Just getting into Shirt making. Need Advise on Pricing

[bobntoms]

Hello All,

My wife and I own a small sign shop in the San Antonio TX area. Recently we have been approached to about shirts, and have decided to start offering them. Would anybod mind sharing any advice or pointers on how to I should structure my shirt pricing?

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

Just double your cost for the shirts, plus a little extra to cover the occasional shipping charges doesn't hurt. Then figure your time involved in (on a one color, one location print job, for example) emulsifying a screen, printing the film, exposing the screen, setting up the press, printing and drying, as well as sorting and folding. Multiply that time by your hourly shop rate. Determining your hourly shop rate is another discussion all in itself, but it basically involves covering your overhead and producing a profit. If you don't want to charge screen fees or art fees and include that in your pricing, you will have to figure that into your time calculations as well.

From the day you start your new venture and for at least several months thereafter, if not for the life of your business, I personally think it's a good idea to log each job. Keep a clipboard handy and keep a record of total time involved in performing each of various processes throughout each and every job. Record the total number of shirts, print locations, and colors for each job and this will help to eventually establish a solid pricing structure that you can be confident in.

 

[All Graphics Calgary]

You could also get heat transfer material and a press, then digitally print your designs.

 

[TopFliteGraphics]

Buy the shirts from a wholesaler such as TSF (double the price of the shirt) and then outsource the printing to a local silk screen shop that specializes in dealing with print brokers. I have been using the same guy for a LONG time and would not think of getting into printing them myself. He has the volume to support the machines and staff.

 

[eahicks]

My 2 cents...if you don't make them, don't sell them.

 

[TammieH]

I would pass, myself. The T-Shirt printing business has always been cutthroat, to many silkscreeners use to screen in their garages

And then you got the customers who are constantly trying to get you to lower the cost, telling they can get it for this price here or there.

Do you silkscreen signs now?

 

[mark galoob]

my advise is dont do it. we tried to put shirts into our line up several years ago...bought a brother dtg heat press...subbed out screen printing. i really ended up hating the shirt business. it took about 2 yrs to make enough money from shirt sales to pay the equipment off, and i sold all the shirt equipment and stopped providing the service.

 

[d fleming]

Hello All,

My wife and I own a small sign shop in the San Antonio TX area. Recently we have been approached to about shirts, and have decided to start offering them. Would anybod mind sharing any advice or pointers on how to I should structure my shirt pricing?

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Do you intend to scree print or use heat press and plotter film? Or both?

 

[Doyle]

Coming from someone who operates a medium-sized sign shop, we also have a full screen printing custom apparel department that keeps 2 full-time employees busy every day, it is a CUT-THROAT business to say the least. As mentioned above, there is always some hack in a garage/basement picking off some of your orders by low-balling everything. It is annoying to say the least, but screen printing is NOT easy, if you care about a quality print, not to mention the fact that quality ARTWORK is just as important. Any monkey with a computer and coreldraw can output an image to a screen, sell the quality of your work and don't treat it like a commodity. Depending on your market, business model and overhead, it will probably still take a couple of years to get up to speed. There is money to be made in the business, but like everything else, you get what you put in and it will take a while to learn the ins and outs of the printing.

IMO it is incredibly difficult to set your prices before you really know what is involved, waste factors, setup/cleanup time etc etc. To start out, maybe check prices on a web-based business like customink.com and set that as your starting point. It is not wise to base your prices off of someone else's overhead, but this will at least get you rolling. We usually include 15-20 minutes of artwork/setup in every job, but we never give away a custom shirt design (anything that takes us longer than 20-30 min to design), it is always factored in somewhere (we charge $75/hr, though I guess the screen-printing industry standard is $30/hr, which I never understood).

We obsess over the look and feel of the printed garment. Using plastisol inks and getting a soft "hand" is not easy. Figure this part out and you will already by lightyears ahead of the basement/garage hobby guys. OR, just use vinyl heat transfers but you will quickly find out how limited the process is. I don't own a DTG printer but I have considered them on multiple occasions.... expensive machines that are very expensive to run and maintain in contrast to a screen printing press. We started with a very small 3 color 1 station press and a flash dryer. Look around on craigslist for the guys selling off their equipment after they realized it wasn't easy and you could probably save yourself hundreds of dollars on a modest starter kit. Good luck!

 

[TopFliteGraphics]

My 2 cents...if you don't make them, don't sell them.

This may be the worst advice I have ever heard on this forum.

If everybody thought that way, places like signs365.com and 4over.com would not exist. My business would not be anywhere near as profitable without outsourcing. My customers have learned over the years that, "Gary at Top Flite can get it done for me" precisely because I outsource things. I keep my overhead low and this allows me to compete easily with shops that do everything in house. I also allows me offer a lot more to my customers when they are in front of me. For instance, I did a truck for a client last week and he said to me that he needed to get new shirts made to match his new logo. I told him, "I do shirts." and even went so far as to tell him I outsource them. He said ok, give me a price. I gave him the price and he said, "Wow, you beat the old guy I was using by a decent amount." I got the order and made an extra $390 (in profit) for merely driving to my wholesale shirt supplier and delivering them to the printer. Total time spent on the order was less than 2 hours of driving (to and from the suppliers) - which was actually combined with an installation job in the same area.

Granted, until you have more knowledge, don't try to be all things to all people. Knowledge is the key.

 

[decalman]

You got to get the blank shirts cheap.

I was in the tee shirt biz for a while. I went to Sturgis with 6 thousand tee shirts.
In order to under cut the numerous competitors, I bought irregular blanks and had them re-labeled.
The shirts where good as long as they're 100% cotton and thick.

The moral is.. buy low, so you can sell lower than the other guys.

 

[Doyle]

You got to get the blank shirts cheap.

I was in the tee shirt biz for a while. I went to Sturgis with 6 thousand tee shirts.
In order to under cut the numerous competitors, I bought irregular blanks and had them re-labeled.
The shirts where good as long as they're 100% cotton and thick.

The moral is.. buy low, so you can sell lower than the other guys.

OR....... offer a better product and you won't have to use junk t-shirts with cheap printing to turn a profit. It has never been my goal to sell for less than the other guys, and so far it has paid off. I would rather be better, not cheaper, but that's just me. Granted, this will depend on the market you are targeting, of course.

:signs101: