photo credit: Alaskan Dude

These days, outfitting your staff with appropriate corporate apparel or promotional clothing has become a necessity. Sending out your sales people wearing custom logoed shirts not only makes them look professional but also greatly increases the credibility of your company. The right corporate apparel makes a small company look bigger, and a big company look stronger. Having been in the corporate apparel business for almost 10 years, I have sold shirts, jackets and other items to companies of just about any size! I will offer some pointers below to save you both money and time.

#1: Choosing the right shirt for the right occasion

Choosing the right shirt is the most important step in your decision making process. Ask yourself the following questions:

- How are my competitions outfitting their people? Are they wearing tee shirts, button-down shirts, polo shirts, vests, and sweatshirts? What should I do so my people will look better and smarter than their people?

- What is the climate like? Will my people be comfortable in the particular garment in consideration?

- Will my logo decorate well on the garment in question? You want your logo to look its best. You want it looking great after repeat washing, and whatever else the person wearing it will do to it!

Getting the right type of shirts will save you money in the long run. If a company logo shirt is mandatory for your staff, meaning they have to wear it everyday, you want to get a relatively good quality shirt so it will hold up for a while. Consider a cotton/poly blend material so dark colors won’t fade as easily as 100% cotton shirts. Some people are allergic to polyester fabric, so make sure you ask your staff. You certainly don’t want any lawsuit to result because of a $5 tee shirt! Also consider getting multiple shirts for each employee so they don’t show up at work with a soiled shirt just because they didn’t have time to wash it the night before. Consider a Teflon coated shirt and a “soil release” fabric if most of your staff are the “rough and tough” type like my husband! Also, white shirts tend not to last as long as darker color shirts.

#2: Artwork and pricing consideration

In general, you need to reach a quantity of 12 before any significant discount can be found. Remember, there is a setup cost for every logo. That cost is always passed along to the customer, especially at smaller quantities. Screen-printing cost is determined by the number of colors in the artwork and the number of location to be decorated, while embroidery cost is determined by the size of the final artwork and the number of location to be decorated, although mostly like you have to pay higher cost for logos with more than 6 colors. Consequently, if your logo has only 1 color, cost is probably lower for screening as there is only 1 color setup, and there is no size limitation of the final artwork on the garment. That said, certain garments couldn’t be screen-printed. These items include polar fleece garments, and coarsely knit garments such as sweaters. The texture is too coarse for the ink to hold onto.

Since embroidery cost is for the most part independent of the number of colors, it is a better decorating method for small logos, such as pocket size logos, with multiple colors. There is a setup cost for each color for screen-printing, but there is 1 setup cost regardless of the number of colors. However, if you have a large size logo, say 10″ x 12″, the cost of embroidery could be astronomical!

#3: Finding the right vendor

Once you decide on the type of product and the artwork, you now need to find the right vendor to do your job. There are generally 2 ways of going about this:

A. Finding a vendor to supply you with blank garments, and then finding a vendor to do the decoration

B. Finding a vendor to supply both the garment and do the decoration for you

The 1st approach is best if you are looking to purchase a larger number of garments, say in the hundreds, or if you purchase a fair number of garments consistently throughout the year, say once a month. It will probably save you 20% to 30% in final costs. But you will pay more shipping cost as you need to first ship the garments to the decorator, then the decorator will have to ship the garments back to you. Decorators have a damage % you have to agree to, meaning if they damage your $100 leather jacket, they will NOT pay for it. Most bulk garment distributors also prefer to work exclusively with decorators. So your access to certain items is limited. You also need to do a lot more legwork, so put into consideration the man-hour you need to spend, which really translates into costs. Mass distributors are not in a position to give you product advice. They are essentially order takers. So you are on your own to find the right products. In general you can return the garments within 30 days, but there is usually a restocking fee involved. And of course your bear the return shipping cost as well as the outbound shipping cost.

If you are looking to purchase a relatively small number of garments, say, 12 to 72 pcs, or if you just spot buy once in a while, I suggest you go with a full service vendor. A good service vendor will offer advice on the best suitable product, as well as advice on logos and decoration, which could save you significantly amount of money down the road. Also, I’m a firm believer in focusing on your core business. If you spend 10 hours figuring our how to get some shirts down, that is 10 hours you are NOT spending on how to increase sales for you business. In general, going to a larger vendor will save you money down the road. I can’t remember how many times people called me complaining they spend hundreds of dollars on setup fee, only to find their vendor out of business in 6 months. Now they have to pay that fee all over again. If you want more product information on corporate apparel or promotional products, check out the web sites below.

Jackie Or is the owner of The Promotion Factory, Inc. Her company provides custom logoed corporate apparel and custom hats at wholesale price points. The Promotion Factory also provides overseas custom apparel and custom hats outsourced manufacturing services.

Promotional Hats and Logo Caps
Custom Embroidery
Custom Corporate Apparel and Promotional Clothing