How to buy t-shirts with prints on the Internet in order to be satisfied and not to be deceived (part 1)
Why and why this article was written.
I have been selling clothes on the Internet since 2003 - first there was an online store of ready-made T-shirts FUTBOLKA.ua, then an online designer of clothes and souvenirs My.FUTBOLKA.ua, now all efforts, experience and knowledge are embodied in the service products requested by ProstoPrint.com .
How many orders were processed during this time? Not even tens - hundreds of thousands. I think, if not Kiev, then Kaluga or Simferopol I would definitely wear, if all the goods printed by T-shirt and SimplyPrint are sent to residents of the same city. So, over seven years of constant communication with customers of individual T-shirts and printing on clothing on demand convinced me of the following things: firstly, in this market it is quite easy to gain a foothold and succeed simply by offering a quality product (including related services - payment processing, packaging, delivery, etc.), because so many buyers had negative experience in ordering t-shirts with prints on the Internet.
And the second - in most cases, the buyer could freely avoid getting this negative experience. For this, it is necessary to observe a certain “code of rules for reasonable football shopping,” which I will try to formulate.
So let's go!
What a successful “football- shopping ”
consists of And it consists of the following things:
1) the choice of a store or service that will serve you;
2) basic products that are offered in the store;
3) printing technologies that are used to decorate clothes, and types of business stores (printing on demand, design competition, sale of stock, etc.);
4) the proposed terms of payment and delivery of goods;
5) availability of product information, product warranties and print, exchange and return policies, etc.
The first point is key and at the same time the result - we will consider it last, because when discussing the basic products or, say, the return policy, I will show you the “hooks”, places where you are being deceived (or can be deceived). Accordingly, proceeding to the discussion of paragraph 1., you will already know many things that will allow you to filter out scammers or simply not very conscientious people who are eager to quickly enrich themselves at your expense.
Basic products that are offered in the store
If you take it very, very globally, then there are two approaches to working with basic products: print on a cut, then sew a T-shirt, or print on finished products.
The first one on the Runet’s expanses as a web service is practically not widespread - we mainly work with production agencies and sewing production in “long” runs for corporate customers. Although there are services on the foreign online operating on this model - for example, Design By Humans .
The vast majority of Russian and Ukrainian online stores selling print t-shirts work according to the second model - printing on already sewn products. We’ll talk about it in more detail.
So, a store or service that prints on clothing can provide itself with basic products in one of three ways:
A. purchase clothing for application from a specific (and specialized!) Trademark;
B. sew base products at local garment industries;
V. Do not bother and purchase textiles where you have to and what you have to.
Let's consider each method in more detail.
A. to purchase clothes from a certain (and specialized!) Trademark.
Strictly speaking, this is the most correct way. Serious clothing manufacturers supply a standardized product for 99.99%, which is very important for sale via the Internet: a t-shirt from each next batch will be sewn from the same fabric, using the same patterns and sizes as the previous one.
And most importantly - of course, quality: reputable decoration brands of textiles (I moderately do not say “promotional clothing” or “advertising clothing”, terms that are more often heard - I’ll understand why later) have multi-stage quality control and fair exchange policies for distributors. For example, if my printers find some small defect on any B&C T-shirt, I don’t need to soar my brain where to put this product and, God forbid, put a known marriage in someone’s order - I know that the B&C quality department will immediately write me compensation (credit note), covering the purchase price of defective goods.
We come to the most important question: what brands are good as basic products for making print T-shirts? The question is by no means an idle one, since it is still about specialized brands - tea, not Dolce & Gabbana ... although you would be very surprised to find out how many products of famous brands that are advertised in fashion magazines and whose boutiques are in every shopping center , Sewed at B&C or HANES factories. However, this is a completely different story.
Since I went to classify everything, we will divide the manufacturers of clothing for application into three groups. The first - “RECOMMEND” - includes those companies that operate in the “retail quality clothing for decoration” segment. This is a separate, the highest segment of the market for promotional clothing, it has formed in the world in the last 20 years, when large companies saw and successfully mastered the niche of expensive and high-quality products for subsequent branding for retail sale, with a high margin.
The second - “ADVERTISING QUALITY” - brands that are respected and recognized in the world, but whose products are intended for advertising purposes. Such brands reduce the cost of basic models: fabric is easier, sewing is simpler, accessories are cheaper - the price as a result is much lower than that of their counterparts from the premium segment. Personally, I believe that such t-shirts cannot be sold in retail stores - but the complaint here is not with the brand, but with sellers and printers who want to win a penny not where they need to. My opponents may say: “The same Fruit of the Loom also has more expensive products” - yes, there are, but distributors, as a rule, do not import them, and customers have to be content with what they give.
The third - “NEGATIVE” - I categorically do not recommend buying products from these brands in retail online stores. In no way do I pretend to be the ultimate truth - I just share my experience.
RECOMMENDED:
B&C, Hanes, Continental Clothing, Promodoro, Slazenger, Jerzees.
ADVERTISING QUALITY:
Fruit of the Loom, Stedman, US BASIC, Sols, Promostar, Screen Stars, Gildan.
NEGATIVE:
Swan, Felix, Good, Stuff, T-Smart, American Style.
I immediately foresee the question: what should I do if the seller of t-shirts on his website does not indicate the base manufacturer at all (“fashionable T-shirt with a contrasting finish on the neck and sleeves, 100% cotton”), or lists several brands “in a row” (“t-shirt white of the best manufacturers Stedman, Fruit of the Loom ”).
Answer: this is the first “risk criterion” , a signal that you can be dishonestly served, in some cases it is possible without malicious intent (and in some with it). If a specific manufacturer and a specific model are not indicated, you get a pig in a poke - there is no clarity either with the quality guidelines or with the product material (100% cotton is a cooler, eraser or, say, interlock?), Nor with dimensions ( even if the scale is published, you cannot check it on the manufacturer’s website).
By the way, it should be remembered that there is no single dimensional scale in the clothing industry - therefore, there must ALWAYS have at least some kind of dimensional scale in the product information in height (neck-bottom) and width (from armhole to armhole). If there is none, you should definitely refuse the order, because in this case the received product may turn out to be in fact of any size, but if the necessary tag is sewn on it, you will not be able to make a complaint to the seller.
There is a normal business practice, and it is this : both the specific manufacturer and the specific model of the base product should be indicated in the product description. In this case, you can clarify all the parameters of the base product before ordering, on the manufacturer’s website - for example, like this- including fabric, style, characteristics of tailoring and finishing, size scale, etc.
B. sew base products at local sewing industries.
It is theoretically possible. Practically difficult, and there are a number of reasons for this. Large Russian (Ukrainian, Belarusian) factories can sew, but they do poorly and always at the wrong time.
Smaller industries will be very interested in your order, but they do not guarantee stable quality, often even despite the sincere desire of owners and managers to do everything well - staff turnover, no well-functioning quality control systems, etc.
And production services - “stars”, which can constantly sew well, are expensive - such products are usually more expensive to purchase than similar products from recommended foreign premium brands.
In addition, almost all local sewing manufactures periodically experience a shortage of textiles, accessories and frequent rotation of suppliers, so you should not expect complete uniformity in the fabrics or “snakes” of the T-shirt or windbreaker that you ordered yesterday and a year ago - the first may turn out to be identical. and somewhat different.
Conclusion: if a T-shirt store declares that it has sewn the basic products at local production, its products should be in the “above average” niche and cost accordingly. Otherwise, you probably slip bullshit.
V. Do not bother and purchase textiles where you have to and what you have to.
Naturally, this is the worst and most unacceptable option for the buyer - the only question is how to recognize dishonest sellers. My recipe is this: call (do not write, just call!) The support service of the store you are interested in and directly ask the manager: “What clothes do you print on?”. If your interlocutor is becking and tagging something about “various suppliers of Euro-exclusive quality” - there is probably a catch here.
And one more thing: we live in a world in which there is a geographical division of labor. Therefore, large suppliers of clothing for decoration have long moved their production to countries that are a source of cheap raw materials and affordable labor. For example, the Belgian company B&C has its own factories (with European management and multi-level quality control) in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Cambodia, the German Promodoro sews in Egypt, the British Continental Clothing in Turkey, the European units of Fruit of the Loom are located in Morocco, and the Canadian Gildan supplies products from Honduras and El Salvador!
Take it easy. But if they try to convince you that your potential T-shirt is sewn “at ten, no, five kilometers from Paris / Brussels / Vienna, etc.” - you almost certainly lie.
That's all for now. If you liked this part of the publication - in the sequel I will definitely tell you more about print technologies, types of “football-print” business and consumer safety rules related to this.
