If you start from scratch, you will have the burden of making numerous critical decisions, all of which will have a bearing on the success or failure of your business. When starting from scratch, you will have to decide on a business location, equipment purchases, marketing strategies, building a customer base and numerous other mundane issues that will have to be resolved to get your business up and running. On the positive side, starting from scratch gives you the flexibility to do things exactly as you see fit. If you believe you have a better business model than your competitors, starting from scratch will you enable to prove your beliefs.

If you buy an established printing business, you are essentially buying a proven operation. Most, if not all of the major business details will have already been worked out for you. Your primary task will be to keep the business running smoothly and profitably. The drawback of buying an existing business is the purchase cost and the financial risks involved if the business should start to falter or fail. Moreover, if the business has unhappy employees, outdated equipment, etc., you will inherit these problems as well.

Which way you decide to go depends on many things, most likely the most important factor being financial considerations (how much money or credit that you have available). If you decide to start from scratch, write a well researched business plan and go from there. In preparation of your business plan, you will need to compile a list of equipment and supply purchases that will be necessary to get your printing shop into operation. A good place to start is the ASPA Screen Printing Equipment and Supplies Directory. The ASPA Directory will help you source and determine the costs for all of the equipment and supplies you will need. An excellent informational resource when planning your new screen printing business start-up is The Secret of Printing T-Shirts and How to Make Big Money training course by American Screen Printing Association, Inc. This E-book training course is one of the most comprehensive of its kind–over 47 chapters on every aspect of the t-shirt printing business from start-up planning to marketing, business procedures and fully detailed information on printing techniques and equipment.

If you have decided to purchase an existing printing operation, a good place to start is BizBuySell.com and related “businesses for sale” websites. Your local commercial real estate broker is also a good place to inquire about local businesses for sale.

Starting up or purchasing a business can be a life fulfilling venture. Do your homework thoroughly and decide what's best for your particular circumstances. Good luck!

THE FOUR ELEMENTS OF PRICE SETTING

(1) Cost of materials 
(2) Cost of labor
(3) Cost of overhead
(4) What the market will bear

These are the primary elements to price setting.  Determine these items on a per unit basis and you can establish a pricing formula for most every product that you sell.

COST OF MATERIALS

Let's go over the first piece of the pricing puzzle–the cost of materials.  This is fairly easy. Let's use t-shirts as an example.  How much do you pay per shirt for your blanks?  How much is the cost of shipping to receive the shirts from your vendor?  And lastly, how many shirts do want to allocate for misprints or returns? 

For this example, we'll use an order of (50) t-shirts with a (1) color screen print on (1) side of the shirt. Let's say you're using a $2.50 blank t-shirt. Based on current commercial shipping rates, it'll cost you around .40 per shirt for shipping (depending your location.)
Let's say you expect a misprint (or other defect) of 1 out of every 100 shirts for a cost of .025 (let's round it up to 3 cents).  So we have $2.50 + .40 + .03 = $2.93 for the cost of materials. 

COST OF LABOR

Next is the cost of labor.  Is it only you or do you have employees?  In this example, let's say you are the only employee.  What is a satisfactory hourly wage?  $25, $35, $50 or $75 an hour?  Let's say you want to make $50 per hour.  While this may seem to be a decent wage (by most people's standards), you must understand that you want to be able to make enough money to be able to put some of it back into your business and cover your “overhead” costs.  Let's assume that you can do the pre-production (writing up the order, artwork, shirt ordering, screen making, etc.) and the printing of (50) shirts in one hour. Using our $50 per hour labor rate, that will add .50 to our shirt cost.  We're now up to $3.43 per shirt.

COST OF OVERHEAD

 Every month you have to pay an electric bill, insurance, a payment on your equipment, etc. in order to operate your business.  This is the cost of overhead.  Because the variables will be different for almost every t-shirt printing business, we can only use an estimate for our overhead example.  But before we do, here are some examples of “overhead” to consider. 

●    Rent
●    Telephone service
●    Fax service
●    Internet access
●    Insurance
●    Taxes
●    Depreciation
●    Equipment
●    Supplies (ink, emulsion, etc.)
●    Advertising
●    Postage
●    Electric
●    Gas/Propane/Oil for heating
●    Vehicle(s)
●    Fuel
●    Accounting
●    Legal fees

As you can see, overhead can add a significant cost to doing business because of the numerous expenses involved. Think of overhead as an “expensive employee.”  For our example, our “expensive employee” will make as much as you do–$50 per hour.  So let's add another .50 per shirt. 

So what are we up to so far?  $2.93 (cost of materials) + .50 (cost of labor)  + .50 (cost of overhead)  = $3.93 per shirt.  Look's like a good price so far.  But read on…

WHAT PRICE “WILL THE MARKET BEAR?”

