Embroidery: Customer purchased vs customer supplied garments

Many embroiderers struggle with their pricing policies on several levels. What should my margins be? What is my competition charging? What garments/brands will I offer and what’s the most cost efficient way to get them in and turned around for my customer?

Another often pondered dilemma is whether to accept garments supplied by the customer for embroidery.  Many embroiderers struggle with this question and go back and forth, especially when they hit a snag.

Many larger embroiderers simply won’t do this. The reasons are many but the basics are:

·         Can’t make a profit on the garments if they are supplied

·         Can’t control the quality (many customers buy the cheapest they can find, which then effects the quality of the finished embroidery)

·         Can’t replace a garment if the machine tears a hole or otherwise damages it

·         Wreaks havoc with production - Many times customers will bring a “laundry basket” of different garments in for a design (or worse, many garments, all with different designs). Every garment sews differently and consistent placement can be a struggle on multiple garments. Production suffers and profit goes down.

Smaller embroider companies seem to be more willing to deal with these issues and will charge more on the embroidery side to make up for it. It’s up to you whether you want to accept customer supplied garments in your business but if you do, here are a few things (in addition to the ones above) that you want to consider making a few rules about in your shop:

·         Only accept clean, new garments….yes, customers will try to bring you old (smelly) sweatshirts that haven’t been laundered or team shirts that have already been worn (stained) for a few games. This makes your equipment dirty, can pound dirt into your needle plates and leave residue for your next orders making it difficult to keep other garments clean.

·         Make the customer sign a waiver acknowledging that they understand that you cannot be held responsible for garment damages and will not replace items.  Some embroiderers state a 2% or 3% waste policy on larger quantities. Make sure your customer understands your policy.  Believe me, it will not be profitable in any way to spend time and money driving around town (away from your business) to replace a customer’s garment at retail prices just so they can save a few bucks by providing them to you.

·         Most embroiderers will refuse items that are irreplaceable such as grandma’s quilt or heirloom handkerchiefs or baby christening gowns. Also, items that are extremely expensive or leather items. Not many embroiderers will sew a leather jacket back and punch hundreds of thousands of holes into a good leather jacket that costs way more than the embroidery. All it takes is one to tear a hole and all the profit from the job goes down the drain.

·         Make sure you’re charging for your time to go over multiple garment jobs with the customer about where the design location will fall on the different garments and thread color differences between the garment colors. Multiple garments usually means the design will need alternate colorways on certain ones to insure the design shows well. Also go over the garments with your customer and point out any flaws/stains so you aren’t blamed for them.

If you want to allow customer supplied garments, try it for a while and see how it goes for you. You may decide to re-evaluate your stance at a later time. At any rate, make sure it’s profitable the way you’ve set it up. We’ve all been there in one way or another, which is usually what formulates the policy in your shop.

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NeedleUp Digitizing LLC is owned and operated by Donna Lehmann, a 20yr veteran of the embroidery/digitizing industry. She can be reached at NeedleUp, donna@needleup.com or  303-287-6633 for digitizing, consultation and private classes M-F.

Embroidery Digitizing - Educating the Customer

A few months ago, a promotional sales customer of mine (We’ll call her Sally) sent over a design to digitize for her customer for an event they were having. If you’re in the industry, you know the minute they say the word “event”, you have a rock solid deadline.

Artwork was sent over and discussed and digitizing began since we had limited time.  The design involved a main event logo and two sponsor logos and pricing had been quoted for such.

We had less than a week to complete the digitizing, get approval, send the stitch file to the embroiderer and complete the production. The problem was, Sally’s customer kept changing the design; major graphic changes. Every time the design was completed, it was sent for approval and came back with new art and changes. Sometimes there would be two or three in a day. On the third day there was another issue with one of the sponsors and they had been replaced so we had to add another design into the fray. Each time a change was made, the stitch count would go up (of course) and consequently the price of not only the digitizing but the production estimate the embroiderer had given them….and the clock was ticking!

