# No Minimum Order



## jim55912 (Jun 10, 2008)

One of the selling points of DTG is the "no minimum order" idea. This is possible because there are no screens and no cleanup. 

What does it cost you to process a shirt order? Remember to include the time you take selling the order, setting up the art, printing the shirt, billing....etc... We have concluded around our place that unless we make 50 bucks we are going backward. Most anything you touch burns and hour. We quit monogramming baby blankets years ago simply because grandma couldn't decide what she wanted. It doesn't do any good to get paid 15 bucks for a 10 minute embroidery if it took you an hour to sell it.

You have to be careful that your orders for 24 or 48 shirts and subsidizing your smaller orders.


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## COEDS (Oct 4, 2006)

jim55912 said:


> One of the selling points of DTG is the "no minimum order" idea. This is possible because there are no screens and no cleanup.
> 
> What does it cost you to process a shirt order? Remember to include the time you take selling the order, setting up the art, printing the shirt, billing....etc... We have concluded around our place that unless we make 50 bucks we are going backward. Most anything you touch burns and hour. We quit monogramming baby blankets years ago simply because grandma couldn't decide what she wanted. It doesn't do any good to get paid 15 bucks for a 10 minute embroidery if it took you an hour to sell it.
> 
> You have to be careful that your orders for 24 or 48 shirts and subsidizing your smaller orders.


Jim that was well said, I agree. I made up 4 baby blanket designs. I allow them to pick design and thread color,and they can add a name. If they don't want to do it this way, Then I tell them a design charge will be added at $ 40 PER HOUR. I EXPLAIN TIME IS MONEY AND PROFIT IS NOT A DIRTY WORD. .... JB


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## Robin (Aug 28, 2006)

someone comes in with a picture of the kids, wants it scanned, and have happy fathers day 08 put ontop of it.

Total time from the moment the customer walks in, then leaves with her shirt....10 minutes or less

Charged $13.77
T-shirt -1.56
Ink used _ .61
......thats a tidy little profit!


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## Printzilla (Mar 22, 2007)

I have been selling DTG one offs since early 2005. If it involves scanning pictures or small artwork we charge 19.99-24.99 in our retail stores. For me it has been highly profitable. We have a system in place, and it never takes more than 15 minutes.


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## Justin Walker (Dec 6, 2006)

Its all about the systems! 

We can process large amounts of individual orders at once, so it really doesn't matter if it is a one-off or a large order. Our RIP processes artwork automatically, Photoshop scripts process the artwork automatically, and we are in the process of bar coding everything so that everything is instant. Have a person work the front desk to input order details as people come in, and an artist in the back to meet with clients who need anything artwork related (before they even go into his office, they know they are being charge $25 per half hour with a half hour minimum).

Everybody has a task, and we have samples and options in place to help customers quickly decide what they want, including having shirts of every size available for the customer to quickly get over the "hmmm..... Do you think a large would be too small for a guy who's about 6'2"?" line of questioning. We do not tell the customer what to get in any way - they look at our samples or through our catalogs, they write down their sizes and colors, our office manager inputs the customer information and order details, artwork is either provided or they are sent to the art room, and items are printed in waves throughout the day. Easy, except for the random machine-related knockout issues.


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## jim55912 (Jun 10, 2008)

Robin said:


> someone comes in with a picture of the kids, wants it scanned, and have happy fathers day 08 put ontop of it.
> 
> Total time from the moment the customer walks in, then leaves with her shirt....10 minutes or less
> 
> ...


You must have different customers than the ones that stop in our shop. Seems like it takes a long time to get a decision. 

In 1984 or so we bought a one head Melco Superstar embroidery machine. I suppose it cost under 10,000... I don't remember. I do remember that at that time Melco was telling us that our billing for that machine should be 60.00 per hour....20 years ago.


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## Robin (Aug 28, 2006)

Most folks that come in Jim, already know what they want. 

We are priced for our market. As much as I'd love to charge $24+ we wont get it. So I guess we have to take in more orders to make up the difference


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