Comment, I will be glad, I will answer all questions.
I have been selling clothes on the Internet since 2003 - first there was an online store of ready-made T-shirts FUTBOLKA.ua, then an online designer of clothes and souvenirs My.FUTBOLKA.ua, now all efforts, experience and knowledge are embodied in the service products requested by ProstoPrint.com .
How many orders were processed during this time? Not even tens - hundreds of thousands. I think, if not Kiev, then Kaluga or Simferopol I would definitely wear, if all the goods printed by T-shirt and SimplyPrint are sent to residents of the same city. So, over seven years of constant communication with customers of individual T-shirts and printing on clothing on demand convinced me of the following things: firstly, in this market it is quite easy to gain a foothold and succeed simply by offering a quality product (including related services - payment processing, packaging, delivery, etc.), because so many buyers had negative experience in ordering t-shirts with prints on the Internet.
And the second - in most cases, the buyer could freely avoid getting this negative experience. For this, it is necessary to observe a certain “code of rules for reasonable football shopping,” which I will try to formulate.
So let's go!
What a successful “football- shopping ”
consists of And it consists of the following things:
1) the choice of a store or service that will serve you;
2) basic products that are offered in the store;
3) printing technologies that are used to decorate clothes, and types of business stores (printing on demand, design competition, sale of stock, etc.);
4) the proposed terms of payment and delivery of goods;
5) availability of product information, product warranties and print, exchange and return policies, etc.
The first point is key and at the same time the result - we will consider it last, because when discussing the basic products or, say, the return policy, I will show you the “hooks”, places where you are being deceived (or can be deceived). Accordingly, proceeding to the discussion of paragraph 1., you will already know many things that will allow you to filter out scammers or simply not very conscientious people who are eager to quickly enrich themselves at your expense.
Basic products that are offered in the store
If you take it very, very globally, then there are two approaches to working with basic products: print on a cut, then sew a T-shirt, or print on finished products.
The first one on the Runet’s expanses as a web service is practically not widespread - we mainly work with production agencies and sewing production in “long” runs for corporate customers. Although there are services on the foreign online operating on this model - for example, Design By Humans .
The vast majority of Russian and Ukrainian online stores selling print t-shirts work according to the second model - printing on already sewn products. We’ll talk about it in more detail.
So, a store or service that prints on clothing can provide itself with basic products in one of three ways:
A. purchase clothing for application from a specific (and specialized!) Trademark;
B. sew base products at local garment industries;
V. Do not bother and purchase textiles where you have to and what you have to.
Let's consider each method in more detail.
A. to purchase clothes from a certain (and specialized!) Trademark.
Strictly speaking, this is the most correct way. Serious clothing manufacturers supply a standardized product for 99.99%, which is very important for sale via the Internet: a t-shirt from each next batch will be sewn from the same fabric, using the same patterns and sizes as the previous one.
And most importantly - of course, quality: reputable decoration brands of textiles (I moderately do not say “promotional clothing” or “advertising clothing”, terms that are more often heard - I’ll understand why later) have multi-stage quality control and fair exchange policies for distributors. For example, if my printers find some small defect on any B&C T-shirt, I don’t need to soar my brain where to put this product and, God forbid, put a known marriage in someone’s order - I know that the B&C quality department will immediately write me compensation (credit note), covering the purchase price of defective goods.
We come to the most important question: what brands are good as basic products for making print T-shirts? The question is by no means an idle one, since it is still about specialized brands - tea, not Dolce & Gabbana ... although you would be very surprised to find out how many products of famous brands that are advertised in fashion magazines and whose boutiques are in every shopping center , Sewed at B&C or HANES factories. However, this is a completely different story.
Since I went to classify everything, we will divide the manufacturers of clothing for application into three groups. The first - “RECOMMEND” - includes those companies that operate in the “retail quality clothing for decoration” segment. This is a separate, the highest segment of the market for promotional clothing, it has formed in the world in the last 20 years, when large companies saw and successfully mastered the niche of expensive and high-quality products for subsequent branding for retail sale, with a high margin.
The second - “ADVERTISING QUALITY” - brands that are respected and recognized in the world, but whose products are intended for advertising purposes. Such brands reduce the cost of basic models: fabric is easier, sewing is simpler, accessories are cheaper - the price as a result is much lower than that of their counterparts from the premium segment. Personally, I believe that such t-shirts cannot be sold in retail stores - but the complaint here is not with the brand, but with sellers and printers who want to win a penny not where they need to. My opponents may say: “The same Fruit of the Loom also has more expensive products” - yes, there are, but distributors, as a rule, do not import them, and customers have to be content with what they give.
