Impressions - September 2016 - 42

think.
make.
do.

Screen Printing Production
Like this article? read more screen-printing
articles at impressionsmag.com/screenprinting.

Contract Decorating
for PPDs
Printing for distributors helps augment your shop's organic sales efforts.
By MARSHALL ATKINSON, CONTRIBuTINg WRITeR

In the decorated apparel industry, shop
owners always are looking for ways to level
out their business cycle. One proven method is to partner with marketing firms and
agencies that offer promotional items, as
these companies steadily are in front of
potential customers.
The insider term for these businesses
is "distributors." They often are referred
to as PPDs, or promotional products
distributors.
Instead of slogging your way through a
giant list of area businesses, partner with a
few promotional marketing distributors
and have them send you the work with a
purchase order.
Simple, right? It's not as easy as it sounds.
Following are four things to remember to
help you navigate the process.
1. It's contract printing. Here's a
big difference: You are only charging for
the decoration.The promotional agency
usually buys the shirts and has them sent
to you. If you have previously relied on
the shirt markup as a good source of income, that won't be present with these
contract jobs.
The only way to be profitable is to have
solid data on your current cost per imprint.
Your price list needs to reflect that, as well as
how much money you want to make per job.
Contract printers are masters at lowering
their operating costs and finding pennies per
print.That's often the best way to recapture
some lost margin on a job.
2. Make it easy. Promotional marketing companies essentially are comprised
of salespeople. If you want more of them
to use your shop's services, make doing
business easier.
P.42

Most promotional agencies work for
brands, so Pantone color matching is
crucial. Otherwise, the entire order
could be rejected.

Salespeople are all about the next deal.
If you can solve problems for them and
back up their reputations by regularly hitting "home runs" without quality issues
or missing deadlines, you will grow your
business and stature in the promotional
contract decorating marketplace.
3.You're the expert. Promotional distributors have hundreds of suppliers.They
source pens, notebooks, electronics - anything that can be branded. If you want to

i m p r e s s i o n s m a g . c o m SEPTEMBER 2016

establish yourself with these folks, play up
your expertise.
They constantly are asked for "the best"
sport shirt or "the cheapest" fleece, or what
colors are available for "performance" shirts.
If you can provide answers, you're instantly
a hero.
Distributors constantly are looking for
ideas to sell.This is where experimenting
with new techniques or mastering certain
processes will pay off for you.
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Impressions - September 2016

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