Sales Opportunities

Sales Opportunities

Opportunity is knocking on the door of the decorating industry.  Both
decorators and their suppliers need to look at the new ways they can expand
their sales and profits.

There are new geographical markets, new printing technology, and changes to the market
structure that will drive revenue growth.  The developments occurring
in each country compared to other countries illustrates the opportunities to
be pursued.

All countries manufacture apparel, but the growth in apparel manufacturing is particularly
dramatic in areas like Eastern Europe, Ireland, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh
and China.  At first, the work is cut and sew at low labor rates to deliver
low cost apparel to world markets.  Now larger embroidery and screen printing
decorators are adding value to blank goods in the same countries.  Costs
are low, order sizes are relatively large and delivery time does not have to
compete with decorators located closer to consumers.  The popularity of
decorated apparel is increasing in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean.

The low labor cost countries at first export, but increasingly will become customers
for their own products.  Local customers, low capital investment to screen
print, and access to world-class printing technology via computer will foster
the growth of small shops that will be customers for screen print suppliers.

Everywhere people want an improved standard of living and the opportunity to pursue their
dream of owning their own business.  The example of the U.S. will certainly
spread to Europe and other countries around the world.  In the U.S. there
are at least 80,000 screen printing shops, 85% of which employ 10 people or
less.  Most employ 5 people or less.

This is a cottage industry composed of teachers printing after school, firemen on their
days off, stay-at-home moms and many others.  Their orders are relatively
small.  Customers are local.  The speed of delivery is important.  Large
companies cannot compete with the small shop operated from an apartment or
garage.  Many of these small operators deal in cash to enhance their
standard of living by not paying taxes.

The growth of the decorating industry has been helped by changes in dress codes.  Again,
the U.S. serves as an example of changes to come in other parts of the world.  Many
companies have replaced suits and ties with “corporate casual” golf
shirts and collared shirts, even in sophisticated cities like New York City
and San Francisco.

Americans are becoming more free in their choices of apparel colors and styles.  People
are able to have more choices in apparel and reduce their costs by purchasing “corporate
casual” rather than even one suit that is so expensive.  The economic
pressures for lower costs and movement to recognize individual expression is
a trend free countries will continue to experience.  In addition, more
companies are providing decorated shirts, caps, jackets and lab coats to employees
like service counter employees, waiters, construction workers and more for
corporate image, to identify employees, and for team building.

New technology is also making a contribution to sales growth.  Many of the corporations
demand textured fabrics like pique for their corporate apparel.  There
has been an explosion of choices in textured fabrics.  Until recently
only embroidery served this market well.  However, the combination of
very tight mesh on a retensionable frame coated with capillary film and a 3-D
ink allows production of photographic quality images and new textured effects
as shown in the Sierra Nevada image to match advertising, packaging and more.

This new technology commands selling prices as high as embroidery, but is much less
expensive to produce.  So suppliers and decorators around the world should
be looking at this trend just starting in the U.S.

 Although the image quality is stunning, the work can be completed by
the smallest shops on simple manual equipment.  Large shops that have
used their size as an advantage might find their business moving to the small
shop with the low overhead of an at-home worker with this cutting-edge, low
cost, technology discovered on the internet.

3-D printing requires simple line art that can often be photocopied rather than be composed
on a computer by a technical or sophisticated process.  So initial investment
costs are very low.  The technology process from start to finish is simple.  Press
set up and production are quick, and customers are very impressed with the
results.

The combination of very tight screens (30-60 N/cm depending on mesh count), capillary film
and 3-D ink offers four advantages to the shops that employ this method of
printing.  First, a stencil thickness can be selected to bury the fabric
texture, seams, stitching and even corduroy with one pass of the squeegee without
sacrificing opacity. 

Second, the print, flash, print routine when printing white ink on black or dark shirts
can be changed to one pass with a squeegee and an increase in productivity
of 300-400%.  Rather than produce 30-40 shirts per hour with a flash
between prints, 100-120 per hour can be printed without a flash using 3-D ink
and capillary film to control the thickness of the ink deposit and opacity
with one pass of the squeegee.

Third, three dimensional images are now possible as shown in the Sierra Nevada image.  Fourth,
operators of presses often with more than 6 print heads will produce textured
images.  A textured print could require multiple passes of the same color
ink with intermediate flashes, but with each ink deposit printed in a different
dimension.

So a rose blossom will stand off a garment, or a wild animal head will
have a deep socket eye surrounded by a protruding brow and other features.  The
hair of a horse will appear to stand off the neck in fine detail while the
belly of the horse has a rounded dimension created with puff ink printed through
half tone dots that are largest where the ink will puff the most.

 In sports a basketball can be printed with only 2 screens, but the second
screen will provide the half tone dots to create the realistic effect of bumps
on a real basketball.  Artists will be creative in ways never seen before.

The new geographical markets offer opportunities for new people to be decorators.   These
decorators are new customers for their suppliers.  The new technology,
however, creates new profit opportunities in more established markets.  Market
structures change with technology.  Heat transfers of 20 years ago were
replaced in the market by direct screen printing, because of product quality
and costs.  Consumers then demanded more upscale textured fabrics like
pique that did not print like T-shirts. So the embroidery community responded
and grew by offering a top quality product. 

The next phase of change to the market structure will be a demand for photographic quality
images on textured fabrics.  This is an exciting time to be a decorator
or a supplier benefiting from the many opportunities.