Category: Blogs

Ways To Grow Your In-Home Business

Home-based businesses can be a good business venture, but you may not be content to keep your new business within your home. Expanding can seem intimidating, if you’ve never owned a business, though, so here are some ways to consider for growing your home-based business:

• The most obvious way to expand your store is to rent a storefront and start a physical store that customers can visit. While this is a relatively simple method, as far as steps go — meaning you need to find a space, rent it and open your store — it is also perhaps the most expensive one. You will need to get the proper permits, and the rent may be high, but if you have the capital to take this route, you may want to consider it.

• If you don’t have the capital to rent a physical space, you could hire a sales and delivery staff to put a personal face on your company. People will pay more for convenience, and will appreciate the professionalism brought to your company by the added help. You could also invest in a smart phone program, which allows your customers to communicate their schedule to you and receive updates.

• Consider investing in software solutions for business, like embroidery business software, or an online proofing system. Business software can help streamline your business processes, consolidate your paperwork, and provide customers with a more professional, user-friendly interface. It can also help simplify your life by eliminating useless steps in your work.

You may also like our In-Home Business Tips.

3 Eco-Friendly, Non-PVC Inks for Screen Printing

The commercial screen printing industry is finally picking up after the decline in the economy of 2008. New businesses are constantly popping up—most of these businesses have no storefront, opting to sell their wares online. By selling online, they have access to a larger customer base. With customers ranging between 20 to 40 years old, it’s important to note that many of them will prefer eco-friendly products. Accounting for eco-friendly screen printing goes beyond using organic cotton, it includes using PVC-free inks. We’re going to guide you on three non-PVC screen printing inks, covering their advantages and disadvantages, so you can choose the right alternative for you.

1. Water-Based Inks—Water-based inks are a PVC-free screen printing ink option that is a good idea in theory. Unfortunately, a disadvantage of this eco-friendly screen printing ink is that it’s not as vibrant as the PVC-filled ones. This means that the designs will not be as durable and they do not adhere to clothing with the same ease as the traditional types of ink.

2. 100% Solid Inks—The newer solid inks look very similar to the PVC inks once they are applied to clothing. Unfortunately, these eco-friendly screen printing inks are not as versatile as PVC, and applying them to apparel is still more difficult. However, providers of solid inks are constantly coming up with better and better formulas.

3. Non-PVC Plastisols—The non-PVC plastisol inks are very similar to PVC screen printing inks. They yield close to the same amount of printing jobs and the quality is very similar. These are some of the best eco-friendly screen printing inks and they do not have the issue of drying on the screen, which is common in many PVC-free formulas. Plastisol ink screen printing offers a wide range of colors and special effects—another thing uncommon to PVC-free screen printing inks. While advantages in all those regards, it’s also important to note that these inks do not offer bleed-blocking or wet-on-wet printing.

Although ink manufacturers are gaining ground in making better PVC-free inks, the end products are still unable to fully compete with the quality and versatility of PVC inks. It’s important to know these advantages and disadvantages as you move forward with any alternatives. Over time this will change, but, until a large shift in the ink market happens, these are the issues you will need to account for if you want to market to eco-conscious customers.

Also, make sure to check out our screen printing management software.

Screen Printing Made Easy

If you own or manage a screen printing business, you know how many different components you must juggle in order for the business to run smoothly. First there are many different employees, then there’s the screen printing equipment, add all of the different information and files and images before finally tossing in the customers, and you’ve got quite a mix to keep track of.

Screen printing software helps streamline your business by facilitating the smooth transfer and storage of information and providing you with a platform where you can communicate with your employees and customers.

In looking for a business software suite for your business, it’s best to choose one that has been created specifically for your business. This means that the software you use for easy screen printing will be able to specifically address the issues and concerns that regularly arise at your company. You also have access to support from people who have worked and continue to work in the same industry as you.

If you are a digital printing company and you need business applications, we have the solutions for businesses just like yours that we are confident will meet all of your needs. Our print estimating solution was designed with input and direct involvement from digital printing industry officials, managers, owners and leaders like you so that it can directly answer your needs and solve industry-specific problems. Here are a few of the most useful applications built into our onsite digital printing software that will specifically help your company:

• Our program gives you the option of modeling production processes and tracking production schedules by individual machines or departments. This enables you to pinpoint the problem or slow areas, and make adjustments to bring those machines and departments up to speed. With every part of your company working optimally, your company will succeed like never before.

• You can also price and present items by square or linear dimensions or units. Since our application was designed to handle digitally printed paper, cloth, vinyl and other material-based company products, there are a number of pricing options that other software systems simply don’t support.

