Changing Customer Expectations / Lead Time & Minimum Quantity

[pwalsh]

There are two types of customers that have traditionally driven garment screen-printers nuts.  The first is the guy who has a clothing design that’s going to sell thousands of units, but right now he just needs 6 to 8 of each design to get started.  Then there’s the other guy who reaches out on Tuesday afternoon needing to have 25 to 30 shirts with a full color image designed, printed and shipped in time for the event that he’s having on Saturday.  Many of the garment decorators I’ve known over the years refer to customers with these types of service expectations as being unrealistic, and/or that they were just being a pain in the…….. Back in July our favorite amphibian Andy posted a question on the TSB forums asking if other garment decorators were seeing an increase in the number of requests from customers for extremely short lead times, even same day service. 

I’ve been giving this issue some thought and wanted to reach out to the TSB community with a short survey to identify any trends on how customer expectations for lead times and minimum order quantities have changed in our industry. I’d ask any garment decorators who are interested in this subject to complete the attached survey, and email it back to me at peter.walsh@mrprint.com.  I’ll tally up the responses that I receive from TSB, and a few other sources and provide a summary report to everyone who completes the survey.  Finally, as a show of appreciation to the garment decorating community for participating in this program we will enter all names into a drawing to receive a $250 Credit for purchases from the M&R Online Store.   

[ericheartsu]

i plan on filling this out tonight, but it seems our orders here keep getting bigger and have tighter and tighter deadlines.

[Frog]

Well Peter, if I may as be so bold to suggest that part of this falls right into a good selling point for DTG printers. It's certainly one of the major influences on the seemingly increased expectations for smaller, quicker screenprinted jobs which otherwise would fall in their purview.

[Maxie]

We also have seasonal work and it's impossible keeping all the staff in the slack periods.
We have a core of employees who know the work and bring in students and part timers when we are busy.
I always thought that getting workers in the USA was not a problem, who is going to work in the industries that Mr Trump wants to bring back to the USA?
Israel used to have a big textile industry, today everything textile is imported, our caregivers are from the Philippines and our agricultural workers from Thailand.     We have Chinese and Romanian builders.
There are certain jobs that no locals want to do for any wage and when they do work they are lousy workers.

[Colin]

Imo... it begins with a sense of entitlement.  "Grow up to be anything you want to be" No one wants to grow up to push a broom....

My kids are at a school where part of their yearly curriculum is to be in an apprenticeship.  On top of getting a good education, they are required 2 days a week to go to their apprenticeship - Learn and Work - and then write about what they have learned at the end of each semester.  They give a 30 minute presentation to their class and everyone learns... 

[brandon]

i plan on filling this out tonight, but it seems our orders here keep getting bigger and have tighter and tighter deadlines.

Exactly.

[jsheridan]

i plan on filling this out tonight, but it seems our orders here keep getting bigger and have tighter and tighter deadlines.

Exactly.

20 years ago it was 10,000 pieces one design, print it, box it, out the door.
today it's still 10,000 pieces but 30 designs and they've got bag and Fold, hangtags and packing and color changes in pre-packing has to ship out to multiple locations and it's all due the same day.

[Rockers]

We deal with both type of clients. I prefer though the guys who need shirts within a short period of time over the folks who dream of selling 1000s of pcs.
For rush orders we charge accordingly so it does not hurt us at all. While dreamers who in the end order only 10 pcs do feel like time wasters especially if you have to spend several hours holding their hands during the order process.

[mooseman]

As possibly one of the few real flying solo printers in this group I hope the other smaller shops / guys & gals add their info for Pat and all of us ...jump in
mooseman 

[Croft]

I have older established marketing companies that on a weekly basis are apologizing for rushes , they remember the days of 2 week + lead times and are having as hard a time dealing with rushes as we are

not much you can do but charge for it that doesn't really seem to matter as much, they want it now and usually will pay

[Doug S]

Although it's irritating, we never charge rush fees.  We are known in our area as the shop that can getter done.  In 10 years, we've had 1 instance where we couldn't and it was because the guy comes in on a Friday and wants 1000 or so shirts by Saturday and there was no way to get them in time.  I would charge a rush fee if it were a rush and the customer was an ahole though.

[Gilligan]

Although it's irritating, we never charge rush fees.  We are known in our area as the shop that can getter done.  In 10 years, we've had 1 instance where we couldn't and it was because the guy comes in on a Friday and wants 1000 or so shirts by Saturday and there was no way to get them in time.  I would charge a rush fee if it were a rush and the customer was an ahole though.

We kind of pride ourselves on this same thing... we've had plenty of people come to us and say "you guys smashed it with a short deadline last time, so I'm coming back (usually with a similar short deadline).

But we charge rush fees.  Don't sell yourself short.  People understand the need for rush fees, you can still be known for getting it done even if you "have to" charge rush fees.

We just tell them that we have to stay late to catch up on what we pushed back for their order to keep up with our schedule.  Hardly is that ever true, but most people understand.  Typically where we charge a rush fee, no other shop in town is going to get it done anyway.

[Doug S]

The only thing that saves us is that we are typically higher in price than most.  Maybe I do need to add a little extra because it is becoming a norm of last minute.  More often than not, we do have to work after hours to make it happen.

[jvieira]

We kind of pride ourselves on this same thing... we've had plenty of people come to us and say "you guys smashed it with a short deadline last time, so I'm coming back (usually with a similar short deadline).

IMO this is what makes people expect everyone will work late hours for them. In the long term this will not be a good business plan for the entire industry.

[Sbrem]

We do both types as well, we are a contract and a retail shop. If we can get it out for them, we'll take it, with rush charges of course. Why would we work extra hours for less pay? Charge for the rush. While I won't suggest that they f'd up, I will tell them that they could have planned better...

Steve