| STITCHES: Embroidery Business Insights
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Volume 120 / June 10, 2010 |
| Click here to read this and past issues online. | |
| VIDEO |
Stitches Cheat
Sheet: Recycled Polyester What are your decoration and wearables questions? |
Business startups reached their highest level in 14 years in 2009, according to a new study released by the Kauffman Foundation, a nonprofit research firm. “Challenging economic times can serve as a motivational boost to individuals who’ve been laid off to become their own employers and future job creators,” says Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation. “Because entrepreneurs drive up the economy, the growth in 2009 business startups is encouraging and hopefully points to a trend in terms of our economic recovery.” The increase in startups in 2009 continues a modest trend that began in 2007, based on Census and Bureau of Labor statistics. Entrepreneurial activity rose last year among both men and women and among non-Latino whites, while slipping slightly for Latinos and Asians. Geographically, entrepreneurship increased at its highest rate west of the Mississippi River, with Oklahoma, Montana, Arizona, Texas and Idaho realizing the largest gains. In these five states alone, roughly 450 per 100,000 adults created a business each month in 2009. In metropolitan areas, Houston had the highest business-startup rate last year, while Seattle had the lowest. Self-motivated entrepreneur Jane Swanzy, owner of Swan Marketing LLC in Houston, has been in business full-time since 2004. After quitting her day job, Swanzy focused on her home-based embroidery business, buying a commercial machine and loving the ability to set her own hours. “In my full-time job, I had gotten to the point where I couldn’t tolerate it anymore because I was literally sitting at a desk for six of the eight hours,” she says. “I was there twiddling my thumbs and trying to stay awake because I didn’t have enough to do. I am so project-oriented – I get one done and move right on to the next thing.” Although Swanzy’s business isn’t a product of the recession and she hasn’t felt an increase in direct competition from new startups, she has noted the recent rise in businesses moving out of the office and back into homes. “I’m on the Houston Promotional Products Association’s board of directors, and that topic came up as a discussion at a meeting about a month or so,” she says. “We were looking at people who hadn’t renewed their membership to the association for 2010 yet, and as we were divvying up the list for people to call, we learned that several had let their employees go, moved their business into their home and started working as sole proprietors due to the economy.” Swanzy says that there has always been a very strong entrepreneurial spirit in Houston and believes the increase in home-based businesses is better for the economy than people being unemployed. “Some won’t be successful, but it’s a proactive starting point, rather than people just waiting for a job to come along,” she says. |
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| What’s Old Is New Again This year retro will rewind back to two decades that are immediately recognizable for their iconic styles and uses of colors and prints: the 1950s and the 1970s. The fifties was a decade of optimism and positivity, and a return to the fashion of that time indicates an upturn. From the 1950s, look to see dresses with fitted bodices and full circle skirts, formfitting bombshell dresses that evoke Marilyn Monroe, and straight-leg Capri pants and crisp white men’s shirts tied in front. Also, look to see breezy, bright patterned sundresses. Also popular this season is 1970s retro athletic and casual wear. “Styles are more structured like they were in the 1970s,” says Mark Smalley, marketing manager of American Apparel (asi/35297). “Waistlines are raised, which makes shorter tees more in demand. I’ve been seeing more demand for cropped tees and baby-doll styles.” |
| MARKETS TO WATCH: Retro Wear |
Retro trends are back, and decorators are embracing them with open arms – and wallets. “We’ve seen a growing trend in events themed toward ’50s sock hops or even trade show uniforms leaning toward a diner or more retro motif,” says Tim Coggeshall, vice president of sales for Cruisin’ USA (asi/47743). “And that’s a great opportunity for decorators to increase sales and bring something new to their clients.” For companies like Cruisin’ USA, which sells retro apparel year-round, business has picked up greatly. End-users are looking to stand out among the crowd and wear colorful, fun clothing, so decorators are doing more to target all audiences by designing apparel to appeal to a wide range of customers. “I don’t see any one particular demographic suddenly turning from three-piece suits to retro-style bowling shirts,” Coggeshall says. “We’ve added two new items to our bowling-shirt line, one of which we specifically designed with generic school colors to help it reach from colleges to high schools to grade schools, as well as to professional sports teams.” Oftentimes, decorators coordinate specific athletic fundraisers at a bowling alley for relaxed, low-maintenance fun, and they call on companies like Cruisin’ USA for shirts, shoes and accessories. “We also will have a decorator call us up and say they have a customer doing a trade show,” Coggeshall says. “And the customer is looking for something different. They mention camp shirt, colorblock, panel shirt – all those names are used to describe our retro-style bowling shirt with contrasting colors.” Decorator Mike Wagman of Topton, PA-based Rockland Embroidery Inc. (asi/34150), says he has seen the retro trend among schools and sports teams, too. The distressed Abercrombie and Fitch look appeals to a younger crowd, making them the most common end-users of the retro apparel Rockland decorates. Wagman recalls one order from a high school sporting team that wanted to stand out during its annual Spirit War. “I had the client send me their logo and we did a spec sample in the distressed appliqué, and they loved it,” he says. “The distressed appliqué isn’t something they had in mind, but once they saw that, they wanted it – and they ordered 144 pieces.” |