Now, we were happy to make the changes but the customer was unhappy that editing fees were incurred and the embroiderer no longer wanted to stick with the quote they had given them for production…..understandable.  Sally just said, “Hey, that’s what they said they wanted.” But she never took the time in the beginning to explain the process and that changing the original art causes delays and editing fees. She didn’t even ask if this was the final art before starting the digitizing. Sally’s customer just figured they’d pay for whatever final design they ended up with and they expected the embroiderer to stick with the quote they were given regardless of the changes and final stitch count.

Had Sally explained the process to her customer better, we could have avoided the confusion, had no surprises and actually been more efficient getting her customer what they wanted. Things worked out in the end, we comped some edits and Sally paid for some also. We also worked to get the stitch count down on the design as much as possible so the production wasn’t too high and working with the embroiderer, we hit their event date. The customer was thrilled with their shirts.  All was successful.

It’s our job as professionals to make the customer happy and we do it every day.  But communication is essential to making things go smoothly.  Spend some time educating your customer about the process so they’re not surprised by the costs of their embroidery. If they’re still in the planning stages, explain to them that making major graphic changes to the design after digitizing only makes their costs go up. Changes they are making to the art need to happen at the graphic stage before digitizing.

After all, if you educate your customer, their order goes smoother, they understand what to expect and they’ll likely return because you made it work!

Of course, sometimes these things happen and can’t be helped. This is why a relationship with a good digitizing firm makes all the difference. Someone who is readily available to you and can roll with the changes so you can still meet your deadline.  NeedleUp Digitizing is that company.

It should also be noted that like most good digitizers, NeedleUp includes small edits and changes in the design process. Things like trims, color breaks, small text & coding changes and adjustments for sew-ability are all part of getting the customer a design they will love.

Embroidery Digitizing - The Learning Curve

Think back.  You’re at the embroidery show or in the sales office looking at purchasing your first embroidery machine and software.  You’ve done your homework on the internet checking different software capabilities and machine options.  The sales person is telling you how profitable and easy the embroidery business is and you’re nervous because this is a lot of money and you don’t know much about the industry. Even if you have some experience with the embroidery (in one way or another) you have no idea how to digitize a design.  Sales people will tell you that you can learn as you go, but in the meantime, the easy stuff can be auto-digitized in the software and if you come across something more difficult, there are many places you can send the design out to and get it digitized.

Any of this sounding familiar? Yea, I thought so.  I’ve been there. Not as the sales person or the customer but standing behind you at the show/in the showroom listening to what the sales people are telling potential customers. They don’t want to tell you anything overwhelming and scare you away so they say that it’s a simple thing of taking the art, running it through the software to create a stitch file, loading it into the machine, hooping the garment and selecting the thread colors. Then hit a few buttons and you’re literally “in business”!   I realize they are just doing their job but I’m going to tell you the truth.

The learning curve for running a successful embroidery business is substantial. The learning curve for understanding the process of purchasing quality digitizing is big. The learning curve for mastering digitizing yourself is huge! This is why most embroidery companies purchase their digitizing or hire a digitizer on staff. You have to be pretty big to have an on staff, full time digitizer, so today I’m just going to talk about purchasing your designs.

 Yes, there is a learning curve to purchasing your custom embroidery designs:  Your objective is to get the best quality at the most cost effective price in order to maximize your profit margin. Does that mean, just getting the digitizing as cheap as possible?  The short answer is “NO”.

Whatever your reason for getting into the embroidery business is, you must provide your customers with consistent service and quality they will come back for or, quite simply, they won’t come back, and you won’t have a profit margin to worry about.

Remember, you’re going to pass the digitizing cost along to your customer so this is not a production cost to you. However, if you’re simply buying your digitizing based on the lowest price, you’ll find there ARE hidden costs to you associated with this practice that will compromise your quality and service to your customers. Those include:

1.       Delivery time problems - when you have to have the design either redone or reedited multiple times to get it right pushing your job finish time back

2.       More fees later - Paying another digitizer to fix the design so it’s usable or companies that a-la-carte you to death on edits and second version sizes.

