Stop Worrying About Customink

[IntegrityShirts]

It's not Custom Ink that scares me.  It's the next startup or even Amazon that gets into the game and gobbles up market share, just like the did with Uber, AirBnB, etc.

Custom ink is overpriced and the quality is hit or miss.

I bet Custom Ink is scared of Amazon! Or they should be. That's a huge hit to their market, which should create a competitive price drive downward, which I personally think will ultimately kill BOTH of them or hurt them pretty badly.  Will it affect us? i don't think so. Amazon, no matter how much they automate, still have to have a human load, pretreat, reload, print, cure and box single shirts with super expensive printers that require MUCH more maintenance than their manufacturers lead the buyer to believe. If Amazon wants to take a loss on their project for a few years solely to bury custom ink, then so be it.

[GraphicDisorder]

Custom Ink has a decent formula in ways and wrong in others. Amazon wont be able to be personable at all.  Mix some of the 2 together and change a few other things and wham. With some capital someone could put half us out of business in a couple of years.

Custom Ink or someone like it just needs to produce it in house 100%, lower prices, better service, and scale it, quickly. It will happen.

[IntegrityShirts]

Custom Ink or someone like it just needs to produce it in house 100%, lower prices, better service, and scale it, quickly. It will happen.

I thought Custom Ink already tried to do that?

[GraphicDisorder]

Custom Ink or someone like it just needs to produce it in house 100%, lower prices, better service, and scale it, quickly. It will happen.

I thought Custom Ink already tried to do that?

Which they or someone like them will eventually get right.

[mimosatexas]

Maybe I'm completely off base, but a huge percentage of my business has always been local and has always been based on referrals.  I have lost customers for different reasons like any business, but I also have many loyal customers and many customers who have no interest in ordering shirts online.  They want to be able to see samples, talk through details with a real person, pick stuff up and pay in person, etc.  I get lots of business from people who have tried customink and similar services and weren't happy with the experience.  I don't see local shops going away anytime soon.

For those shops that have gone with the email only online only business model, I could see it being a bigger threat of course, but I have never run that kind of shop.

[Northland]

I think you just made my point
mooseman

You totally missed my point if that’s all you got from my post. Ah well.

.... not judging, just observing...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed-5Zzdbx0E

[kingscreen]

For those that don’t take calls, do you have a voicemail or recording?
I’d like to hear it if anyone’s willing to share.

[GraphicDisorder]

For those that don’t take calls, do you have a voicemail or recording?
I’d like to hear it if anyone’s willing to share.

Our vm box is full.  Call the shop all you like we never answer.  4234342230 I think haha. 

[CBCB]

That video is too funny and too true! So many differences between generations.

We also depend heavily on local relationships. I bet 95% of our orders are local in our city.

We build genuine real relationships over the internet all day long. There’s an art to it. People can go online and order from a form on Amazon or Custom Ink, or they can deal with a real human. I know which I prefer! Anyone can upload a file to Amazon, but a lot of clients want a real human eyeball on things before it goes to press.

Our answering machine says something like this: “Thanks for calling. We are probably printing! The best and fastest way to get in touch or get an order started is to visit our website”, with a couple details like the web address and whatnot.

Our phone rings off the hook, but we track the missed calls and a lotttt of people who hear that voicemail end up sending us an email. The ones that don’t probably hate email or think they ‘need’ to talk on the phone, so we let our competitors do that hand holding.

Not trying to butt heads or anything, just feeling like human interactions online are being looked down on.

That video had a funny line. “Learning to text is the only way you’ll have a relationship with your son.” Or something like that.  Too true. Humans communicate differently now.

People probably thought the phone was crazy too. “Wait, you mean I can only hear their voice?!”


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[merchmonster]

For those that don’t take calls, do you have a voicemail or recording?
I’d like to hear it if anyone’s willing to share.

Our vm box is full.  Call the shop all you like we never answer.  4234342230 I think haha.

Last week I sold 2 jobs for $2k each in under 30 mins - 1 to oracle - by answering the phone. One lady remarked to me that we were the first people to answer the phone ha. In my part of the world there’s always someone with a. Lot of cash who has a T-shirt problem. the shorter the timeline the faster / easier they close and the ones with short timelines call. The time wasters also call, just gotta weed em our.