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| QUICK HIT: How to Find New Leads |
Wondering how to add new clients to your base? It’s easy: Generate new leads. Or maybe, it’s not so easy. “I advertised at first, but it was fruitless,” says Joyce Jagger, owner of TheEmbroideryTrainingResourceCenter.com.“The easiest and most effective way I found to get new leads was to always give my existing customers business cards and brochures so they could refer me to others.” According to a new business-to-business Marketing Benchmark Survey, 69% of the more than 2,600 professionals surveyed said that generating high-quality leads was their top concern. In an increasingly competitive market, successful decorators have found ways to target their leads and expand them, making for a significant rise in customers and sales. Tip 1: Tuck business cards and brochures into packed orders for referrals. “When a customer comes in to pick up their items or if you’re mailing an order out, put a brochure about your referral program and a business card in their bag,” Jagger says. “Flyers, brochures, anything – as long as there’s info about your program, such as that they get 10% off their next order if a person they refer buys from you.” Jagger’s advice for a referral program is simple: Give your clients your business card or business flyer. Advise them to sign their names on the back and distribute them to their friends, family and acquaintances. When the person who was referred comes into the shop, store the business card and keep track of who referred the new customer. When the original customer returns, they can receive a discount on their next purchase for spreading the word about the company. “I never had to advertise because this brought me more customers,” Jagger says. “It can’t get any better for you than people telling other people about your business. It’s by far the best way to get new leads.” Tip 2: Ask for a referral after a customer has placed their order. “Ask if they have a friend or acquaintance who may be in the market for your services,” Jagger says. “You can then call that referral and let them know that Mr. or Mrs. [your customer] was in your shop looking for a special gift and you thought maybe they’d also be in the market for a special gift for a loved one.” She notes that holidays such as Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Easter and Christmas, plus special occasions such as anniversaries and weddings, are easy times to generate more customers through this system. Tip 3: Target PR departments. Howard Potter, owner of Yorkville, NY-based A & P Master Images and a four-year student of Jagger’s, says, “We do everything for public relations at St. Luke’s Hospital – their golf tournaments and all their little events there. And individually we’ve then networked through PR to every head director at the hospital.” He says that the PR department is the starting point for working your way into the company and reaching out to as many employees as possible. He began conducting inside sales directly with the staff, and A & P Master Images was one of the first companies to come into the hospital and sell logoed apparel to the staff through payroll deductions. Tip 4: Include free products with large orders. “The hospital with 3,500 staff members placed an initial $2,000 order with us for basic embroidery,” Potter says. “When I brought them their embroidered polos, I included a free tote bag, a laptop bag, a duffel bag, and gave them maybe $100 at my cost of free stuff to show them what we can do on other items.” People are thrilled to receive free products, and it gives them an incentive to continue buying and to build a relationship with a decorating company. Tip 5: Always, always, always promote more products. “While we were selling the hospital apparel, I also had two tables set up with other products, because we also do sublimation, promotional products, screen printing and embroidering, so we showed two tables’ worth of products that we had done for other people,” Potter says. “We brought in catalogs, free tote bags, sticky notes and pens to give out with all of our information on them.” Each month when Potter goes to visit his hospital client, he rotates the freebies that he brings so as to always introduce new products to the market and watch how the employees respond, hoping that they’ll pass the product onto their friends and family. “The employees themselves know people and have kids on sports teams,” he says. “And, that’s really networked us on a really low cost to generate an extra $20,000 to $40,000 in sales just off of that.” |
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| Tip of the Day Did you know that you can get a new Tip of the Day every day on Stitches.com? Here’s just one of the business-building tips you’ll find online: “Take the time out of your busy schedule and set at least one hour
of your day aside for looking through all your job sheets. If you
find a word that may be odd, circle it with a highlighter. Then,
contact your customer to make sure it’s right.” |
| NEWS BRIEFS & PRODUCT RELEASES | |