• You can store production and design variables in one place, including the types of material that were used in a particular project, the imprint locations, the file location, and much more, for easy access in the future. This helps you streamline your storage and inventory system, and cut back on paperwork and computer files.

• You can also detail job costing, per order, as a product is pulled from inventory or purchased.

Innovative Sign Business Software

The software experts here at ShopWorx have worked hard to develop sign business software solutions and print software applications that are perfect for the digital printing industry. There are three main features of the innovative business technology software package for the digital printing business industry that really distinguish this package from other software solutions for businesses that are available.

1. Each individual item in an order has its own, unique set of units, and the defaults of these are based on your product settings. This gives you greater control over sales orders, individual items within those orders and pricing and tracking.
2. You are able to store production and design information in a single place for every single job you take. This way, if you want to revisit a job in the future to see how you ran it or see some of the finer details of a previous job, you can easily find the information you are looking for.
3. Your ShopWorx program captures detailed job costing information as the order makes its way through your shop.

The Wearable Network: Social Fabrics

CNN recently released an article on a startling new apparel technology – a wearable social network. In a nutshell, a group of students from the MIT’s Tangible Media Group and the Fluid Interface Group wanted to expand social networking technology beyond the computer or smart phone screen into the real world. This is right down our alley.

Wearable electronic devices, once mostly a sci-fi fantasy, have gone increasingly mainstream–Google Glass™ being one of the most well-known examples. This new T-shirt trend continues the wearable tech trend, bringing even more direct connections into everyday life.

So what does the T-shirt, known as Social Textiles, do? A thin circuit membrane underneath a thermo-chromatic ink pattern of letters in the T-shirt connects via Bluetooth to your smart phone. When someone who shares one of your interests (and is wearing a Social Fabrics shirt) is within 12 feet, the T-shirt “taps” (buzzes) your shoulder to alert you.

It goes even further: if a capacitive sensors in the shirt’s shoulder detects a handshake or a high-five, a one-word summary of your shared interest shows up: for example, if you and the other Social Fabrics user both attend MIT, and your shirt supports it, the word “MIT” is highlighted on the shirt.

So who would use this new technology? It could be a novel way to break the ice for two people who just bumped into each other, or it could be a way for a club, niche group, or fans to find each other in a public place. “It’s only limited only by the imagination of the designer”, says one of the inventors, Viirj Kan. Still in prototype, the social networking shirt might very well be a new wave in wearable devices. Learn more at MIT’s Fluid Interface’s website.

Some More “Normal” Current Trends

As “cool” (or scary, depending on your view) as a social network T-shirt might be, other, more conventional trends are going on now. The following list some major trends in the industry today, as tracked by the Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI), which we confirm from our daily contact with the industry’s key businesses:

Popular Decorating Techniques

• Laser etching
• Embroidery (look to specialty work)
• Appliqué
• Laser Etching With Applique
• Screen printing/ digital printing
• Multimedia
• More tonal, color-on-color embroidery; embroidery placement still predominately on the left chest and on the right sleeve cuff

Decorated Apparel Industry Growing

According to Stitches Magazine, the decorated apparel industry is looking up and growing. Revenues, profits, order sizes, number of orders, and marketing/social media are growing:

Rating the “health of the decorated-apparel market on a scale of one to five (one is “ailing” and five is “robust”), decorators gave the market an average score of 3.53, the highest rating in the last six years. Half of respondents gave the industry a health rating of four or five, up from 43% last year. Even better, nearly two-thirds of decorators increased their sales volume in 2013 compared to 2012, the highest number in five years…a 10-point increase over 2012 (53%), and a 26-point increase over 2009 (37%).”

Our ShopWorks Onsite order management software for promotional products will support this growth. Learn more about Onsite and demo it today.

Hot Markets

• Education/schools (athletic teams, bands, etc.)
• Government agencies/ alternative energy-related companies
• Uniforms (promotional apparel appears to be coming back, but businesses that require employees to wear uniforms are a safe bet, such as service industries, hospitality, local YMCAs, etc.)
• Health care (health-care staff will buy uniforms, lab coats, scrubs, etc. This includes the standard fare: dentists, chiropractors, doctors, hospitals, labs, walk-in clinics and pharmaceutical companies.)

