Curious how others would've handled this order/customer

[Martin Denton]

The only thing you can take away from this for next time is to investigate potential issues and typical warranties for a given product - easy enough to find on the internet.

Then make sure they are put into your quote. eg warranties for printed apparel are limited to 2 months or 2 washes whichever comes first. Or whatever warranty your supplier is giving. If its none then the warranty is none if it's one year with preconditions then it is one year with those exact same conditions.

Essentially back to back your sales conditions with the suppliers

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

I can relate with you on this situation.

For the longest time, we did not set expectations for our clients and this led to alot of situations like this early on. As we grew we learned and started to inform our clients more. We still get this situation but it's not nearly as prevelant, and we constantly evolve. We have now learned to avoid certain processes and just refer clients to trusted partners.

I think you did the right thing by replacing it the first time, inform them that there is no warranty on apparel due to the variables and move on.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

As a wholesale partner, we replace stuff all the time if our customers ask us to. Just part of the game. I see alot of people mentioning warranties. I'm not sure that plays into this. With the importance of online reviews and referrals, a warranty doesn't matter anymore - it's all about customer perspective.

I disagree, warranties are needed so everyone is on the same page. If you don't do a warranty, then they could, in theory, come back a year from now wanting a replacement (or even later). Or want you to replace the product when it was what they did that caused the issue.

If I know they requested a certain product and that there are pitfalls to that product, I'm going to mention it and get them to sign away that they were made aware of those pitfalls and it's going to be well documented.

I'm not saying not to replace items when it's warrantied, but not every instance it is, and if they (customers) don't know where they stand with certain products and what's expected from those products, it makes a situation like this much harder.


It is all about perspective and being upfront at the beginning goes a long way with that. As to online reviews, I've seen bad reviews given even when replacements were done. I've seen reviews by people that weren't customers ruin the business due to perspective that those reviewers had of the company. In a lot of ways, it really is "damned if you do, damned if you don't".

 

[wildside]

Even though the logo was faded, they still kept 40 shirts with their logo on it just washed out, plus 40 brand new shirts. I believe I could've been more assertive to both the customer and my vendor in regards to the amount of time that was passed, misguided confidence in the printer, etc, but I wasn't sure if this was a good business practice to tell them to beat it. Thanks for the input!

i think you handled it ok. The only thing i would do different is take the bad shirts back. If they are so faded and bad that they want replacement, they need to bring in the bad shirts or no replacement. The risk is that they are wearing a bad one and mention you did it and looks bad on you. Get them back and use them as a sales tool to steer people away from DTG, i have had bad experiences with DTG every time also.

On the other hand, did you see all 40 shirts? they may of only had a few that did this and were just wanting more and used you for it.

 

[Stacey K]

I would done the same thing you did, but asked for the bad shirts back. You will think of that if there is a next time lol

I think a lot has to do with how often people wear them and how they wash/dry them. For example, anyone who has middle school or high school boys knows they pick out a couple shirts and wear them for 3 months straight...and they are shot. I can't tell you how many of those full color nascar or dirt track racing shirts we have...they last until the next Christmas, and we buy new ones and use the old ones for work shirts or rags. They are faded, holes in the armpits, small holes near the seams, etc. It's money well spent if they wear them to the point of being a rag LOL I venture to guess some adults do this also. A lot of people throw everything in the dryer on high so I can see how apparel can go bad quickly especially if they wear it a couple times a week. Clothes last a lot longer and look nicer if you line dry with a few "fluffing" minutes in the dryer.

 

[MrPrinter]

5 months?.....sorry that is too long, too many variables on clothing.

reminds me.....I once had a client (old lady who eventually retired) asked about warrantying some a frame prints fading after 2 years I pretty much just laughed it off....at first I thought she was joking but she was serious.

The best I would have done for this client is offer a price break on a new order (while still making a little something on that) and fully explain the disclaimer regarding durability.

 

[cjo]

hey all! Just curious as to how other people would've responded to this customer. I normally stay on the production side of things, but have recently been handing more of a sales role as well, so I'm still on the learning curve. Let me lay out the scenario first.

I had 40 DTG shirts outsourced to a local printer as I don't do apparel in house. I get the same discounts on blank apparel as they do, so I supplied the shirts, they just printed. At first, the shirts looked great and my customer was thrilled.

Fast forward almost 5 months. My customer comes back in saying the quality is terrible as all the shirts are nearly washed out already and images very faded once the shirts were washed. They demanded a full replacement of the order free of charge.

Here's how I handled it - I took a few of the shirts to my printer and got them to state in an email that the prints should not be fading that quickly at all. They tried to say I didn't provide the right type of shirts, but I used their recommendation. They also said that since it was almost half a year, they weren't willing to redo the order free of charge including replacement shirts. I negotiated and provided them with shirts they spec'd, but they were covering the printing costs. In the end, hopefully my customer is happy, but I likely won't be using this vendor again.

I'm just curious as to how other people would've handled it (I was torn with the 5 month time frame and whatnot).

Thanks

 

[GAC05]

Next time pro-rate them like a NAPA battery - the longer they wear them the more the discount on replacement cost shrinks - just like the shirts.

 

[PMDLLC]

I would agree that 5 mos is drastically long to state a claim on an order. I use DTG prints all the time and not one complaint on faded prints or washed out prints from laundering. I have several I wear and wash with regular clothes. Not one fade after 5 washes. And i dont turn them inside out. Detergent is Armor Hammer for front loaders. Water temp is between 80-100 degrees. Prints look the same. No degrading nor cracking.

Its all about your pretreating, press temp settings, and cure times with DTG. Makes a hella difference with cotton ring spun garments. I have some screen printed shirts failing over my DTG shirts. Guess it depends whom is actually printing them and their level of expertise and knowledge about garment type, inks, pressing temps, white underbase, pretreat methods, and cure times for screen printing and/or DTG.

As mentioned, the best practice is to state your warranty up front or have it posted for customers to see when entering the shop. I always mention any warranties if it applies to any service or product we sell. But I am always more than happy to help a dissatisfied customer the best way I can within reason and as much as the law allows in my operating state.

 

[binki]

What color were the shirts? Do you have a picture you can post?

 

[PMDLLC]

The shirt colors vary per order. But mainly black, navy, blue, white, cream, pink, yellow, and ash gray. I have a trick for pretreating light colored shirts for white ink acceptance. All pretreating is done with a LVHP gravity fed spray gun with pressure regulator on the gun. Using a eight gallon CaliforniaAir compressor. All pretreat is measured out on a scale. No complaints on any of these prints. AAEIU® is a registered trademark that we own.