Bottom Line Up Front: Decorated apparel is usually the most well-known custom-branded merch category printers offer. But offering promotional products and Signage can boost your bottom line, especially for Spring sports customers. Find out how InkSoft can help.
Staying top of mind for customers in today’s highly competitive custom merch market requires shops to have a robust online presence and offer a broad set of products. Simply put, if customers can’t easily shop and interact with you online, that’s already a strike against your business. Once you’ve buttoned up your online presence, you’ll want to make sure you’re offering clients all the products they’ll need and maybe some they haven’t considered before. Having a wide array of products makes it easier for your business to upsell or suggest add-ons, but it also keeps your customers from going somewhere else. This is especially true for your sports clients who need a full suite of products for outfitting teams and fans and swag to show support.
Here are the three main merch categories you’ll want to offer your customers now so that you can get those orders prepped for the Spring sports rush.
Apparel
Most custom-printed merch shops are already in the decorated apparel game, especially since T-shirts are among the most popular customizable items for everything from banks and corporate events to school sports and charity fundraisers. But apparel goes far beyond just a printed T-shirt. Think everything wearable– hoodies, beanies, baseball caps, fleece wear, even specialized products like track shorts.
One of the best ways to advertise your offerings is by having a mockup of these types of products prominently displayed on your website. Enter InkSoft Online Stores. InkSoft stores are customizable, so you can tailor them to your business’s branding and color scheme. And, they’re easy to set up without any significant web design experience needed, backed by excellent customer support. Once you’ve set up an InkSoft store, you can easily display mockups of those items on your front page, and this gives customers a better idea of what they can turn to your shop for.
If you need to build custom mockups for customers, InkSoft’s Online Designer makes the mockup process faster and easier. Add custom artwork to products like headwear or shirts quickly and submit it back to your customer for faster approval. InkSoft’s built-in design library includes fonts, design ideas, and graphics you can use to build a mockup for customers quickly, or you can upload custom images. Customers can also submit their designs to you through the upload process.
InkSoft stores also work great for your team sports clients selling merch to end customers. Whether that’s apparel for students, booster clubs, or merch for a fundraiser, they can sell their products quickly online just like your shop.
Suppose your shop only offers a few services like screen printing and embroidery, but you want to provide customers with more options like direct-to-garment or DTF transfers. In that case, you can also offer these services without adding more equipment or supplies. Check out third-party options that offer services like printed DTF transfers shipped directly to your shop, so you can focus on staying on top of orders.
Promotional Goods
Promotional goods are an excellent category for shops of all sizes since they work well with standalone sales or as an add-on or upsell to apparel orders. Promo products work well with all types of customers, but a couple of prime clients include:
- Corporate Programs: Corporate clients generally want a full suite of branded products because it’s built-in advertising for their company. So, that means you can bundle standard apparel like T-shirts, polos, fleeces, and hats with other printed goods like lanyards, facemasks, and other accessories.
- School Sports: Promo goods are another great way to promote school sports and adding them to your lineup will help get those orders in before the rush of the Spring sports seasons. Pair those jersey and T-shirts with coordinating promo items for a full suite for teams, leagues, and clubs.
- Local Businesses: Local businesses typically need branded apparel for employees and want swag for end customers. That opens the door to all types of other promotional goods like pens, water bottles, and tumblers. Like apparel stores, you can also use InkSoft Stores to help local businesses sell that swag to end customers.
Thanks to the customization options, your customers can tweak their store to fit a company’s branding guidelines with colors and logos. Printing these goods for businesses is a win-win for both parties since it helps them advertise their company and a built-in advertisement of your services.
Signage
Rounding out the three categories of printed products is Signage. This category works well for a wide variety of customers, including schools and teams, restaurants, hospitality, and industrial clients, to name a few. Like promo products, Signage works great as an add-on, but it also functions as a standalone category. It’s a broad category covering everything from traditional grommeted banners and lawn signs to smaller items like decals, stickers, and magnets. If your shop doesn’t have the equipment or workforce to print these items, you’re in luck. InkSoft’s Signage as a Service program takes care of the heavy lifting.
Like apparel and promo goods, you can use InkSoft’s online stores to offer your customers signage products as part of your full lineup so they can easily browse your store and get what they need. Signage products also work with the Online Designer so that customers can send you their ideas, and you can quickly create mockups for faster approval.
Best of all, with InkSoft’s signage program, orders are shipped directly from the printer to your customers. So even if you’re using the program to supplement your in-house services, your customers still get the products printed, packed, and shipped by professionals like your team.
Giving your customers a comprehensive set of options helps cement your business as the one place they can turn to for all their printed goods. And in an age where customers are accustomed to finding everything they need with a few clicks, it’s essential to make the ordering process as seamless as possible, which is why InkSoft Stores are the perfect tool for expanding your product offerings.
Ready to offer your customers more products and grow your business with InkSoft’s Online Stores? Contact a Client Advisor today for a demo.
Comments are closed.