When discussing what promotional products distributors (PPDs) wish their apparel decorators knew to complete excellent and timely work of high-quality projects, it’s probably good practice to start with the reverse. So, the question becomes, what do industry contract decorators wish distributors knew before submitting orders they “hoped” would deliver wow moments for clients.

By most industry estimates, apparel accounts for upwards of 30% of promotional product sales. Include headwear and some bags that may get shipped to outside contract decorators, and some may see almost half of their sales in the hands of decorator partners.

If such a large portion of business success and/or potential failure is reliant upon outside supplier partners, both parties better make sure they understand the needs of each other’s businesses. This process must start with educating the PPDs about methods of decoration, processes, and costs to complete each; the technicalities of the different processes; and the things that can go wrong with each. These are all important factors, and are so much more to learn for PPDs.

For PPDs: Picking a Partner

Now more than ever, there are dozens of ways to decorate garments, caps, and bags. Technology has provided better direct-to-garment (DTG) machines for all categories, as well as heat transfer, appliqué, laser, 3D/puff embroidery, and others. For simplicity purposes in this discussion, let’s focus on direct embroidery and screen print since they likely provide a large majority of the volume.

In choosing a supplier to partner with for outsourced decorator needs, it’s advisable to have multiple options that specialize in either embroidery only or screen print only. As with most service offerings, you may find this old adage true: You can have fast service, high quality, and low price. But I suggest you pick which two you’d like. This example may hold true, and that’s fine, just make sure to have several options in your supplier base that cover the two you need for each specific job.

If Only Apparel Decorators Knew …

What do we as PPDs wish our decorators knew? I’d start with how important they are to the overall happiness of the client, which leads to the ongoing success of our business. When was the last time you shared a positive client comment on their garments with the decorator? It’s all about transparency. As I’m writing this, I’m smiling thinking of which of our important decorator partners will email me that they haven’t heard this from us in a bit!

How many of your clients think you are fully responsible for delivering the finished goods? It’s time for education, both for the PPDs and their clients.

When hiring new inside or field salespeople, make the time to take them into several of your decorators’ shops. Ask the embroidery manager to explain why changing thread colors for a 12-piece run takes time, especially if the design includes six or seven colors not frequently used. Have you ever changed threads on a 12-head machine?

Have the apparel decorator show new reps, and you, screen prepping processes and how a seven-color on a dark garment runs through the press. These details are critical to pricing the item properly and projecting a production timeline. This is all crucial and detailed information that we, the distributor, should know, and information we should be conveying to our clients to set expectations for the order.

Much of the miscommunication between promotional products distributors and their decorators can be traced to a lack of educating clients on proper design detail matched with the garment that’s been suggested to them. Want to sell a high-pile fleece jacket? Sherpa maybe? Is the logo or graphic one word in thin font? I highly suggest a pre-production sample — thin lines are often covered by the fleece, making the logo illegible.

Are you selling a striped polo? Does your client have a horizontal logo? Even if you do a pre-production sample that’s correct and approved, there is a chance that some logos in production may appear to be crooked or not aligned properly with the stripe.

Humans must match up the embroidery hoops — there is potential for mistakes, client rejects, etc. What happens and who pays in these situations? Maybe it’s best to discuss this potential outcome with your clients first and either move to another garment design or change the graphic.

I can promise you: Our decorator partners wish we knew this before sending hundreds or thousands of garments like this to them without nailing the details of this prior to shipping them pallets of garments and expecting a 5𔃅-day production.

Clean and Complete POs

None of these topics even mention the needed details on clean and complete purchase orders (POs) that include reasonable production “in-hand dates” or appropriate art submission details before we submit it, not three days later.

And perhaps the most important detail our decorators wish we knew: They, like us, need timely and accurate payment for work done. I’m smiling again at our decorator partners who might text me an inappropriate emoji on this one! If we strive to be a growing and thriving distributorship, then it’s imperative we partner with professional contract decorators to help us wow our customers with excellent service and quality decoration. We must then treat one another as true business partners who are vital to each other’s success.

In the many years I’ve been privileged to work in this industry, I assure you I’ve made each of these mistakes, some multiple times. But having a fantastic group of business partner decorators who have bailed us out and kept us in business … thanks go to them!