New Directions, New Ideas II Embroidery Project

Just like mobile, retail embroidery is making rapid advances. During the 1990s, commercial embroidery was all about volume orders and corporate accounts. Left behind, were those customers looking for custom personalization and small gift orders. In fact, many shops discouraged small orders by setting minimum piece requirements and actively turned away those people looking for “onsies”. What they failed to realize is that the small orders could be quite lucrative. There are plenty of people who will pay $65.00 for a Mom’s Gang shirt or $24.00 for a 3 piece monogrammed towel set. But because they were ignored, very few embroiderers realized what they were missing. And for the ones that did take on such orders, they usually used the same price structure as for volume orders, and thus there was no benefit to taking on the small piece orders.

But times have changed. There are more embroiderers trying to service the same customers, thus price wars have erupted in some locales. In addition, the corporate customers are more educated than in the past. They have become more demanding, plus they are shopping around looking for the best deal. Rather than continue fighting for a smaller piece of the pie, many shops, especially the smaller ones, have begun focusing on the low volume, high markup end of the business spectrum. Why fight to get a 12 piece cap order at $8.00 per cap, when you can get 12 single cap orders at $25.00 per cap?

Of course, the downside of retail is that most orders are impulse buys, thus you need to be in the right environment such as a mall to really focus on it. But there are always opportunities for those who are located elsewhere. Just by having a willingness to take on the small personalization orders will make a huge difference and word-of-mouth will carry the message to others. Home parties, the Internet, and mobile embroidery are all valid means for tapping into retail embroidery.