The third - “NEGATIVE” - I categorically do not recommend buying products from these brands in retail online stores. In no way do I pretend to be the ultimate truth - I just share my experience.
RECOMMENDED:
B&C, Hanes, Continental Clothing, Promodoro, Slazenger, Jerzees.
ADVERTISING QUALITY:
Fruit of the Loom, Stedman, US BASIC, Sols, Promostar, Screen Stars, Gildan.
NEGATIVE:
Swan, Felix, Good, Stuff, T-Smart, American Style.
I immediately foresee the question: what should I do if the seller of t-shirts on his website does not indicate the base manufacturer at all (“fashionable T-shirt with a contrasting finish on the neck and sleeves, 100% cotton”), or lists several brands “in a row” (“t-shirt white of the best manufacturers Stedman, Fruit of the Loom ”).
Answer: this is the first “risk criterion” , a signal that you can be dishonestly served, in some cases it is possible without malicious intent (and in some with it). If a specific manufacturer and a specific model are not indicated, you get a pig in a poke - there is no clarity either with the quality guidelines or with the product material (100% cotton is a cooler, eraser or, say, interlock?), Nor with dimensions ( even if the scale is published, you cannot check it on the manufacturer’s website).
By the way, it should be remembered that there is no single dimensional scale in the clothing industry - therefore, there must ALWAYS have at least some kind of dimensional scale in the product information in height (neck-bottom) and width (from armhole to armhole). If there is none, you should definitely refuse the order, because in this case the received product may turn out to be in fact of any size, but if the necessary tag is sewn on it, you will not be able to make a complaint to the seller.
There is a normal business practice, and it is this : both the specific manufacturer and the specific model of the base product should be indicated in the product description. In this case, you can clarify all the parameters of the base product before ordering, on the manufacturer’s website - for example, like this- including fabric, style, characteristics of tailoring and finishing, size scale, etc.
B. sew base products at local sewing industries.
It is theoretically possible. Practically difficult, and there are a number of reasons for this. Large Russian (Ukrainian, Belarusian) factories can sew, but they do poorly and always at the wrong time.
Smaller industries will be very interested in your order, but they do not guarantee stable quality, often even despite the sincere desire of owners and managers to do everything well - staff turnover, no well-functioning quality control systems, etc.
And production services - “stars”, which can constantly sew well, are expensive - such products are usually more expensive to purchase than similar products from recommended foreign premium brands.
In addition, almost all local sewing manufactures periodically experience a shortage of textiles, accessories and frequent rotation of suppliers, so you should not expect complete uniformity in the fabrics or “snakes” of the T-shirt or windbreaker that you ordered yesterday and a year ago - the first may turn out to be identical. and somewhat different.
Conclusion: if a T-shirt store declares that it has sewn the basic products at local production, its products should be in the “above average” niche and cost accordingly. Otherwise, you probably slip bullshit.
V. Do not bother and purchase textiles where you have to and what you have to.
Naturally, this is the worst and most unacceptable option for the buyer - the only question is how to recognize dishonest sellers. My recipe is this: call (do not write, just call!) The support service of the store you are interested in and directly ask the manager: “What clothes do you print on?”. If your interlocutor is becking and tagging something about “various suppliers of Euro-exclusive quality” - there is probably a catch here.
And one more thing: we live in a world in which there is a geographical division of labor. Therefore, large suppliers of clothing for decoration have long moved their production to countries that are a source of cheap raw materials and affordable labor. For example, the Belgian company B&C has its own factories (with European management and multi-level quality control) in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Cambodia, the German Promodoro sews in Egypt, the British Continental Clothing in Turkey, the European units of Fruit of the Loom are located in Morocco, and the Canadian Gildan supplies products from Honduras and El Salvador!
Take it easy. But if they try to convince you that your potential T-shirt is sewn “at ten, no, five kilometers from Paris / Brussels / Vienna, etc.” - you almost certainly lie.
That's all for now. If you liked this part of the publication - in the sequel I will definitely tell you more about print technologies, types of “football-print” business and consumer safety rules related to this.
Comment, I will be glad, I will answer all questions.