Although mathematical exercises are useful for determining your prices, no business operates in a vacuum. The ugly word “competition” must always be considered. Because the marketplace will almost always have influence on your prices (unless you are fortunate enough to have no competition), take a survey of your competitors.  Are your prices in line with theirs?  Are your prices significantly lower or higher than most of your competition?  If so, why is that? 

One important thing to remember is never copy your competitor's prices or always “underprice” the competition, as you do not know what their cost of doing business is.  Or worse, your competitor may be using “idiot pricing” — which is simply pricing they dreamed up with no thought whatsoever to their cost of doing business.

The best approach to determine your pricing is use mathematical analysis for your operation and then see where you stand in the marketplace and adjust if necessary. If you are significantly higher, figure out how to lower your production costs.  If you are fortunate enough to be significantly lower, either raise your prices for a better profit or position yourself as the pricing “market leader” and see if you realize an attendant increase in sales.   

MAKING A PROFIT

Your primary reason for being in business should be to make a profit. Although t-shirt printing is a fun and a creative way to make a living, you have to pay your bills and make plans to retire some day. 

So let's talk a little about profits.  The prices that we have come up with so far have not included a profit.  We have only covered the cost of the blanks, labor expense, and the overhead.  So what about profits?  If you think your $50 per hour labor rate is your profit, that type of thinking will get you in a “no-growth” situation because you are only “working for wages.” If you want to succeed and grow your business, you must factor in “profits.”

What is a “reasonable” profit to make?  A “reasonable profit” is whatever the market will bear!  If the cost of doing business in your shop is very low compared to the competition because you are a single employee operation or you're home-based, you may enjoy a significant profit margin. Use this to your advantage and make as much as you can! This is how you will grow your business or be able to sock away large sums for your retirement.  Once you begin to expand (if that is your goal) by adding more equipment, employees, etc. you will not enjoy the profit margin that you previously had. Take full advantage of significant profit making while you can.

Back to our price setting sample.  So far, we are up to $3.93 per shirt.  Let's say you want to make a 30% profit, certainly a “reasonable” amount.  That will add $1.18 to the price of shirt, making the final selling price $5.11.  Will this price be acceptable in the marketplace?  I think so.  But would it work everywhere?  Maybe, maybe not.  The key to setting prices is “do your homework, then test the waters.”

SUMMARY

As you can see, setting prices is not just as simple as adding up some numbers.  It would be nice if it were that easy.  This author's recommendation on setting prices is to read as much information as you can on the subject and analyze the marketplace carefully. Become an expert on knowing your costs and determine how to operate your shop as efficiently as possible. Monitor your competition’s pricing and keep constant track of your overhead costs. 

Your goal should be to become as profitable as possible and yet still be able to maintain a balanced lifestyle for yourself.

For more information on this very important subject, the U.S. Small Business Administration offers tutorials on this subject and many other useful topics. It can be found here:  http://www.sba.gov/

The content of this article is an excerpt from the ASPA training course The Secrets of Printing T-Shirts and How to Make Big Money!

Because of our rapid growth, we needed a more advanced site to handle the expansion and better serve our members. The new Global Directory of ASPA Members website has several new features including a Jobs/Ads/Forum section where you can post job listings, sell or buy equipment and post messages to share or discuss things with other members. The forum has an easy log-in system that uses your existing email or Social media account for a fast sign-in. Please check it out, we hope you find it useful.

Our new member directory has improved sections for users to find your business more easily. Both location and category listings now allow users to find you and your company by your location much easier and faster. Business member listings are now larger with larger type and improved spacing. Associate and Individual Member pages have been improved as well.

It took several weeks to build the new member directory site and migrate all of the existing member data. Because the new site involved the transfer of thousands of listings, please take a look at your listing. If there are any errors or incorrect information, please email us so we can correct it.

We've improved the ASPA Certification pages on the new site and it is now easier to find certified screen printers and graphic artists. If you want to obtain the ASPA Certified badge to place on your website (as many members do), you can now easily find the logo at the bottom of the pages for copying and pasting to your website. Important notice: If you are currently displaying an ASPA Member logo, ASPA Certified Screen Printer logo or ASPA Certified Graphic Artist logo on your website, please link them to the pages indicated above, as the old member directory website will taken offline in a few months.

Thanks to all ASPA members worldwide for helping us grow, we truly appreciate your support. Our goal is to continue to expand ASPA membership into the world's largest community of screen printers. We are well on our way to doing just that.

If you have any comments or suggestions for our new member directory site, please post a comment in our Member News section. We've love to hear from you.

Have great year in 2013!

Are you interested in learning the art and science of t-shirt printing? Would you like to receive training that will give you complete understanding of the screen printing process and enable you to become a professional t-shirt printer?

