Team Business Shifts With the Economy

As the landscape continues to change, here's a look at what's being worn and how it's being decorated.
April 1, 2009

The spiritwear Practice Line is brand new from Boxercraft. It features mix-and-match tops and bottoms made from 6.5-ounce 95% cotton/5% Lycra spandex. Items featured in the line include leggings, practice short, practice pant, sports bra, practice cami and practice jacket.

In these daunting economic times, even team sports are feeling the crunch. While it's true that participation remains healthy, the dollars-per-player spent on decorated apparel has dropped along with consumers' disposable income. "The numbers that people are spending [on team sports decorated apparel] are dropping," says Keith Ritschard, owner of RSB Activewear, Argyle, Wis. "[For example], screen printing nowadays is preferred more than it used to be [when it comes to] basketball designs. The economy has hit everybody and it gets more dramatic as you move down the line. Schools are not resistant to the changes."

"In my nine years of [decorating], I have seen a lot of changes, but this has been something else," says Ashaell Sirrine, team sports specialist for Pinnacle Sports in Scottsdale, Ariz. "We're still busy, but we're seeing a lot less expensive orders come in than before. We're still doing the volume, but the cost per player is down.

"We seem to have gone from an embroidered jacket as a reward for a player to a pen and pencil set," she adds. "Where there was a full warm-up suit, there's now a pair of sweat pants. There's a 'not too chic, not too shabby' approach to outfitting the participant."

Sirrine says some of her larger customers have changed their ordering approaches. For example, a team that may have previously used a Major League Baseball team name and logo on their T-shirts now use a generic nickname.

At Rainbow Sports and Printing in Bowling Green, Ky., less-expensive garments have replaced the more sophisticated styles and designs of the past. "Today, a screen printed T-shirt [may be the garment of choice] instead of a uniform jersey with tackle twill," says Phillip Carr, owner. "Some are moving away from the twill because it's too expensive." — Jennifer Morrell

To access Impressions' roundup of team apparel featured in the April 2009 digital edition, click here.

Off the Cuff: Selling to Religious Organizations: Part 1 of 2
In our industry we decorate a massive assortment of items by a broad variety of technologies. Then we distribute what we produce to virtually every economic sector in every nook and cranny of society.
September 14, 2009

How to Apply Foil
Editor’s note: In the following pages, the authors take you step-by-step through the process of adding foil to your T-shirt artwork. First, they detail how to incorporate foil into the workflow of an automatic press. The process differs significantly for printers using a manual press, so the authors also detail how to apply foil when printing with a manual screen printing press.
September 04, 2009

Foil Adds Sparkle and Margin 
While getting started printing with foil will be a trial-and-error process, here are some tips to reduce the learning curve. 
When we get an order at our shop, it’s not uncommon to hear an employee exclaim, “Foiled again!” That’s because as many as 15% of our orders involve some kind of foil printing, making the process somewhat of a specialty for our shop — Forward Printing, Oakland, Calif.
September 03, 2009

Diversifying Your Customer Base  
Learn to evaluate and adjust your mix of clientele for optimum profitability and stability.
While the economic lows that many American markets have been experiencing for the past year are certainly painful, they’re also nothing new. Historically, the tide of business success continually ebbs and flows, with one market experiencing a rush of good fortune while another watches its revenue all but dry up. This cyclical nature of business is precisely why decorators must have a diverse customer base that allows them to weather slowdowns — or even meltdowns — in parts of the economy.
September 02, 2009