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General => General Discussion and ??? => Topic started by: tonypep on April 17, 2013, 08:02:05 AM
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Fascinating subject but perhaps only for me. Could go on for volumes as aspects of this applies to many but I'll refrain from over typing unless there is an interest
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Interested here!
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Go for it
RT Screen Designs
www.rtscreendesigns.com
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OK so heres part one. Our Gravity line sells across the country and all across the Carib. Custom dyed garments for kids, womens mens. Just got through hell week of Spring buyers placing initial orders. Technically it is not a Preprint line as it is namedrop driven and the sales options are virtually endless. These are by no means award winning graphics; just kind of a wink and nod fun little tourist line. All discharge (of course).
When scheduling, it is of course ideal to gang up as many orders of the same design as possible for efficiency reasons. But wait, these garments aren't necessarily sitting on a shelf. We dye and bring in by order based on a timeline. Keep in mind many Carib customers and others pre-book as far as three months. So as much as we would like to gang orders the garments might not be here. Plus we don't want to sit on unpaid merch.
As far as namedrops and left chest icons we have found that more options lead to increased sales. Which in turn leads to increased opportunities to make mistakes.
Much much more but gotta go and maybe it would be best to answer questions rather than babble. www.liveslow.net (http://www.liveslow.net)
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Amazing!!
How do you keep from being ripped off (designs). You are right - pritty generic - but VERY EFFECTIVE - I like them very much!! Can slogans be copyrighted - or is it the style they are written that keeps the rip-off guys away from you. All in all, I must say that this is a GREAT CONCEPT!!
Tony - I read your posts very carefully. You have alot to offer all of us. Thank you!!
One more question - what software do you use to keep all this production going in the right direction?
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Awesome, thanks Tony. I would for sure like to hear more about the dye process and any issues to watch out for in regards to printing. I have this coming down our pipeline later this year or in Spring of next year. One of our largest clients and I need to start doing my homework now.
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I've always wanted to get a retail line going with a ton of cool (but very easy to print) designs and use the slower time of year to print them. But the last few years have proven that the slow time of year is getting shorter and shorter to where this past year it never even happened. We would need a second auto if we had a retail line with our regular custom work. Good info as always Tony.
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Thanks Ron. The line is as simple as it is complex. 48 piece minimum and you can mix and match styles and colors within the 48. We purposely design our graphics this way, allowing the buyer maximum creativity. Thats part of the appeal I suppose. The line is 15 years old and buyers are quite loyal, some of them police their market and report knockoffs which we address with a cease and desist. We don't worry too much about that however. It just doesn't happen that often and if it does it has zero impact.
All the "Talkie" slogan screens are libraried and pulled as needed as well as all the top twenty sellling designs (we track this carefully). This is partly why DTS won't work for us. Hence the newfounded popularity of the GT6/8. Three manuals also support this. The Quick Ship program is geared toward proven designs with long history of sell through. We guarantee these in ten days.
For those who request it we supply merchandising fixtures and material like signs, billboards, and even stuffed toy replicas of popular items. Often free of charge.
With Resort its all about turn. If you're on time at the beginning and everthing sells through the buyer will put in a relacement order, sometime several.We track graphics, body styles, colors, demographics.....everything. Twice a year the line is culled and added to, although no design is permanenly archived. Production (me) Sales, and Art meet each week and review all of this. Everything is tracked and run through the Impress apparel software program with fifteen users
and this
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Very cool info Tony. We have looked at trying to do something similar in the past, but we have found it would be hard to do as we stay pretty busy and the marketing and sales aspect of this is a bit outside of what we normally do around here. Very interesting all the same though and really appreciate the insight from someone who is doing it! Thanks - I'll be reading with interest!
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Thanks all. You're right it takes a huge comittment. Four trade shows a year for starters and its a 50 ft booth. We establish budgets for marketing and merchandising and have contests (the talkie contests are really popular) and interesting stuff to help keep us in front of the buyers. And yes we have territorial reps as well.
Some interesting notes on design. A Gravity piece of apparel costs exactly the same no matter how many colors are printed. Obviously no film/screen etc charge but gross margin is around $6.00 per unit. So the Talkies are fat and happy. We also over print DC colors (no halftones) like red over yellow to create orange without adding a screen. On the designs that are outlined the outline art is spread by around a point and a half to speed up registraition The dark color (usually navy, reflex, or black) covers up the others without a blur. Heres a pic of the war room.
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One of our other lines is Our Shirts Don't Suck (www.ourshirtsdontsuck.com (http://www.ourshirtsdontsuck.com)) Whole other team of people but it's the same model as Resort except theres more custom art involved for obvious reasons. Still we have templates to keep that cost down. In the Gallery you'll see several of those blends which is all the rage with the kids. Also all DC prints
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Hey Tony,
Good morning. (It's still only 7:30 AM on the West Coast) So with you doing you own custom dying I have some questions that could really, really help me out later this year. Alright, here goes :
1. I assume not to expect to be able to match any pantone the client wants
2. Any difference between cotton and organic cotton for the dye process (I am assuming bleach is in the non organic)
3. Anything to watch out for in regards to printing discharge on what we are going to dye
4. Shirts will be 100%. Anything else I should be aware of?
Again, I have plenty of time but the end of the year will be here fast. Might as start researching now. Any help would be appreciated! Thank you!
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Hey Brandon. Most dye houses can hit Pantones but in the Uncoated section. And most use greige goods (unbleached and not organic). I have set up dye hoses in the past with DC testing stations in their facilites to chk before goods leave the building. If not they should dye in their sample machine and you'll need to test.
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Brandon, we sold one of our pre-print lines early this year to one of our wholesalers who is doing this exact thing and we'll be printing. Organic cotton Ts from a smaller op in LA, Groceries. So far they are discharge friendly and actually guaranteeing no overdyes and single dye lots for the deliveries! We'll see how that goes, sounds too good to be true considering the dye runs are not huge. I'll let you know what I learn through them vicariously on this.
My goal, and our client's, is to be able to take in a large drop ship of these goods a few times of year for their main, seasonal stock supply to ship for wholesale orders, run DC sampling on each color before production and then rip it all out with WB/DC for a fast turn and very low cost.
Tony that is a really good idea to have them setup a little DC station to test. How did you standardize that? I would probably send them some D-Base and activator, instruct them to mix to 6% and swab or print test and cure and then include a swatch that has examples of pass/no pass maybe? Or I guess just test in house with the lab dips or whatever they call those samples they send out before a dye lot happens. This place sounds like they are savvy to DC but it may not be top of mind when they are mixing a dye color.
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I built them a one color jig with jiffy clamps and a kickstand. Set some screens etc. Instead of base we sent yellow as it is most prone to shifting. They would cure with the industrial hair dryer.
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I built them a one color jig with jiffy clamps and a kickstand. Set some screens etc. Instead of base we sent yellow as it is most prone to shifting. They would cure with the industrial hair dryer.
Word. I like using yellow, it is finicky and will tell you visually if a dye is stubborn. We do the industrial hair dryer thing too, since you suggested it on here awhile ago, thx for that! Big time saver.
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Hey Chris and Tony,
Thanks for the info! Really cool to read and food for thought. I am very excited we have this going on later this year as it is going to open a whole new window of opportunity for us. I visited the place we will be using and they seem to be on it
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Hi Tony,
How is the variable printing done with so many different names and get them to fall in the same spot?
I don't get the (benefit/extra step) of the dyeing part- Is it the unique shirt colors that makes the line unique and be able to tell the knockoffs?
Would you say it's beneficial for a startup of a pre-print line, to have a (more is better than less) n number of designs available for a healthy catalog for
prospective customers to choose from.
Most designs have 2-3 colors-
a. So you library 2-3 screens per design? And only make screens for the name drops?
b. I know you use a lot of stretch and glue frames- So how do you maintain acceptable tensions from screen to screen for any given design?
With the garment itself, being the highest upfront cost and have the least control as fa as inventory- Would you say it's beneficial to order in higher than usual numbers and warehouse yourself? So as to get lower prices per piece? So more like 5k-10k pcs orders?
My questions are based on internet retail sales.
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With regards to namedrops those are pre-pinned to line up exactly as designed. Yes we dye to order based on our color pallette although I don't necessarily recommend that for others; it's just what our customers expect from us. Just like most or all of us we don't want to sit on merch so our dye POs are based on actual POs placed by customers and is thinly padded. Don't go batshit crazy on me but mesh tension is a very minimal consideration for us. Having screens on hand is more valuable. At Harlequin, which had hundreds of sim process imaged screens (rigid) this was the only way to go. Several trailers were parked around the campus with libraried frames available at all times so we could react with immediacy. Just saying how it is/was. Not recommending how anyone else should do this
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I agree with Tony that the best way to respond to pre-print needs is to have libraried screens which, as we all know, means you aren't in direct control of tension no matter what type of screen you use. Nature of the beast. You can measure it and replace as need though. I think this habit is acceptable for this type of circumstance only and totally unacceptable for day to day operations.
