InkSoft Offers One Stop Catalog In Online Web Store Designer

[Deborah Sexton]

InkSoft continues to expand the products available to their Online Stores and Design Studio users with the integration of the One Stop  wholesale catalog into the program. The recent addition gives customers access to the full One Stop line of blank, imprintable apparel and decorating supplies.

InkSoft continues to offer diverse ordering solutions for its customers, and the integration with One Stop is the latest way for decorators to get the best quality blanks and service for their orders. It also simplifies and streamlines ordering for Design Studio users while taking service and creative support in InkSoft-powered web stores to a new level with new product options.

One Stop is a wholesale supplier of wearables for imprinting to the screen printing, embroidery, heat transfer and advertising specialty markets. It is also a distributor of screen printing and sublimation inks, emulsions, frames, threads, and heat transfer materials. All these items are shipped in one order, from one location, with same-day shipping.

To learn more, go to https://www.inksoft.com/onestop-inksoft/.

For more information, contact InkSoft at (800) 410-3048; email: contact@inksoft.com or visit the website at www.inksoft.com.

[blue moon]

I am going to leave this (we normally delete anything InkSoft related) only so I can tack on a warning to anybody thinking about using their services. After all these years, I am yet to hear from somebody who had any success with them! Most ppl just cut their losses and stop using them. Some have wasted thousands of dollars without any sales (yes $0). . .

pierre

[cleveprint]

We used inksoft for all of our online stores. I dont think they are the best hosting site in the world, but they work for us. At least a few stores a month for us. Are they out there ripping people off? Maybe I missed something where they are. Again, Im not defending them or anything (I really am not, I do not care that much!!), more just wondering what the issues are.

[blue moon]

We used inksoft for all of our online stores. I dont think they are the best hosting site in the world, but they work for us. At least a few stores a month for us. Are they out there ripping people off? Maybe I missed something where they are. Again, Im not defending them or anything (I really am not, I do not care that much!!), more just wondering what the issues are.

I have talked to at least 6-8 different companies that all said they were not wroth the money. Some have not made a single sale after 6-12 months!

The main issue seems to be that fact that it takes a lot of work to set it up and most ppl just don't have the time to do it right. My beef is not with the product, but with the company that keeps taking on the new sales without making sure the product will work for the purchaser (make sure they have the time needed to complete the installation properly). Almost all of their new customers are dropping the product within 12 months. It seems to me that they are pushing sales just so they can stay in business. After several conversations and requests for explanation, I have not received any. My guess is their attrition rate is approaching 90% within 12 months. Imagine if 90% of your product came back! That's just not right!

All that said and done, if there are more ppl that have had a good experience with them, please post it here. At least we will know what needs to be done to get it right. I would also love to see InkSoft prove me wrong and show that majority of their customers don't leave so soon.

 pierre

[cleveprint]

I guess we have been with them for about 6 or so years, so maybe we dont know any better. To be honest, I dont know if we have ever shopped around as we just got used to using it. Our customers dont mind it. Again, Im not defending them at all. I was just curious.

Regarding the sales, is it from the online designer? Or the web stores people put up? You can put a webstore up for anything, but if you aren't advertising it or targeting a specific market, Im not sure how you would gather sales. Our web stores aren't public really. Say a school team calls us and wants a store up, the only people who are ever going to see that store is that team. Or anyone else they share the link to.

I could see the issue if they are not assisting people with technical questions or help with putting them up.  We've been using them so long it seems that we can pop one up pretty quick. As long as the artwork and such is done already. But if you have no idea what you are doing and cannot get support, then yeah. I see the issue here.

[zanegun08]

We will do about $70k this year through Inksoft software.

Majority is through pre-order stores for clubs / companies.

$13k of that is through our website of "random" people just ordering products.

