billm75

Hey folks,

Thought I'd get a little input from everyone that's interested concering running your biz like a job shop vs. running it as a custom shop.

For clarity's sake:

Job Shop: You take orders from businesses, churches, athletic groups, etc, and more or less have a contract with these people to do future orders for them.

Custom Shop: Your own designs and/or clothing line, one-off products, etc.


I'm gearing my biz more towards the job shop, though I enjoy doing the custom stuff as well (as a hobby if nothing else). I was just wondering what everyone else thought about it in terms of steady income that you can actually live on?

 

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Dejacks

I would like to do a combination of both as well. I feel that the job shop aspect would help finance the custom shop aspect....in my perfect world

 

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billm75

Dejacks, that's what I was thinking. I want my cake and I want to eat it too. I have a lot of ideas for shirts, but working on a very thin shoestring like I am, I can't afford to play much AND have samples to show customers at the same time.

I sincerely doubt that the local landscapers would care much for my "Got Beer" tee shirt, when they're looking for a work shirt for their employees.

Plus, I don't want to have my livelihood dependent on the latest fads. I'd rather make "boring" shirts and have a decent income than to make really cool shirts and have to eat Ramen noodles 6 days a week.

 

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Dejacks

I know what you mean. I am relatively new to this game but I have been doing freelance graphics for some time now. The one question I get is "Do you offer screenprinting as well?" I just make a small amount on the referral. This is why I'm leaning towards just doing a job shop to help pay for my custom shop. I like cake too!

 

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billm75

Depending on the job, I can do simple one-color screen printing, I think.

I'm testing some waterbased ink with fixer that allows me to forgo the use of a heat dryer to set the inks. IF it works out, I can at least do the simple stuff. I don't like to sub out too much, but then I'm a bit compulsive.

 

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Dejacks

Yeah...I'm currently looking into purchasing something in the direct to garment arena. Just need some extra cashflow and insight.

 

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djohana

You should offer both screen printing and custom. We offer both at the warehouse we rent...

We never did before. We were only promoting ourselves as screen printing company, but after trying the flea markets with custom work and realized people were buying we decided to offer that too...

So on Monday we are promoting ourselves also has a custom shop...
Eventually, we would like the DTG, but for now we use transfer paper...
Around my area customers are cheap so they don't care about using transfer paper...Whatever works....

 

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