Sell Green

• Understand the eco-apparel life cycle (such as: Where is the organic cotton grown? Is it certified? Is the fabric processed in an eco-friendly way? How about the garment dyeing and finishing? How about how it’s shipped?). Clients will want to know that you know these answers.
• Understand eco-friendly/natural fabrics: such as: organic cotton, bamboo, Tencel, Cocona, recycled polyester, etc.; an important part of the story is many sustainable apparel products and fibers are performance enhanced (moisture wicking and antimicrobial).
• Green Trends: Examples: Hemp and other natural fabrics (especially in home décor market: cotton thread, and natural materials; cotton, wool, silk, cashmere, mohair, linen fabrics and blends)

Final Advice

Decorators should:

• be familiar with top supplier catalogs
• offer clients samples
• bring clients new product ideas that differentiate you from your competition
• shop the market – attend trade shows, open houses and regional table-top shows

It’s a tough job to keep up with these trends and handle rapid growth. Shopwork’s Onsite enterprise software for the promotional products industry will help shoulder the load and allow you to focus on what you do best: customizing products and serving customers. Find out more.

The quality of your screen prints does not rely on the quality of ink or screen printing equipment, alone. The film quality is one of the most important factors to achieving good quality prints, especially when making hundreds of prints a day. Good film quality means your prints will be clear and crisp on the clothing you print.

The factors that make film quality good include clear film and fully opaque black positive areas. If the film you are using is not clear, it creates a filtering effect that can cause under-exposure and graininess in your images. In addition, if the black area is not opaque, you can lose details of the picture.

Three of the film options you can choose from include vellum, inkjet films, and Ortho Litho film. Of the three, vellum is the lowest quality film. It is not clear, and it acts as a filter, while the black is not fully opaque. However, this film does work well if you need to do one to two color jobs that are not very detailed. Inkjet films are readily available and produce decent quality prints, but only under the right printing settings. This type of film can be found in very clear varieties, and its opaques are quite black. The highest quality film you can purchase is Ortho Litho. This type of film works great when used for detailed and intricate prints.

In certain situations, using low quality film is okay, but a majority of jobs you do will require higher quality film. It’s entirely possible that most of your printing only requires a mid-level film, such as inkjet. However, if you sometimes need to print high quality images, you should invest in an Ortho Litho machine and film to ensure your customers are happy with their orders.

For more information about screen printing and other services, contact us at ShopWorks.

OnSite 7 ERP Software Suite

OnSite, our flagship accounting software product, was designed on the FileMaker platform to run on Macs or PCs in order to help you run your whole business. By managing many of your complex and time-consuming business processes, it frees up your time to focus on other tasks. It also makes your business run more smoothly.

Unlike other accounting software programs, OnSite allows clients to enter different sizes on single line items and define their own matrix. They have the option of turning it on or disabling it on each individual order. Since business people specially designed it, it is able to manage every part of your production, from art and designs to the economics of the process. It was also designed to operate not only in your office, but also on the production floor.

OnSite can eliminate as many as five software programs that you currently use to run your business. By consolidating your business, you make your life easier.

Choosing good business software is key to ensuring your business is efficient and profitable. With so many different onsite software packages and cloud software solutions, however, how are you supposed to pick?

Here are some key elements that you should look for in any business software you invest in:

• Support: While we often think of good business software as being self-contained, great software goes beyond that. You need the training to utilize it to its full potential, and often you run into a problem or need an application that you or your staff members don’t understand how to use. Good software comes with a support system and multiple help options, to enable you to use your software and run your business more efficiently.
• Training: Your software should come with accompanying information services and multiple training options to get you and your staff up and running. There should also be options that you can use down the line, if you need to retrain staff members, or you want further training in a certain area of the software.
• Ease: While good business software shouldn’t be so easy to use that anyone can hop on and understand every application, it also shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to decipher how to use it. Once you have the proper training, the system should be convenient, easy, and even pleasurable to integrate and use in your daily life. After all, you will be using it for a large portion of every work day, so you don’t want to get stuck with something you hate using.

Enterprise Resource Planning Software

ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning, and these systems, at their foundation, are supposed to help streamline your business and facilitate the smooth transfer of information and clearer communication between all levels of your business. With ERP, superfluous steps in your business process should be eliminated and there should be fewer miscommunications between different levels and individuals in your company since all information flows through one system.

For an ERP system to truly work like it is supposed to, it should have been specifically designed for your industry. This way it can anticipate common issues that arise in your company and deal with them quickly and effectively. The only thing worse than working without an ERP is working for an ERP that was designed for a different industry since this can actually create more work for you.

The ShopWorks system is an Apparel ERP system that was designed by and for businesses in the apparel and promotional products industries. With extra applications to meet your every need, we guarantee you won’t find a more convenient system than ours. Call us at 800-526-6702 with any questions you have about our enterprise resource planning software.