T-Shirt Forums - View Single Post - My impressions of the ISS Long Beach show

guest3300 · January 21st, 2007

I spent all day Friday at the Long Beach Show. I went with a shopping list which helped me out quite a bit. The show was a little large to cover in one day but that was all I had available.

Things I liked: Vinyl cutters and direct to garment printers. These were the two big hits for me. These products show well although several of the printers were not working well and other than US Screen Print, no-one had a good dark color solution that looked as good. I was pleased that there were more dark color solutions out there including Anajet and maybe in the future SawGrass. I was most impressed with the SawGrass direct printer for a single portable unit.

Embroidery: These machines are getting better and better along with the software to run them. The digitizing software that comes with the machines is really getting good and will allow for more people to enter this market. Embroidered products have a much higher perceived value than a printed product and being able to move this in-house is our number one item on our to-do list. Also, there were at least 3 digitizing companies that have off-shored this function to reduce the cost of digitizing.

Time Spent at Booths: I spent a lot of time at the following: Imprintables, Digital Knight, SawGrass, Melco, Gildan, Conde, Rock Point Apparel and US Screen Print. I had a nice conversation with Aaron Kight from DK and he gave me some good tips on dye-sub with his equipment. I spent a long time at the Imprintables booth and they tried really hard to get me to buy the cutter on the floor but I just don't like impulse purchases so I decided to come home and review everything before I make a choice. Conde gave me a bunch of sample dye-sub papers and we had a long talk about their products. They are just a little too expensive compared to our current supplier. Melco has a great product and had one of their customers doing demos. He is right down the street from us so I might just drop by to take a look at what he does. He seemed like a nice guy. The Melco equipment looked pretty good for transportability to take to retail venues and it was nice looking also. The SawGrass direct to garment printer should be pretty competitive when they release their white kit. US Screen Print has their 3rd generation T-Jet 3 coming out. They had it there at the show and it looked pretty good. They were clearing out the T-Jet 2's with a 30% discount on price. I think these guys are really driving this market and right now have the best price/product for direct to garment printing. As the competition heats up this year I am sure we will see more entries into this market.

Best Products: Rock Point Apparel had some great American Flag themed clothing. The Owner was there and he was very friendly and has a great products. I can sell these things all day long so I am sure I will be purchasing from him. Roland cutters. The optical Roland cutters are great and are priced right at about $1700. I saw some great cutting going on at the show in a number of booths and your product line can only be limited by your imagination with these puppies.

Interesting Product: Inbrohas a single needle embroidery machine, RSC-1201, that changes colors and is self threading all on its own. I would like to see this in a real production environment to see how well it works. The field is a little limited but I like this product.

Poor booth people: I don't know why some companies put dead wood in the booth. They might as well put a cardboard cutout there. Several of the booths had people working in them that couldn't sell a snack to an Ethiopian. Also, some of the people working in the booths either A: just ignore you or B: don't speak enough English to make sense or C: don't know the product. Come guys, I am here to buy, are you here to sell or what? It was only the first day of the show, let's show a little spirit.

Product Brochures: I want to take home a spec on the product. Make sure those are out.

Booth Babes: Two booths had these that I saw. Actually, one had a single booth babe and the other had several. Nothing to write home about, they were all so-so. I am not sure why any of them were there.

What did anyone else think? I am sure I missed some important stuff, but then again, I had a focused mission in mind.

January 21st, 2007	- #1 (permalink)
guest3300 Forum Member Be nice, this is my first post :) Member Since: Jul 2006 Posts: 1 Thanks: 1 Thanked 49 Times in 32 Posts	My impressions of the ISS Long Beach show I spent all day Friday at the Long Beach Show. I went with a shopping list which helped me out quite a bit. The show was a little large to cover in one day but that was all I had available. Things I liked: Vinyl cutters and direct to garment printers. These were the two big hits for me. These products show well although several of the printers were not working well and other than US Screen Print, no-one had a good dark color solution that looked as good. I was pleased that there were more dark color solutions out there including Anajet and maybe in the future SawGrass. I was most impressed with the SawGrass direct printer for a single portable unit. Embroidery: These machines are getting better and better along with the software to run them. The digitizing software that comes with the machines is really getting good and will allow for more people to enter this market. Embroidered products have a much higher perceived value than a printed product and being able to move this in-house is our number one item on our to-do list. Also, there were at least 3 digitizing companies that have off-shored this function to reduce the cost of digitizing. Time Spent at Booths: I spent a lot of time at the following: Imprintables, Digital Knight, SawGrass, Melco, Gildan, Conde, Rock Point Apparel and US Screen Print. I had a nice conversation with Aaron Kight from DK and he gave me some good tips on dye-sub with his equipment. I spent a long time at the Imprintables booth and they tried really hard to get me to buy the cutter on the floor but I just don't like impulse purchases so I decided to come home and review everything before I make a choice. Conde gave me a bunch of sample dye-sub papers and we had a long talk about their products. They are just a little too expensive compared to our current supplier. Melco has a great product and had one of their customers doing demos. He is right down the street from us so I might just drop by to take a look at what he does. He seemed like a nice guy. The Melco equipment looked pretty good for transportability to take to retail venues and it was nice looking also. The SawGrass direct to garment printer should be pretty competitive when they release their white kit. US Screen Print has their 3rd generation T-Jet 3 coming out. They had it there at the show and it looked pretty good. They were clearing out the T-Jet 2's with a 30% discount on price. I think these guys are really driving this market and right now have the best price/product for direct to garment printing. As the competition heats up this year I am sure we will see more entries into this market. Best Products: Rock Point Apparel had some great American Flag themed clothing. The Owner was there and he was very friendly and has a great products. I can sell these things all day long so I am sure I will be purchasing from him. Roland cutters. The optical Roland cutters are great and are priced right at about $1700. I saw some great cutting going on at the show in a number of booths and your product line can only be limited by your imagination with these puppies. Interesting Product: Inbrohas a single needle embroidery machine, RSC-1201, that changes colors and is self threading all on its own. I would like to see this in a real production environment to see how well it works. The field is a little limited but I like this product. Poor booth people: I don't know why some companies put dead wood in the booth. They might as well put a cardboard cutout there. Several of the booths had people working in them that couldn't sell a snack to an Ethiopian. Also, some of the people working in the booths either A: just ignore you or B: don't speak enough English to make sense or C: don't know the product. Come guys, I am here to buy, are you here to sell or what? It was only the first day of the show, let's show a little spirit. Product Brochures: I want to take home a spec on the product. Make sure those are out. Booth Babes: Two booths had these that I saw. Actually, one had a single booth babe and the other had several. Nothing to write home about, they were all so-so. I am not sure why any of them were there. What did anyone else think? I am sure I missed some important stuff, but then again, I had a focused mission in mind.
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