Custom work all day baby!! $2k for 50 hoodies and $2k for 200 T-shirt’s hahaha :D Whereas I just got $880 on a contract job for 1000 tees?? So $500 per hour va $100-150 / hr or something like that... I’m good with answering three phone g but I’ll take the easy contract money also.

[Nation03]

For those that don’t take calls, do you have a voicemail or recording?
I’d like to hear it if anyone’s willing to share.

I got a cheap Google Project Fi phone number for my shop. I don't answer it, but there is an app that will send an automated text message to the person after we don't answer. It prompts them to fill fill out the quote page on our website. Obviously this isn't going to work for someone calling from a land line, but most the time people are calling from a cell phone these days so it works out. Not everyone like's this system, and those clients are not for us. I can't stand doing quotes over the phone and I can't stand people who can't follow simple directions.

[GraphicDisorder]

For those that don’t take calls, do you have a voicemail or recording?
I’d like to hear it if anyone’s willing to share.

Our vm box is full.  Call the shop all you like we never answer.  4234342230 I think haha.

Last week I sold 2 jobs for $2k each in under 30 mins - 1 to oracle - by answering the phone. One lady remarked to me that we were the first people to answer the phone ha. In my part of the world there’s always someone with a. Lot of cash who has a T-shirt problem. the shorter the timeline the faster / easier they close and the ones with short timelines call. The time wasters also call, just gotta weed em our.

Custom work all day baby!! $2k for 50 hoodies and $2k for 200 T-shirt’s hahaha Whereas I just got $880 on a contract job for 1000 tees?? So $500 per hour va $100-150 / hr or something like that... I’m good with answering three phone g but I’ll take the easy contract money also.

That's great. We all get to run our shops how we see fit and that works or doesn't work depending on our processes. 99% of our work is custom, so answering the phone for a job or email is really for the same type of work for us. I can do the email more efficiently so we choose to. I don't care what I lose on the phone. I literally don't at this stage. Someday I suspect we may staff the phone... but for now things are going really well my way.

[balloonguy]

I mostly stopped answering the phone too. I am not going to take a $10.00 or $10,000.00 without getting the details in writing. If the client can not email they will not fit in to our process anyway.

[GraphicDisorder]

Id be real interested how you all are dealing with a phone call and sending proofs and confirming details verbally... I am guessing you aren't. So that means you are doing it by email to some level. So why not drive it there to start with. You are opening yourself up for "I told you on the phone" which you will NOT be able to argue yourself out of.

My problem with the phone is one of the parties always being interrupted doing actual work to answer that call. So I am buried in something working away and I have to stop, answer the phone, shift to those details. Meanwhile ive stopped doing whatever I was doing and created opportunity for a issue on that project. OR ive missed that persons call, they leave a message and I call when I am free to which they are likely tied up in whatever they do all day creating a start/stop point for them in their day. People may argue its efficient.... but its not.

[Homer]

Id be real interested how you all are dealing with a phone call and sending proofs and confirming details verbally... I am guessing you aren't. So that means you are doing it by email to some level. So why not drive it there to start with. You are opening yourself up for "I told you on the phone" which you will NOT be able to argue yourself out of.

My problem with the phone is one of the parties always being interrupted doing actual work to answer that call. So I am buried in something working away and I have to stop, answer the phone, shift to those details. Meanwhile ive stopped doing whatever I was doing and created opportunity for a issue on that project. OR ive missed that persons call, they leave a message and I call when I am free to which they are likely tied up in whatever they do all day creating a start/stop point for them in their day. People may argue its efficient.... but its not.

agree 100%... we still answer the phone, however if the subject is quoting, they are immediately directed to email. I want a paper trail of our conversation, it eliminates the BS, " I said 5 small, not 5 medium"....usually with our phone calls, they are asking if we offer a certain product like vehicle graphics, wraps, signs, whatever. and we do so our conversations are typically short. I do have a few customers that it is easier / faster to understand through a phone call than email..... so it goes both ways in some cases. I answer the phone but I also don't run production. . .


Walk-ins...now THAT'S another topic.....


and for the record, custom ink makes us a ton of coin. Can you match this price? you bet!....