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Custom or Contract?

I was recently talking to friend in the industry about offering custom printing vs. contract printing vs. doing both.  My thoughts on this matter have been consistent for the past ten years: choose one or the other, not both.

I do not recommend offering both for specific reasons, i.e: the inevitable conflicts of interest that arise when you are actively selling to the same potential customers as your… customers (if that statement was confusing, don’t worry, it should be).  More importantly, I think it’s a bad idea because these are really two totally different business models, rather than different order types as is commonly understood.  To achieve success under one business model is difficult enough, to win at both borders on impossibility for the fundamental reason that a successful contract business requires a core competency in decoration and logistics while a successful custom business requires a core competency in sales and sourcing (and of course adequate production competency).

I shared my thoughts on this subject in a Printwear panel discussion at an NBM show a few years back…

Comments

  1. We are currently in that stage of figuring out exactly what we want to print and who we are as a company. We’ve always been custom although I’ve been getting more requests for contract. We are a small shop and all of the print brokers who have contacted us leave little profit to be made on the job for a lot of work. We can print one or two regular jobs and make the same amount if not more than printing 500 tees for a contract job. Love to keep our automatic spinning but at what cost? We don’t want to become strictly a “Grind” shop so to speak… I’d be stoked to work with companies who understand quality costs more and don’t want the cheapest product in town. They are the ones making the majority of the cash from what I’ve encountered. -Garrett http://www.KaulesScreenWorks.com

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