What Promotional Products Distributors Wish Their Apparel Decorators Knew

By most industry estimates, apparel accounts for upwards of 30% of Promotional product sales.  Include headwear and some bags that may get shipped to outside, contract decorators, then some may see almost ½ of their sales in the hands of decorator partners.  If such a large portion of our business success and or potential failure is reliant upon outside supplier partners, we better make sure we both understand the needs of each other’s businesses.  This process MUST start with educating the PPD’s about methods of decoration, processes and costs to complete each, the technicalities of the different processes and the things that can go wrong with each, these are all important factors but so much more to learn for PPD’s.   

Now more than ever, there are potentially dozens of ways to decorate garments, caps and bags.  Technology has provided better Direct To Garment (DTG) machines for all categories, as well as heat seal, applique, laser, 3D/Puff embroidery and others.  For simplicity purposes in this discussion, we can focus on direct embroidery and screen print since they likely provide a large majority of the volume.  In choosing a supplier partner for outsource decorator needs it’s advisable to have multiple options that specialize in either embroidery only, or screen print only.  As with most service offerings you may find this old adage true, you can have fast service, high quality, and low price- pick which 2 you’d like.  This example may hold true, and that’s fine, just make sure to have several options in your supplier base that cover the 2 you need for each specific job.