Images Magazine Digital Edition August 2018

www.images-magazine.com AUGUST 2018 images 31 KB BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT market their designs) • Pre-ordering allows your client to test audience reaction to a product for a nominal cost, and is much cheaper than creating complete samples for most processes. With appropriate warnings, you can make production contingent on receiving a minimum volume of orders upfront, meaning clients never end up with a garage full of unsold, spec-printed product. Scalable for any set-up No matter which tools a shop uses, any decorator with the basic kit needed to create garments will be able to produce the assets required for a pre-ordering offer. You simply need to find a balance between reducing labour and ensuring a quality product. Subscribers to ecommerce solutions with online designers have the simplest route, creating mock-ups online and supplying a campaign link directly to clients. Almost everything you want to provide is intrinsic to the tools, from garment information to quality product images, to the ability to collect information and funds. Decorators without access to these solutions can create manually processed pre-order packages by using supplier-provided product images and information, together with standard graphics software or embroidery suites, to create composite images for online consumption and offline assets for face-to-face sales. Luckily, many apparel vendors provide not only images you can use in your favourite design software, but often have their own online mock- up and design tools for decorators who don’t have the access or the time to use more feature-complete solutions. Portraying best practices Your consultation skills provide the rest of the value you’ll sell to pre- order customers. Though decorating experience makes product and design consulting easy, it’s sales and marketing assistance that can make your customer successful and your shop stand apart. To that end, here are three crucial tips to get your customer’s promotion on-point: Curate Content Start with one design. Clients often clamour to launch an entire line of designs for pre-order, but it’s up to you to encourage them to select their most marketable piece and place the weight of their promotional efforts behind it. Starting with a single design makes offerings less scattered, makes set-up easier and less costly, and increases the chance of a significant order. Limit Choice It may sound negative, but there’s truth to the ‘tyranny of choice’ when it comes to decorated apparel. Traditional customers falter when faced with catalogues featuring hundreds of similar garments; the same happens to their end- customers. Choose one or two garment styles in one colour selection. Remind the customer they can always follow-up with a second run and offer new versions. If the design is a hit, they may see return sales when running additional promotions for new colour schemes or garments rather than forcing a single selection. Limiting choice helps to clarify decision-making and creates a sort of artificial scarcity that some lines use to create ‘collectible’ pieces. Stick to the Schedule Set and communicate a final order date and stick to it. It is tempting to take straggler orders, but both you and the client need to avoid the temptation to chase what amounts to a second, smaller order that eats into profitability through lost efficiency or delays delivery. To create a ‘second- chance’ sale, set a delivery date padded with enough time not to delay production or delivery before you begin the promotion. It’s true that the boutique, small run market may be more complicated than the large scale, single-image orders, however there’s no reason why serving the former can’t be profitable. If you employ a strategy that educates and enables your customer, you may find that you’ve not only positioned yourself as the go-to supplier for an under- served sector of the market, but that you’ve gained a secondary sales force. Value your time, provide a product that you can proudly charge for and which creates profit for your client, and you’ll find out just how much growth a littl e pre-order preparation can drive. Erich Campbell is an award-winning digitiser, embroidery columnist and educator, with 18 years’ experience both in production and the management of e-commerce properties. He is the partner relationship manager for DecoNetwork in the USA. www.erichcampbell.com Choose the final order date for the campaign and stick to it Accurate mock-ups can be made in programmes such as Wilcom, and help prevent issues where the finished product doesn‘t match the generic on-screen product that the customer believed they were buying