3.       Poor production times – the machine doesn’t sew the jobs efficiently due to poor pathing, unneeded color breaks and trims on the digitizing, driving up production time so much that it actually costs you money to do the job (see also #1)

4.       Customer satisfaction – No matter the machine, if the digitizing isn’t quality, you can’t turn out quality designs you’re proud to put your company’s name on. If you can’t get the job to them when promised, they will lose faith in your abilities. You’re trying to build and retain customers; do you really want to take chances with crummy, slow results?

5.       Poor communication with the digitizer – If you cannot talk to a live person about your design (or communicate with them because of a language barrier or time difference) it’s a waste of your time. I’ve been doing this a very long time, and when the design elements require adjusting for “sew-ability” or your customer requests changes to a design (and this happens all the time), you need to be able to discuss this with the person doing the punching. You can’t do that with a website.

6.       Inconsistent quality – Low/Cut rate digitizing companies have many digitizers on staff. It’s a draw which one will be given your design to work on each time and you can’t speak to them directly so one time the design may be OK and the next horrible. They may be using auto-digitizing softwares that don’t work well, inexperienced digitizers and many times they don’t even sew out the designs they’re creating before sending them on to you. (Caveat: Just because a company says they’ve been in business, digitizing for 20 yrs, does NOT mean that the actual person doing your work has been digitizing for that long).  You DO get what you pay for!
 

I cannot stress enough how important it is to build a relationship with a reputable digitizer who you can talk to directly. One that you can trust to give you reasonable pricing, consistent quality from years of experience, and someone who understands production, pathing and the need to sew out every design for quality before sending it to you.  You need a digitizer who offers personal attention and makes you look good with every job you do for your customers.
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NeedleUp Digitizing is owned and operated by Donna Lehmann, a 20yr veteran of the embroidery/digitizing industry. She can be reached at www.NeedleUp.com, donna@needleup.com or  303-287-6633 for DIGITIZING, consultation and classes M-F.

Embroidery Digitizing - Let’s Talk Lettering – Part II

In Part I of Let’s Talk Lettering, we talked about keyboard lettering, when we use it and some of its limitations. In part II we’re discussing how we charge and talking about text with your customers.

Charging for Lettering Jobs:

Many shops charge per name when doing a list of personalizations such as right chest names or even name drops into stock designs or under company logos.  Some may even charge per letter. The major softwares have a “team name” function built in to make the long lists of names and the application of doing these one at a time, go smoother and faster. This is when you’ll use your keyboard text most.

However you decide to charge for your services, take into consideration the time it takes to hoop each shirt individually for the names in addition to the application of any design on the opposite side, since this is a separate hooping.  Even if you’re using the “team name” function under a logo, you will have to stop the machine once the design is finished to load the individual names. If you have a long list of names, it can be time consuming so make sure you’re charging for your time.

If I am adding lettering or a tagline to a customer’s existing logo, usually I will just charge an edit fee, even if I’m digitizing the letters manually. If I can use keyboard lettering and it matches what the customer is asking for, I will use that and “clean” up the letters, adjusting them for fabric pull and usually tweaking the corners and joints.  Once you get into more than just a tagline or the whole logo is basically lettering or a design or icon is included, then I’m charging for a full logo by stitch count and almost always digitizing the lettering by hand.

As you get better at digitizing your lettering, you’ll find you use the keyboard text less because it’s easier and more time efficient to digitize the letters correctly from the start rather than edit keyboard text more.

For the customer’s benefit:

Convenience and organization dictates that you have a printed list of sample text in the fonts you offer customers in your shop.  Be familiar with your regular fonts and insure that they are the ones that sew well in every day practice.  There will be many fonts in your software and not all of them will be winners. Also be aware that the more fonts you offer, the longer it will take the customer to make a decision, so handing them a 3” thick binder of fonts, may not be what you want to do.  Displaying a list including 4-5 scripts, 4-5 blocks and 4-5 serifed font styles should be your basics. When a customer asks about other styles, you have a chance to talk to them and provide a more custom experience and more fonts to look at.

Be sure to also know approximately how many characters per inch you can sew in each font. The customer will appreciate your expertise and you’ll be able to quickly help them find a lettering style that will work for their job. An easy way to display your basic fonts is to sew them and frame them for the wall or counter. This way the customer can actually see the letters in thread.

