Images_Digital_Edition_January_2020

IS DECORATOR PROFILE www.images-magazine.com 36 images JANUARY 2020 pressure on margins: national minimum wage, business rates, fuel. Costs are rising so quickly. Customers won’t pay these extra costs. If a manufacturer tells us their prices have gone up 12%, we can’t get that 12% off the customer. We’re on the frontline with the customers. You have to keep watching your overheads constantly. We have to sell more just to stay the same.” Alongside LED lighting, investment in solar panels five years ago is now starting to pay off financially as well as environmentally. But ultimately, Alan says, “we just have to keep beavering away”. Most of T-Print’s business is supplying promotional companies as well as charities and other business-to-business customers. While it does not specialise For us, it’s all about the long term. Not a quick win The company’s 45,000 sqft premises in Bispham T-Print’s stylish showroom Last year’s 972-page T-Print directory in uniforms, it sells a lot of customised workwear. The company’s potential capacity of more than 100,000 pieces per week is based on the eight automatic machines working eight hours a day but in peak times over the summer, with overtime, it can achieve even more. However, being a garment printer is no longer just about screen printing. As well as embroidery, transfers and artwork creation (T-Print has three full-time artists) it now offers services such as label changing, swing tags, barcodes, logistics and distribution. “Customers never even ask you if you can do distribution now, as they want you to do it all without a handling house,” Alan adds. “It was simpler when you just got the order, printed it, packed it and sent it. Now you have to do a lot more.” Having most processes under one roof is one of T-Print’s strengths, he says, with innovation across the board that has led to the company winning around 75 awards for printing, embroidery, transfers and artwork over the years. T-Print has overcome challenges from recessions through to the current Brexit uncertainty, which Alan notes has been “difficult”, and continues to look to the future, with his sons, Paul and Dan – both in their 30s – part of the team. “They’ve known the business their whole lives,” Alan says. “They have been working in it for a long time. They will hopefully carry on. For us, it’s all about the long term. Not a quick win. Nothing happens overnight.” www.t-print.co.uk