Inksoft's designer is pretty intuitive for the customer, that is why I picked inksoft, the pre-order stores are decent, similar to ordermygear

The rest leaves a lot to be desired, however in 2019 I'm redoing our website, with more focus on automated sales online, as the prior year we did $16k through inksoft total, and I would like to keep the year over year growth.

However, their site is slow, and frustrating.  Like some other popular poster on this board, they focus on developing features that aren't applicable to our business, and the core functionality is not that great.

Love / Hate, but will keep using it, I think we have been users for 4 years with 1 of those being pretty dormant.

[Shanarchy]

Been with them for a while. Like many, I signed up for the online designer. It's one of the nicer ones out there, but online designers are just difficult to get sales with in general. We will never have the web traffic that Custom Ink does. We use it as a place to send tire kicker customers with no artwork. The hey I want 25 shirts, deign me something cool. We get very little from it and I highly doubt anyone is making their money back from that feature.

I was going to pull the plug on it and then discovered their best asset for me was the never talked about the "shop management" business tools side. And I use that term very loosely. I was in desperate need of some kind of software that was a true cloud base software. ie I can log onto it on any computer to enter an order, send a quote, create an invoice, etc. I would not describe this as good shop management/quoting software by any means. But it's definitely usable and was the only option i could find at the time.

I peaked at Printavo about a year ago, but decided to stay with Ink Soft as they hired Marshall Atkinson to redesign the business tools/shop management side about a year ago. It is FINALLY in beta testing. I'm really hoping for a drastic improvement.

The stores option is their best feature and the one that will actually make you money.

Ink Soft gives you a lot of tools, but little guidance of how to truly use it to your advantage. I do not get the feeling that anyone involved their really truly has put time into our industry running a shop. The software is clunky and could be a lot smoother. There is a FB users group which is pretty helpful. I do feel they are trying their hardest to help their customers figure out how to use it. Something they didn't seem to do much of a few years ago.

In short, it could be and should be a lot better. Such as it should have an iPhone app for quoting and invoicing and the design studio should be mobile friendly (they say that is coming soon). A lot of people who sign up will never see a penny. But there are also a lot of people like Zanegun, who I would imagine put a lot of effort into it, who will make some real good money off of it.

[zanegun08]

I would say this is an anomaly which is why their posting it as a poster child of success and it is funny it coincides this thread - https://www.inksoft.com/t-shirt-elephant/

However they have a great API implementation, and have probably invested considerable to develop their site to be fast, and offer a ton of products, as we have a very simple implementation of their old API, and our site is slow as beans, and then they killed non SSL checkout through the embedded designer.

Going to rebuild on a Shopify store with inksoft integrated for 2019 as I like Shopify backend, and it's easier for people other than me to make edits to the site quickly than some API driven Inksoft thing.

Shanarchy, is there a beta of the new backend that I can see?  Would be interested as like you said, it has a lot of good tool that work, but if it was streamlined and intuitive, and faster the system could be a lot more useful.  It sure makes it nice to get paid up front easily at your customers convenience rather than having to run cards, or checks, ect.

Pro's and Con's, but Inksoft shouldn't be banned from theshirtboard just because some people signed up and didn't invest the time to make it work for them.

[Shanarchy]

Shanarchy, is there a beta of the new backend that I can see?  Would be interested as like you said, it has a lot of good tool that work, but if it was streamlined and intuitive, and faster the system could be a lot more useful.  It sure makes it nice to get paid up front easily at your customers convenience rather than having to run cards, or checks, ect.

I signed up to be a beta tester. They said I'd be, but I'm still waiting.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/qmXPUrj4OPI

[blue moon]

Pro's and Con's, but Inksoft shouldn't be banned from theshirtboard just because some people signed up and didn't invest the time to make it work for them.

they were banned because of their business practices. They are (or were, it sure sounds like they are doing better) taking their customer's money without making sure they are a good fit. Even the company management confirmed the high attrition rate and that it is a problem (when I talked to them couple of years back). Selling something that is of no use to the buyer is deceptive at best and illegal at worst.