For full logos, the lettering is usually a part of a customer’s company design and the lettering should look exactly like their logo. They’re paying for a custom job so if the keyboard font doesn’t look exactly like their art, and many times it won’t, don’t use it.

I get jobs sometimes that have very tiny lettering under them for a tagline (way under minimum standard) and the customer wants me to recreate the design at the same size. They’ll tell me they want the same lettering but make it look better. This is when educating the customer comes into play. You have to discuss the design with the customer and tell them why the lettering looks bad on their original. If the text is too small to sew well on their fabric, give them options like enlarging and stacking or moving the text to a better location.

Lettering is probably one of the biggest challenges to master that embroiderers’ face. There’s no match for practice and experience. Keep notes of what works, sizes and settings. It’s never a waste of time. Almost all company logos have lettering, unless you’re the owner of the “swish” or “the little man playing polo on a horse”. J

 

NeedleUp Digitizing LLC is owned and operated by Donna Lehmann, a 20yr veteran of the embroidery/digitizing industry. She can be reached at NeedleUp, donna@needleup.com or  303-287-6633 for digitizing, consultation and classes M-F

Embroidery Digitizing - Let's Talk Lettering - Part I

Let’s talk lettering – Part I

Every embroidery software, from the simplest home software to the most expensive commercial software, has a lettering function of some kind.  In the past, the quality of the keyboard embroidered letters has varied amongst these as has the functionality of the softwares to manipulate and edit them. These days, the user friendliness has gotten much better even in the lower cost softwares and the differences from brand to brand are blurring more and more.

But I don’t want to talk about specific brands of embroidery software or their keyboard fonts. I mention this to say that there is a time and a place for using keyboard lettering and a time when custom lettering should be used.   A good digitizer knows which is called for on each job.

Since I am a custom digitizer working in the commercial industry, I use the keyboard lettering maybe $30% to 40% of the time. The rest of the time, my lettering is custom digitized by hand, specifically for the customer’s logo. Even when using keyboard lettering, the individual letters still needed to be edited for the fabric and for pull compensation. Never do I use keyboard lettering straight “out of the can” and my software creates great lettering, however, no keyboard font can automatically adjust for every fabric or design situation.  

If you’re new to digitizing, you may tend to crutch on the font lettering but avoid doing this too much.  Watch designs with lettering that sews well to see how the letters join and corner for a better understanding of how lettering should look and path. What you learn you will apply to your hand digitized lettering.

As for keyboard lettering itself, familiarize yourself with what your lettering can do and recommended sizes for each font, understanding that some lettering styles do better at smaller sizes than others. If you are extensively editing the keyboard font you’re using, you are better off digitizing the letters by hand. There’s a “gray area” once you get down to ¼” letters and below.  There are some fonts that will do fine at a slightly smaller size (Usually these are block type fonts with no serifs) but fabric strongly comes into play at that point as to whether they will sew cleanly. There’s no way to insure the design will do well as the customer sews the design on multiple fabrics, but staying above the ¼” standard font size for basic lettering will help. With wildly different fabrics, like fleece and terry, you will need an alternate version of your design to accommodate those incorporating more underlay and density.

Certain fabrics or designs will allow block lettering as small as .16” tall to sew fairly descent, especially nylons and twill.  Fabrics such as knits and some piques are rather unforgiving even with ¼” lettering and will “sawtooth” much more. Generally, the smaller the letters, the lower the density but you have to hit the “sweet spot”. Dense enough for coverage and smooth edges but not so much as to cause crowded spacing, knots and bunching at the joints and bulging of the letters themselves. This is the reason that it’s preferable to know the fabric the design is intended for right up front.

I want to take a moment here to mention True Type font conversions. Keyboard embroidered lettering created from TT fonts on your software.  A few of these do, just, OK.  Most suck. None of them compare to digitizing lettering by hand. I’ve been doing this for over 20 years and I just don’t go there, nuf said.

Understanding the dynamics of embroidered lettering, densities, underlays, column widths and pull compensation and how each of these relate to different fabric biases and types will take you farther down the road than just always using keyboard fonts.