Introducing ASPA's T-Shirt Printing Training Set…

American Screen Printing Association offers a complete apparel screen printing training course. It consists of a "step by step," 47 chapter E-Book and a companion 2 1/2 hour training video. The ASPA T-Shirt Printing Training Set gives you the total training you need. Everything you need know to own and operate a professional t-shirt screen printing shop is included.

Details of Our Training Course…

Our training course provides comprehensive training. The training EBook has 47 chapters on every aspect of the t-shirt printing business. From start-up planning to marketing, setting prices and other important business procedures as well as fully detailed information on printing techniques and equipment is provided. The 2.5 hour training video provides thorough “see how it’s done” video instruction on all facets of t-shirt screen printing. Creating “production ready” art for making a stencil, printing techniques, reclaiming screens–all of the vital topics of the screen printing process are covered.

Training to Help You Find a Job or Start Your Own Business…

Whether you want to secure a job in the screen printing industry or want to operate your own t-shirt printing shop, our training set can provide you with the knowledge that you're are going to need.

A Few Words on So-Called "Hands-On" Training Courses…

Many of the "3 day screen printing training courses" that you see offered on the internet are little more than seminars used to sell you screen printing equipment. Common sense should tell you that you're not going to learn much with 18 hours or less of "hands-on" training. With ASPA's T-Shirt Printing Training Set, you are able to refer to the training E-Book and video as often as you need to master each step of the process. Many screen printers have learned by book and video training. It's a proven method for the learning the craft of screen printing. ASPA's training materials are used by schools and screen printing shops to train students and employees.

Consider the Costs…

Most of the 3 day training courses offered cost around $500, not including your travel and lodging expenses to attend the seminar where they are being held. ASPA's T-Shirt Printing Training Set is only $49.99 and you learn at your own pace, in the comfort of your home.

Summary…

If you really want to learn all of the important aspects of the t-shirt printing business, purchase ASPA's T-Shirt Printing Training Set. It's effective, affordable, and gives you the complete training you need.

Testimonials About ASPA Training…

Here's some comments from users of ASPA's training materials…

"This video is the best I've seen."

"VERY informative helpful video! Thanks!"

"Very helpful … thanks!!

"Very good video. It really gave me an insight into how wonderful yet hard screen printing is. It may look easy to most folks but there is indeed a beautiful an subtle art to it!"

Who can use our training?

If you currently offer in-house screen printing training, you’ll find our certification program to be an excellent addition to your training efforts. Our screen printer certification program is useful for training new and existing employees in your screen printing shop, high school vocational programs, disadvantaged youth, inmate training and rehabilitation programs, adult worker retraining and more.

Our screen printer certification program is ideal for :

• training new and existing employees in your screen printing shop
• screen printing vocational training
• worker retraining programs
• displaced worker training,
• disadvantaged youth training
• vo-tech screen printing
• inner city youth and gang prevention training programs
• at-risk youth training
• screen printing training in correctional institutions
• rehabilitation training programs
• prison inmate training programs
• rehabilitation training for incarcerated individuals

Funding

American Screen Printing Association's screen printer certification program may be eligible for funding from foundations, government, and/or private sources. 
 

How does it work?
ASPA will supply the Certified Screen Printer (CSP) Study Guide to each individual at your school or facility. The CSP exam is taken online (it is also available in written form if needed). Each person is treated as an individual and their competency examination is reviewed and graded by our staff. Those who successfully pass the exam will receive the Certificate of Achievement and Letter of Introduction for Employment. Our goal is to help individuals succeed in the screen printing industry and obtain gainful employment in the field of screen printing.

A few more details…

If you currently offer screen printing vocational training, you’ll find our program to be an excellent addition. If you feel that your in-house screen printing training is inadequate, ASPA offers several screen printing training courses in video and Ebook format.

Get started now!

For group and school training, visit our certification page to learn more.  

The American Screen Printing Association Certified Screen Printer (CSP) online exam has had over 8,000 participants since its launch last year.

Many have successfully passed the exam and have obtained the ASPA Certified Screen Printer Certificate of Achievement to display in their shop or office. Displaying the Certificate of Achievement can build customer confidence to those with whom you do business. Screen printers who pass the exam also have the right to display the Certified Screen Printer logo on their website.

ASPA (CSP) screen printer certification, along with our specialized training programs can also be useful in securing employment in the screen printing industry. Our basic screen printing training program coupled with the CSP examination provides a graduate with a Certificate of Achievement and Letter of Introduction for Employment. Presenting the certificate demonstrating screen printing knowledge to a prospective employer maybe helpful in landing a job.

The Certified Screen Printer (CSP) exam was developed for the purpose of providing recognition to screen printers who have demonstrated their competency and knowledge in the craft of screen printing. 
 