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Affinity Express Inc. has announced that David Kang joined the company as executive vice president and chief digital officer, and will establish an interactive business segment and expand the company’s digital services products offered to all clients. Aurum Organic offers an infant one-piece bodysuit (product 2323) as part of its line of 100% organic apparel. Offered in natural, petal (pink), light blue and olive, the bodysuit features a lap-shoulder neck, short sleeves and has the traditional three-snap crotch. Barudan America introduces the Elite Pro II with VT2 Automat and the C01 BEVT-Z1501CII Servo machine. The VT-2 has a USB port to transfer designs, eliminating the CF card/slot, and the C01 has servo motors vs. stepper motors. Maximum sewing speed has been increased from 1,000 spm to 1,300 spm on flats and from 800 spm to 1,000 spm on caps. Boxercraft (asi/41325) has introduced a new promotion, offering its perfect-fit T-shirt (product T15) and boyfriend tank top (product T85) for $1.99 with the purchase of any regular-priced bottom. Mention code TEE2010 at time of purchase to receive the discount. The offer is good until August 30, 2010. Chouinard offers a hooded sweatshirt (product 8755) in youth sizes: small (6/8), medium (10/12), large (14-16) and extra large (18/20). It’s made of 80% cotton/20% polyester 10-oz. fleece and is available in blue, blue jean, crimson, burnt orange, denim, red orange, blue spruce, citrus, white and kiwi. Great Dane Graphics offers new Wildlife Stock Art designed for screen printing, digital direct-to-garment printing, transfers and graphics printing, for use on apparel, signs, brochures and ad presentations. Imprintables Warehouse has released a new materials catalog containing CAD materials designed to be used with a cutter or a printer/cutter to create a wide range of heat-applied graphics. New materials include Spectra Gloss, Solar 210 and Textures, along with new products such as Vividprint, Solar Print, Satin Print, graphics cutting software, transfer papers and pressure-sensitive polyester twill. McBee Supply offers a monthly two-day training class on how to get started in screen printing. Classes are held at the Houston location and include screen making, press setup, registration, proper squeegee stroke techniques and a variety of production tips and tricks. The next class is scheduled for July 16 from 9 a.m. to 5p.m. and July 17 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Page & Tuttle Corporate (asi/72725) has introduced its new Jockey Sport and Jockey Classic Collections as part of the new 2010 Playbook Catalog, released last month. Jockey Sport includes moisture-wicking performance styles designed with function and fashion in mind, and Jockey Classic includes 100% ringspun cotton knits and easy-care, wrinkle-resistant wovens for men and women. Printa Systems is offering a new patented key frame athletic numbering system. There are 10 solid-color number screens and 10 outline number screens. Pre-imaged numbers are available in 4-, 6-, 8- and 10-inch sizes to accommodate a variety of team sports. SOS From Texas has added a new baby bib (product BIB) and adult sweatpants (product SP135) to its line of 100% organic cotton apparel. Tri-Mountain (asi/90507) has added a new line called Tri-Mountain Racewear (TMR) with products for motorsports types of companies or events. The supplier now offers men’s and women’s fleece jogging jackets (product 7250, 7220) and the Hairpin crew shirt (product 907). Tommy’s T-Shirt Factory has been launched in Big Rapids, MI, by industry veteran Tom Vann. He is known for founding a major industry printer in his parent’s basement that later became one of the top in the country. |
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WEBINAR CALENDAR ASI Education has lots of great new webinars to increase your knowledge. Here's our June schedule: Apparel Sourcing: |
| ASK PHIL |
Dear
Phil, Take a look at Carhartt Workwear and Haws USA Inc. (asi/43861); (919) 267-3231; www.hawsusa.com; product 56335. A part of the company’s Walls line, this 100% cotton shirt features an elongated shirt tail, a front placket with snap enclosures and a pencil slot in the left pocket. A similar shirt from this line is product 56725. This one has a snazzy half-moon back yoke, to boot! Another supplier to try is Capital Apparel (asi/43775); (800) 748-6990; www.capitalapparel.com; product 201605. If you’re looking for short-sleeve westerns, this should do the trick. Available in black, ecru, khaki, light blue, red and white, this shirt features pearlized snap plackets and is made of 65% polyester/35% cotton. I’m looking for a Vortex jacket. I’ve searched everywhere and have found nothing. Can you help? – Jeanie Hi Phil,
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EMBROIDERY TERMS Inspired by Green "Give the green light” has positive connotations, as it means that approval has been given to move ahead with an action. Dub the customer service staff the “Go Team,” outfitting them in logoed green shirts to send the message, “Give us the green light and we’re at your service.” “Green stuff” is money, making green apparel the perfect uniform for accountants, financial advisors, bankers and the like. Show that these professionals live to make money for their clients by imprinting: “Green is a state of mind.” “Being green” can refer to being inexperienced, but it also suggests being eco-friendly. Try an imprint with an environmental message like, “Being earth-friendly is more than wearing a green T-shirt.” |
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CALENDAR June 13-16, Marlboro, MA June 18-19, Louisville, KY |