I try to use our pin lock system to over come the need to library any screen (library pinned films instead) but we still do it with a handful every year. If we had to keep ripping out a sim pro job dozens of times a year I'd likely do the same and library all the screens and inks. Imaging quality, higher lpi sim pro screens easily takes 10x longer than simple spot color and no technology, DTS or otherwise, is going to put much of a dent in that fact....
...until they come out with some kind of digital nano-bot emulsion or something. but it wouldn't matter anyway as the machines would then be poised to rise and enslave all mankind and I would be hiding out in the mountains waging a guerilla war against them instead of printing T shirts.
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Hi Tony,
How is the variable printing done with so many different names and get them to fall in the same spot?
I don't get the (benefit/extra step) of the dyeing part- Is it the unique shirt colors that makes the line unique and be able to tell the knockoffs?
Would you say it's beneficial for a startup of a pre-print line, to have a (more is better than less) n number of designs available for a healthy catalog for
prospective customers to choose from.
Most designs have 2-3 colors-
a. So you library 2-3 screens per design? And only make screens for the name drops?
b. I know you use a lot of stretch and glue frames- So how do you maintain acceptable tensions from screen to screen for any given design?
With the garment itself, being the highest upfront cost and have the least control as fa as inventory- Would you say it's beneficial to order in higher than usual numbers and warehouse yourself? So as to get lower prices per piece? So more like 5k-10k pcs orders?
My questions are based on internet retail sales.
Well we don't do internet sales in the traditional sense but in these times, carrying costs are prohibitive so we place dye orders based on realized sales. We have a Resort dye color pallette as well as an Outdoor pallette with a few colors carrying over. Each season the popularity is examined; the hot colors carry over and the less popular colors replaced. We spend a lot of time trending.
Maintaining namedrops, BTW is a whole process. Different designs have different fonts and sizes so we manage app 10s of thousands of these. Often it's quicker and less expensive to create new ones than finding the old ones but thats really an excuse for not having a better system in place. Working on that. Yes we gang up as many as perhaps ten orders for the same design; swapping out the ND screens as necessary
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Tony, your business model for a pre-print line is based on realized sales.. So it's really built around your sales reps you already have in place/or resources to hire. So number of designs carried, dye orders, library of designs and every other operation is built around your reps. Screen printing becomes just a competency that is used in this model. - Solid.
Managing a pre-print line such as say tshirthell, before they incorporated DTG into their operations, is something I would like to realize, without reinventing the wheel.
Without historical sales data, I would see how warehousing large quantities of blanks to be advantageous. But trying to compete without a generous catalog is a fail..
So it's printing on demand and that means either library of screens or library of plastisol transfers. Library of screens mean wasted inks (what if it's only one shirt) and screen clean up becomes expensive.
Just my thoughts.
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Again minimums are 48 pcs for us (although we sneak in a few favor orders as needed.)
All of Gravity is discharge in our own pallette of 80 colors or so. Our Ink dept is pretty deft at knowing how much color to activate based on image size and shirt qtys, especially with designs with 15 ys of history. We don't waste much ink, indeed we would rather under activate and come back with more. I think part of it's success is it's flexibility. The buyer is allowed to mix and match garment styles, colors, left chest icons, etc. Most buyers like to have that creativity although some actually leave that up to us. Some will pre-book at shows like Surf so in those cases we know whats coming down the pike and can be prepared for it.It may make it a bit unwielding to manage but we're used to it and continue to tweak the whole process. It doesn't make fiscal sense to stock blanks due to cash flow and # of SKUs and we rec a dye order each week. Typical turn is two weeks. Some exceptions include having to ship complete all screenprint, embroider, and applique complete as it must go through customs to St Barths, Turqs & Caicos, etc.
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Correction. I was reminded about our Quick Ship promotion. These designs actually are pre-printed (this one on Red Hot and Midnight only) and stocked on shelf in season. Name dropped as ready. One week turn. We issue a replenishment order when inventories dip below set levels which can change depending on season. Same "In Training" theme for Diver, Mermaid, etc. We do this because they are the top selling yth designs and we have a high level of confidence in sell through.
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Oops again