With a lot of people moving into the POD space, it’s crucial that you as a fulfillment solutions provider give the best possible experience to each and every customer. Here’s my advice:

1. Move beyond the standard print area. Businesses are demanding more and more unique items to ensure they stay fresh, can capitalize on SEO trends, and increase repeat purchase rate from existing customers. This means moving beyond a simple, basic T with a front print. Instead it means working with alternative print areas like cuffs, sleeves, under arms, and oversized prints. It’s also about new blanks that step outside the norm, oversize fits, heavy blends, and mixed print methods (embroidery and DTG).
2. Go beyond just T-shirts. We all need to consider what else we can offer outside of the standard Ts, hats, and hoodies. Using the same machinery (and direct-to-film and UV-DTF printing) will help this expand. No longer are businesses satisfied with a one-location print on a T. They are asking for more kiss-cut items like decorations, plaques, keychains, 3D models, custom fragrances, pet items, skateboard decks, and paint-by-numbers kits (to name just a few).
3. Think about retail and packaging opportunities. Blank packaging no longer fits the bill. Think bio-plastic shrink wrapping, eco-hang tags, coat hangers, barcoding and variable print batch numbers, 3PL, kitting, and more. As more businesses look to outsource their entire back-end fulfillment to a partner, so must we, their fulfillment solutions provider, evolve to match their new channels matrix
4. Achieve higher margins. The elephant in the room is often that an on-demand solution “costs more,” which it does on print fulfillment alone. We spend a lot of time educating future clients on “total cost of fulfillment” using an on-demand solution versus a traditional bulk option (of course, when it makes the most sense). Most do the math and see how the opposite of higher costs is true when they consider the cost of capital, warehousing old stock, missing sales when they go out of stock, and the leakage that happens along the way, let alone the internal staff management. Work with the client in mind and find solutions that address this question before it arises, including analyzing their sales data for them and seeing where a mixed solution of bulk runs/short runs with fulfillment costs and a layer of print-on-demand will provide them with the best blended margin. That’s how a solutions provider would think.
5. Think on a global scale. More and more partners are looking for fulfillment solutions on a global scale. They may have strong domestic warehousing or supply chain but are looking for flexibility in their overseas fulfillment, to test, to learn, to scale with less risk and to do it all with less internal oversight. Make it easy for your partners to work with you while reducing their overall fulfillment (and internal oversight) costs.
6. Work in tandem with your partners. M.i.A has taken the approach that we will no longer “make it and they will come,” putting a new catalog out twice a year to see what sticks. Instead, we focus on creating products in collaboration with our retailers and partners; we test, iterate, and bring those products to market (with a period of exclusivity) so everyone wins: the customer, the client, and the fulfillment solutions provider.
7. Do it for the environment. Finally, if not just for evolving your respective business, consider the impact you’re having on the environment and how you’re changing the perception of the print and fulfillment industry as a whole:

• • Removing items going to landfill
  • Reducing the carbon footprint in the delivery networks by making items close to the customer and by replacing plastic packaging with more sustainable options
  • Reusing the materials already available by bringing to market eco-friendly and long-lasting items with true utility

So the next time someone asks you what you do, consider everything you do and all the value you add.