On Tuesday, January 5th, we kicked off our 2010 webinars with the first part of a four part series titled ‘Building a T-shirt Business from the Ground Up’. The first session focused on what to consider when getting into or expanding into the heat printing industry, as well as one of the most important purchases you will make in the ‘t-shirt’ industry- the heat press. Here is a brief overview of what we discussed:

Four main marketing concepts to start a business:

1. Product

• What type of garments will you sell and to whom.
• Focus on the details such as making sure you use your company logo and name on delivery boxes.

2. Place

• Will this be a home based business? If so, keep everything as professional as possible.
• Will you have a mobile business? This will help determine what type of press you should invest in. You’ll want a light-weight press if you are traveling to events and flea markets.

3. Promotion

• How will you communicate what services you offer?
• Signage, catalogs, using word-of-mouth advertising.

4. Pricing

• You must factor everything to make sure you are profitable. Utility bills, wages, shipping costs, etc will all affect your bottom line.
• Don’t be afraid to charge what you are worth. Custom-printed garments are worth more.

We also went over different types of heat presses that are available and things to consider when purchasing. A swing away heat press provides you with a heat-free work space, allowing you to position graphics such as letters and numbers with burning your knuckles. You get all of your heat seal settings (time, temperature and pressure) digitally read out so there is no guess work.

A clam style heat press is very light-weight it’s clam shell opening saves a lot of valuable space. It’s perfect for a mobile business. It also has an auto release feature that alleviates operator fatigue, and also is equipped with digital readouts for your heat seal settings. Below is a video we created to compare heat presses. Check it out!

Be sure to log in every Tuesday in January for the next sessions in the series!

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