So to sum it up, it certainly seems like they have gotten much better at taking care of their customers, the question remains though about their sales practices. Anybody here that can provide some insight into those?

pierre

[blue moon]

I've reached out to InkSoft and asked them to join the conversation. Hopefully we can sort this out. . .

pierre

[kingscreen]

We signed up with InkSoft a few months ago now and have overall been happy with it. Is it a magical set up and rake in cash software? No, of course not. Nothing is. We spent over a month getting it set up and spent a TON of time on the phone and video chats with them. Set up wasn't easy at all and I can fully see people not spending the time to do it right to complete. 
They still contact us about 2-3 times a month directly asking if there's anything we need or if we need any assistance getting anything set up and going. In 3+months, it's definitely paying for itself and we have found a lot of uses for the software that most people probably don't consider as value; such as using the Design Studio yourself to create artwork for a simpleton customer that just "can't figure it out" and then billing them for artwork that took your designer 5 minutes in InkSoft. 
If you're looking for a set and forget option, InkSoft isn't it. I doubt that exists anywhere in business. It takes A LOT to get it set up, and it takes some time to manage and even more to promote. For the time being, I'm still a happy user.
Haven't done any stores yet, so I can't comment on that but the interface seems easy to use.

[InkSoft]

Greetings all. JP Hunt from InkSoft checking in. Here to participate in the discussion and address any questions. I can be reached directly at jphunt@inksoft.com / 800-410-3048 Ext.1007 should any of you like to contact me directly.

@Shanarchy -- I'm going to enabled InkSoft Core access on your account today. I'll follow up directly to confirm!

[blue moon]

We signed up with InkSoft a few months ago now and have overall been happy with it. Is it a magical set up and rake in cash software? No, of course not. Nothing is. We spent over a month getting it set up and spent a TON of time on the phone and video chats with them. Set up wasn't easy at all and I can fully see people not spending the time to do it right to complete. 
They still contact us about 2-3 times a month directly asking if there's anything we need or if we need any assistance getting anything set up and going. In 3+months, it's definitely paying for itself and we have found a lot of uses for the software that most people probably don't consider as value; such as using the Design Studio yourself to create artwork for a simpleton customer that just "can't figure it out" and then billing them for artwork that took your designer 5 minutes in InkSoft. 
If you're looking for a set and forget option, InkSoft isn't it. I doubt that exists anywhere in business. It takes A LOT to get it set up, and it takes some time to manage and even more to promote. For the time being, I'm still a happy user.
Haven't done any stores yet, so I can't comment on that but the interface seems easy to use.

this is in stark contrast to what I was seeing before. 'very glad to see the issues that were of concern are addressed diligently!
I will lift the ban for the time being and if things keep going this way, will make it permanent.

I also encourage anybody with the opposite experience to let me know! Please make sure the issues are current and not from years back.

thank you everybody for setting this straight!!!

pierre

[Shanarchy]

Thanks again JP!

I'll keep everyone updated on my thoughts, both good and bad, on the new version (InkSoft Core). I'm a big fan of Marshal's and knowing he had a lot of input in this my expectations are high.

Pierre,

They made a huge turn around with customer support a few years ago. I don't think I'd say they were a shady company, but the sales people selling were definitely sales people. And the support and explanation of how to use and benefit from a product that wasn't cheap just really wasn't there. Or at least not in the capacity it should be. As King stated, it is very time consuming to set up. They did offer training sessions over the phone early on, but it was pretty complex to really get everything dialed in. I honestly had the software for a long time before I even knew they had business tools for quotes and invoices. They've come along way and I feel they now see that we are printers, not programmers, and have no idea how to use this type of stuff. They have created and added a lot of videos which help you. And have made a huge effort to increase customer support. They are far from perfect, but definitely a legit company who is making a lot of improvements.

I am happy to see JP join in here and would love to see Ink Soft stay active on here as they are in their FB forum.