For a while now, there’s been a ‘buzz’ in the evening and entertainment news programs about social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook and, for business people, LinkedIn. By ‘buzz,’ I mean how we’ve chortled and guffawed at celebrities and athletes getting themselves into hot water with their inane and ignorant posts and brain-droppings on their social-media websites. Still, I wondered, can this means of real-time communication be utilized as a worthwhile conduit between vendor and customer? 

BROOMFIELD, Colo.—At each of its upcoming 2010 events, The NBM Show will present a two-hour roundtable discussion, hosted by the one of the industry’s leading experts, Richard Greaves.

If we haven’t already reached a point in this digital era where a website is just as much a business requisite as a product to sell and a customer to buy, we’re not far off. The fact that entire enterprises can exist wholly online while brick-and-mortar companies without a web presence can go virtually unseen is a clue to ecommerce’s gaining mobility, and a wake-up call to companies operating solely offline. In reaction to and preparation for a digital takeover, a number of industry companies are coming out with apparel-decoration-specific Internet solutions, and we’ve assembled some of their tech gurus to tell Printwear readers how to pull online anxieties down as they build websites up.

If you build it…

Although the decorated-apparel industry was built upon and revolves around artwork, many talented screen printers have little or no experience dealing first-handⁱ with images. They’ve built successful businesses focusing on other aspects of the apparel-decoration process and farmed out most their artwork . . . while, perhaps, struggling with the rest. If you’re an art-challenged printer who has decided to start tackling artwork yourself, congratulations. And stop worrying! There’s no need to feel intimidated.

As the country sinks deeper into economic doldrums, it’s likely to stay there for a while. Nearly every economist polled believes a recession has begun, and most think it will persist beyond the first quarter of 2009. Thankfully, the decorated-apparel industry in general weathered last year’s storm and came through relatively unscathed, given the strengthened appeal and affordability of the goods being produced and the market windfall the industry enjoyed from the fierce political campaigns. Business is down somewhat, according to the business owners we’ve polled, but without near the devastation as seen in many industries.

Screen reclaiming with an eye toward diminishing mesh haze, ghosts and stains? One heck of a demand! It can be done, though. This article is specifically aimed at plastisol ink use, but many of the points made are universal to any ink system used in our industry. Note also the word diminishing. Every ink system has the ability to create results that we could interpret as staining, ghosting and haze. It is a fact of the process and you will see it even with the best of procedures and chemicals, for there is no magic bullet. But as with all things, the selection of appropriate, high-quality products and proper application will go a long way toward minimizing haze, stains and ghosts.

Not all companies pride themselves on being experts in their fields, or on keeping up with technological equipment advances and changes in technique. In fact, if more suppliers employed and trained their sales people to educate first and sell later, we would have fewer unhappy customers out there who think negatively about the supply process in general.

It all starts with the sales person. Is his goal the quick sale or the long-term relationship? Does she seek to meet her quota or to educate her customer as to what’s best to buy? It may surprise you but, more than any other single factor, education that grows into a solid foundation of knowledge is what keeps customers and repeat business. And this is nowhere more true than when it comes to purchasing an output device for digital transfers, or the transfer paper itself.

Beware the yes/yes answer

Even though many would not consider digital transfers an apt solution for high production volumes in the apparel-decorating business—and would, therefore, advocate subbing such work out to the local screen printer—17 years of experience tells me otherwise. My rule? Keep it in house and keep the profit in your pocket!