PPB November 2018

by Tina Berres Filipski TECH TALK ‘Alexa, Order 10 Shirts For Saturday' Leverage technology in your shop to stay relevant. One day soon someone may place an order by saying, “Hey Alexa, I need 10 shirts by Saturday.” Are you going to be the one who can fulfill that Alexa request? Are you positioning yourself to learn that technology? Or, are you relying on customers to physically walk through the door of your screen-printing or embroidery shop to place an order? Jeanene Edwards, vice president of activewear marketing and merchandising for Fruit of the Loom/ JERZEES, sat down with Marshall Atkinson, founder of Shirt Lab and a success coach with Atkinson Consulting, to talk about how decorated apparel shops can stay relevant in today’s digital world. What follows is her recap from that discussion. Technology is becoming an integral part of our lives personally and professionally. In our professional lives, technology needs to be present for your shop to stay relevant and noticed. This means shops need to be aware of the digital presence from branding, to purchasing to selling. As things change, how do you need to adapt your processes? How does selling change? How do your customers change? How do their needs change? “I think a lot of shops get into trouble with things like scheduling production, lack of quality of their craft, lack of efficiency or employee training isn’t working,” says Atkinson. “These are all skills that people have trouble with these days. Although it looks easy, this industry is really kind of difficult because it’s always evolving. Stay ahead of the game with these tips: Increase efficiency: Atkinson suggests that efficiency needs work in the decorated apparel industry. Instant gratification is an expectation in the digital age. “How we did things 10 years ago is completely different from the way we do things now. This is because the fabrics have changed, the equipment has changed and the delivery times have changed,” he says. “You know, we used to have 10 to 14 days to deliver things and now we are compressed to doing things in three days.” He recommends decorated apparel shops ensure their workplace processes are focused on being efficient, not wasting time and adjusting the way they work. “A lot of times shops are surprised by what customers are asking for. They say, 'You wouldn’t believe it, they came to me and they want six shirts by tomorrow!' So, guess what? That’s the whole DTG [direct to garment] business model right there.” Quality always wins: Just because your shop may be required to turn products faster, doesn’t mean you should sacrifice Jeanene Edwards Marshall Atkinson 70 | NOVEMBER 2018 | THINK