In Part II, we’ll cover the customer side and charging for your time with lettering.

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NeedleUp Digitizing LLC is owned and operated by Donna Lehmann, a 20yr veteran of the embroidery/digitizing industry. She can be reached at NeedleUp, donna@needleup.com or  303-287-6633 for digitizing, consultation and classes M-F.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Embroidery Digitizing: The incredible shrinking (or enlarging) design

There will be times when a customer decides they want a left chest size version of the jacket back they just had digitized (or vice versa) and you will have to explain to them why it will have to be redigitized. It’s hard for a customer to understand since to them, we’re just pushing computer buttons and all the magic happens in the program, right?

If you’re enlarging a design from a 4” chest size to 10” or 12” jacket size you will likely have to have portions (or all) of the design repunched or satin stitches converted to fills.  Once a satin or column stitch gets above a certain width, a fill stitch needs to be used instead so that the machine is not making huge movements and stitches are not too wide.  If a satin stitch is wide enough for a pencil to be inserted on the open end of the column, it is much more likely that the stitching will snag and ruin the embroidery, especially on jacket backs since the wearer will lean up against seat backs, etc.

There’s also the issue of detail.  What seems very detailed at 3-4” wide looks elementary when enlarged to 10” and gaps appear between joints and other elements that were not an issue in the smaller compact version of the design.  Any flaws that might have been virtually unnoticeable at chest size now appear. Remember, as you’re enlarging the design 250%, you’re also enlarging the spaces and gaps between elements 250%.

Conversely, if your intention is to shrink a design from jacket size, you are going to have the opposite issue.  Fill areas will become too small or narrow to use fill stitches efficiently and must be converted to satin stitches.  Satin stitches, such as outlines, that get even smaller must normally be repunched with running stitches once they get below about 1.5mm wide.  Some design details get too small to even include in the final design and must be eliminated.

These things are important to talk to your customer about, especially if they will be ordering both chest and jacket sized versions of their design. If there is an element that cannot be included once the design is small enough for chest applications, sometimes the customer will opt to leave it off the larger version so the two designs will still look exactly the same. Either way, you are giving your customer the information they need to make an informed decision when they order their digitizing.

For more information about NeedleUp's digitizing services, please visit our website at http://www.needleup.com where you can view some of our most recent work and get pricing and more information on contacting us.  Donna Lehmann is owner of NeedleUp Digitizing and she can be reached at 303-287-6633

Embroidery Digitizing: Right Way VS Customers Way

We all know there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things, however relative that may be, but what happens when a customer brings in a previously embroidered garment which frankly, was clearly digitized incorrectly?


This is fairly common and frequently the customer doesn’t realize and is unaware of how much better their logo could be. I’m speaking about aesthetics here since the customer is only seeing the final design, however, if the design is poor, the production quality will undoubtedly be bad also.

But, what if the customer loves the logo on the garment and wants it duplicated? What if they think it’s the “cat’s pajamas” and they just don’t have access to the stitch file?

Now is the time to discuss with the customer what they want, what you see and their expectations for the job. Find out what they like and don’t like about the original design so you can determine whether you’ll be able to make improvements they will love. Communicate with them about how you would do the design, pointing out things you might change if they seem open to them. Never criticize the original design out-right or the person who did the digitizing; it just makes you seem petty and unprofessional. I don’t comment to the quality unless they ask, point blank…then I’m honest but tactful, speaking more to how I can make it better and cleaner.

I try to avoid duplicating cruddy embroidery at all costs, but, if after all this, the customer is adamant that the design look exactly like the original, then you’re obligated to recreate the design exactly. Believe me, it’s a shot to the heart but it’s what the customer wants. Visually, you should strive to make the logo look the same, using the same stitch types and angles, but there are always improvements you can make to the way it paths and sews at the machine that will help in production.

The bottom line is, you’ve made your customer happy and next time, you won’t be duplicating someone else’s design, you’ll be digitizing their latest original!

************** Donna Lehmann ownes NeedleUp Digitizing LLC and has been commercially digitizing for 21 years. Donna also writes, teaches and consults about the industry and can be reached at NeedleUp 303-287-6633.