Getting orders from the federal government can be very difficult due to the mountain of paperwork and other bureaucratic obstacles that are in place. An often overlooked type of government work is  obtaining contracts from your local or state governments. For the purpose of this article we have limited our discussion to securing local government work.

You will find that most townships, cities, and county governments may have a need for the products that you offer. You often see local workers wearing custom printed safety shirts, jackets, hats, vests, sweatshirts and more. While there is a certain amount of politics involved in obtaining local government orders it is much easier than trying to secure work at the state or federal level. A visit to your local government office or sending them a letter of inquiry will often get you on the right track to obtaining local government contracts for the products and services that you offer.

At the very local level, such as townships or small municipalities, you may find that these jobs are awarded in a no bid method and may be yours simply for the asking. It is important to note that local governments like to keep things “local” and will often only award contacts accordingly.

Obtaining government work isn't always the difficult process that most people think. Start “locally” and be on your way to getting your share of local government work.

Let's take a look at the facts. Most screen printers start off servicing their local community. The vast majority of these orders typically call for simple one or two color prints, where screen printing is a more cost effective solution. In addition, the cash outlay to start a small t-shirt screen printing shop is significantly lower than the cost necessary to buy digital printing equipment. And the demand for full color printing on apparel, where digital printing would be most applicable, is quite limited for the type of orders you will most likely get in your local community.

Another consideration is the learning curve for going digital. You will find that for digital printing, the computer based technical skills required are not insignificant. By contrast, learning the basic essentials of screen printing is not difficult and employees can be easily trained.

Digital printing certainly has it uses. If you are just starting out in the screen printing business wait until you see the types of orders you are receiving. It would be wise to take a cautious approach to making any large investment on digital equipment. We recommend if and when you receive an order that requires full color printing, that you farm these orders out to contract printers who have digital printing equipment. By taking this type of approach, you will be able to determine if the demand justifies the cost of investing in digital printing equipment.

Don't let anyone tell you that screen printing is going to become a thing of the past—they are wrong. Screen printing is a craft that will always be needed. It is a cost effective printing solution and has a well established industry for providing the equipment, supplies and knowledge base.

Always remember this important rule: Never take on a job that exceeds your skill level. In good times or bad, most of us in the screen printing business are eager to take on new work. In bad times especially finding new jobs is often difficult.

Because of this we are sometimes more willing to consider print jobs that are outside of our level of experience. This can lead to problems. Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned printer, always consider carefully the ramifications of accepting any kind of work that you have never done before.

If you take on a job and the results are less than than the customers expects or you can not produce the order on time (while you try to figure it out), it can be costly to you in more ways than one. The customer will not only be unhappy with you but will most likely give bad word of mouth about your business and your lack of ability. It is also likely that you will not recover the cost of the poorly printed product.

A common example is when a customer supplies the goods that they want you to print. You may have never printed on that type of substrate before, have no experience with the ink, mesh counts, curing times, or special printing techniques that will be required.

The best way to avoid the “lack of experience” printing problem is to offer the customer the willingness to take on the job based on doing some test prints. In this instance, advise your customer that this is not the type of job that you do regularly. As a safe guard only accept the job if the test printing was successful. If you are unfamiliar with a particular type of printing, do some research first. Be sure to give yourself ample time for your research and test printing and to be able to work out any difficulties that you may encounter. It is also recommended in most instances that you charge your customer for your time and effort for doing the test printing, even if you are not going to take on the job.

This important rule applies to any type of screen printing job that you have never done before. The rule is test, test, test. Be sure you can print it before you agree to take on the job.

Once you have invested in an employee's training, it is always in your best interest to retain an employee rather than have to replace one. Along with paying them a decent livable wage, there are a few little or no cost perks that you can offer that will keep most employees happy.

One method that has been used with success are “Free Lunch Fridays”. Being in the t-shirt printing business, there are many  local businesses that have a need for your services, one of which are restaurants. Consider offering free custom printed t-shirts to a local pizza shop, sandwich shop or restaurant in exchange for a certain amount of “free” food to be delivered to your screen printing shop every Friday.

I don't know about you, but most people love free food and will especially look forward to a day when they do not have to pack a lunch.

Another perk to consider offering around holidays is to give your employees a gift certificate for a free turkey or ham for Thanksgiving or Christmas. This also can be done as a trade with a local supermarket.

A third and low cost perk to offer employees to give them misprinted shirts. If giving away the shirts will not present a conflict with customers, let your employees pick over the misprints. Having to buy clothes cost money and your employees will appreciate getting free clothing for themselves and their families.

The time and investment you made in training your employees is certainly worth the small amount that you will spend in providing them with these low cost, high value perks.