Overview: The Blue Ocean
Online Stores for Print Shops and Screen Printers
"A blue ocean strategy creates and controls a totally new market space."
As screen printers and print shops build the future of the custom apparel industry, it’s obvious that online stores are our industry’s blue ocean. The growth of e-commerce far outpaces the growth of overall retail sales:
E-commerce growth, previous 10 years:
394% Retail growth, previous 10 years:
146%Typical online stores are poorly adapted to a modern print shop’s workflow. But we knew that there had to be a way for screen printers, embroiderers, sign shops, digital printers and every other type of custom decorator to claim their stake of this massive market.
So we set out to offer a real solution.
We began by asking seemingly simple questions that proved difficult to answer: How could online stores become part of a print shop's actual printing process? Why can't print shops provide their customers with simple online stores that add real value? How could we actually help print shops grow their businesses and reach new customers?
Our answer: the quotes and invoices print shops already use for every order could act as the foundation of their online stores. Their production scheduling software and their shop's online stores could talk to each other.
Online stores are the most exciting and challenging frontier for print shops. We created Printavo Merch so you could manage your online stores and your workflow in one stop. It's already processed tens of thousands of orders and helped print shops generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional revenue.
There’s no way for a small business to match a company like Amazon...after all, they’re taking 49% of all online retail sales. Leaders like Apple and Google have set customer expectations for e-commerce very high. Frictionless, customized, on-demand service isn’t just a dream – it’s becoming the norm. But there's no doubt that print shops can provide their customers with incredible custom service that the biggest e-commerce players can't.
This guide is intended to help you get the most out of your online stores – so you can make more sales, make more money, and grow your business – whether you use Printavo Merch or not. Now is the time to seize the opportunity and craft the future of the custom apparel industry.
Step 1: Choosing Customers for Online Stores
"The worst thing that can happen is losing money compared to standard custom orders."
Online stores are great, but they’re not without risk. Choose customers carefully.
You must carefully plan your stores for success. That starts with the customers you choose to offer online stores. There are several ideal customer profiles for online stores – and several customer profiles that are a poor fit.
If you get one thing right, get this right: which customers will get a lot of value from an online store?
Whether due to their scale, reach in the community, or time constraints – there are select businesses and customers that make great candidates for online stores. Here's a simple test for determining if an online store could have broader reach.
It goes like this: Does grandma probably want one too? If she does, that's a great candidate for an online store.
The best online store clients have significant credibility, a consistent following, and the ability to actually sell their merchandise (either by necessity or because of their popularity). Think big!
Many of these ideal customers face consistent demand for custom merchandise and have organizational restraints so that collecting sizes, customizations, and payments is a significant hurdle. That means a simple online store meets their needs.
Look for customers that have creative fundraising opportunities, the ability to seize on viral memes or hot market events, or broad reach within your community as your “whale” clients for online stores.
Here are examples:
- Athletic leagues
- Recurring need for custom jerseys and uniforms
- Large scale
- Huge logistics burden for league
- Necessary for participation - Professional events, outings, and sponsored appearances
- Large scale
- Often B2B
- Less price sensitive - Marathons and other athletic endurance events
- Packets, custom athletic gear
- Trophies and medals
- Photo kits - Reunions
- Recurring
- Simplifies typically difficult orders
- Makes upselling personalized shirts easier - Company and corporate stores
- Necessary, so it simplifies the ordering process
- Scales extremely well
- Simplifies production - Fundraisers
- Easy interface
- Extremely clear - Churches
- Outings, events, clubs within churches
- Reduce complex needs to a few simple stores - School systems
- Offer a store per school and streamline distribution
- Easily craft dozens of stores and manage them as well
- Simple and effective - Franchises
- Uniforms and merchandise
- For employees or for their customers
- Don’t stop at t-shirts – condiments, coupon packages, and more - Marketers
- Easily set up stores and test ideas
- Harness viral memes or short-term events
- Quickly fulfill orders based on exact need, not a projection - Local government organizations
- Put everything in one place
- Customizations collected easily
- Easy coupon usage - Unions
- Offer seasonal gear
- Safety gear, work gear
- Super fast customizations - Hot market trends
- A/B test your ideas with unlimited stores
- See how new designs perform
- Seize on controversy or local athletic events - Festivals
- Offer before or after stores
- Easy discounts for VIPs
- Simple to segment for different bands - Events with 100+ attendees
- Souvenirs
- Autographs
- Anytime purchasing
Read the full article here:
https://www.printavo.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-online-stores
