned the small operation I worked for strong armed them into accepting the deliveries and paying as a PO, written or verbal, in that state was legal justification to recover the payment so long as you delivered. I guess HD threw a bunch of small manufacturers who weren't as savvy or as flexible out of business backing out on large POs. In our case, if we couldn't get one of the deliveries through we lost some dirt, labor and hot house time, not a huge COGS there like with T shirts or drill bits, etc. This was early-mid 2000s.
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I too would like to know how Hanes stiffed you on that PO. I think more than a few owners on this board could benefit from the experiences of the big boys on here. I want to know how to profit from those jobs, please share.
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I've been told by a few folks that when you're printing for the big places, Macy's, JC Penny, etc., that
it's standard practice to pull cancellations, hurry up and waits, wait till the last minute so you can't meet your
contracted deadline so they don't owe you as much, etc. Purposefully doing whatever they can to pay you as little
as possible, as opposed to just being horribly disorganized.
I'm also curious as to how one deals with this. I would guess that a huge amount of capacity and flexibility
(OP on this thread 10K pieces in one day if I'm not mistaken) is the only way to beat them.
It's ridiculous in reality. They want what we do, but they aren't willing to pay for it. Or pay us anyways.
They'll pay the hell out of some freight though.
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The hardest part is dealing with these guys is the floating of money. We never had an issue of non pay but when they delay it from net 60 out to 120 or more money can get tight. For example Tilly's pays on net 120 so when you work with someone that is in their store you have to be aware of it. Especially when they are one of the bigger lines at the store. It can be profitable but it can get stressful waiting for the money to come it. It is just part of the game if you ant to play with them.
The best thing to do is document every little thing. Even the quick call to check for status of payment. Get a name, number, email, and anything else you can get from the person you talk to. It is just part of doing business with them.
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It's ridiculous in reality. They want what we do, but they aren't willing to pay for it. Or pay us anyways.
They'll pay the hell out of some freight though.
Perhaps it's that 1% corporate mentality. Sharing the wealth with Frog Prints or East Bay Screen is not in the cards as it is with shuffling money between big boys like Disney and UPS or Nike and Fed Ex or other similar big buck buddies.
I have worked in shops that were so starry eyed to get a contract with a perceived prestigious client, that they didn't even do their homework to see that they weren't even making any money! It took the boss' accountant to eventually point it out.
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It's ridiculous in reality. They want what we do, but they aren't willing to pay for it. Or pay us anyways.
They'll pay the hell out of some freight though.
Perhaps it's that 1% corporate mentality. Sharing the wealth with Frog Prints or East Bay Screen is not in the cards as it is with shuffling money between big boys like Disney and UPS or Nike and Fed Ex or other similar big buck buddies.
I have worked in shops that were so starry eyed to get a contract with a perceived prestigious client, that they didn't even do their homework to see that they weren't even making any money! It took the boss' accountant to eventually point it out.
Exactly. Took the accountant to point it out. Where is the owner/owners in that situation? Numbers don't lie and Big Names don't mean crap if you are not making money. I would much rather go camping with my dog than come in and work all weekend to just break even or no money at all
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Sorry for the delay, I had to return a purchase before 6 yesterday.
Here's what happened...this is a condensed version...
We were subcontracted to print genuine Olympic shirts. We went through all the BS with the hangtags and that junk. Well, an exec at Hanes decided that all the shirts for the Olympics MUST be purchased through 1 distro, the one he setup...the company name was his initials. The shirts were 50% higher than any other distro. The person who licensed us was buying them from a regular distro, they were the same exact shirts, not one thing was different. So, for the first 10 days of the Olympics all of our prints went into a warehouse thanks to a cease and desist. We didn't know what was going on until after the we finished printing. The folks we printed for went under, so there was nowhere to go. They took Hanes to court, but they just drug it out and he couldn't afford that.
We did get some equipment from the other company that we sold off, some we kept. We still lost enough to buy a nice BMW though(at least back then).
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Heres one for you. Back in the day JC Penneys started a trend where they automatically held back 10% in anticipation that you would be charged back due to non-compliance with the routing guide. I believe that in the end someone took it to court and the practice was ruled to be illegal
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Tony, can you put that in plain english?
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It's like moving the Raiders back ten yards at the beginning of a play merely assuming that they will commit an offense, and get that penalty anyway.
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I think what Tony means is that when doing work for major retailers, typically there is a routing guide that covers everything from soup to nuts for the printer. Most important is the specific instructions regarding packaging & how the boxes need to be labeled with all the pertinent information. Any deviation from the routing guide instructions will result in a "charge back" against the invoice that the printer submits.
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Ahh, the routing guide was what I was wondering about.
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The bean counters at JCP tracked charegebacks from their vendors and in their infinite wisdom came to the conclusion that the average rate was 10%. A CB is issued when a vendor does not comply with the routing guide. A routing guide is an often long and complicated document which explains, in detail, exactly how to produce and ship their order.
If you're late; thats a CB. Early; CB. Boxes labeled incorrectly; CB. Pallets too high; CB. Box wrong size; CB. That's just getting started but you get the picture. So the accountants decreed that 10% from all invoices would be with held in anticipation that a vendor will screw up. Then you had to jump through hoops to get it back once you passed muster.
Not understanding or disregarding the routing guide can cost dearly. We had an order for K-Mart and used the wrong type of hangtag on an 80K order. Lost $8,000 right there. I actually wrote an entire article on all this about eight ys ago.
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That all BS just a slick azz way to screw the printer out of money, I hate dealing with large companies, I,ve learn not to let my eyes cost my butt money. I print for a few colleges here and there and have learn to deal with only one person get POs before I do anything and keep all emails until I get a check, its a shame how big companies strong arm the hell out of you and get away with it.
Darryl