Category: Blogs

Dakota Collectible is the largest supplier of stock designs for the embroidery industry in the world and is one of the partner companies available for OnSite 7 Integration with ShopWorks. If you are in the embroidery industry, you can search and access the Dakota Collectibles Online Catalogue, straight from your OnSite 7 system, and buy designs and items directly from your own software. This takes the hassle of extra searching and purchasing out of finding stock designs and makes growing your company that much easier.

The company was established in 1988 and focuses on developing and offering superior quality stock designs and the best customer service in the industry. Dakota Collectible stock embroidery designs are unique and wide-ranging and include rhinestone transfers and collections of similar designs. Once you integrate the Dakota Embroidery Collection into your OnSite system, you can order and receive your designs quickly, and expand your inventory, without having to put added strain on your designers.

The designs are organized by type and category, including Garden, Holiday, Horse and Western, Nautical, Children’s, Christmas, Appliqué, Religious, Scenic, Occupational, Southwest, Sports, Wildlife, World Cultures, and more. You can integrate this feature into your system without any additional cost or service fees, meaning expanding your business and inventory has never been so easy.

We here at ShopWorks focus on offering greater efficiency and control over your business and your business processes, by using the fewest number of systems possible, which is why we have chosen to partner with other reputable companies with similar goals to ours. Contact us today.

Business Growth Tips

If your business is run efficiently and you are happy with how things are going so far, you may want to consider making a few minor adjustments to grow your business. Here are some of our top tips for easily expanding your business.

• If you don’t already have a reliable, industry-specific apparel software to help with the management of your business, you may want to invest in one. Software helps consolidate your business and can help facilitate a more efficient flow of information.

• Turn your customers into salespersons by rewarding customer referrals. You don’t have to give huge rewards; a discount on new products or company credit will suffice, and you will more than make it up in the new sales.

• Don’t try to do everything yourself. By learning how to delegate tasks, you free your time up to devote to more important tasks, and you use your workforce to its fullest potential. Everyone is more efficient when delegating is used properly.

Now that you know our business growth tips, learn How to Spark Innovation Within Your Company.

How to Open a Screen Printing Business

Commercial screen printing businesses, like most other companies, have a lot of moving parts. There is the screen printing equipment, the many employees working various machines, processing jobs, shipping, answering phones and other tasks, your managers, and least but perhaps most importantly, your software solutions for business. Here are some simple steps about how to start a screen printing business or expanding your promotional product or apparel company into the screen printing industry:

1. Research the industry and receive screen-printing training. You must be proficient on all of the machines that your new company will require if you are to be successful. You also need to be able to help employees when they run into issues or to troubleshoot machines when they break or stop working.
2. Look for used or new screen printing equipment. There are many vendors available online, and friends in the industry may also have extra equipment or machines that they are willing to sell at a discounted price.
3. Make sure you have the space to house the equipment and run your business on a long term basis.
4. Finally, find business software that is capable of supporting your business and can meet its needs specifically. Screen printing software will differ slightly from store-owner software and software solutions for other industries, so make sure that you investigate its capabilities and functions before making your selection. Your software should allow you to enter and save matrixes; track progress for individual jobs, machines, employees and more; and run accounting information and other tasks.

When you consider software system for business, the term ERP software usually comes to mind. ERP stands for enterprise resource planning. This software includes a suite of integrated applications that help you to manage your business. Each program within an ERP suite works together, often seamlessly, to complete things such as billing, payroll, and customer support.

Every business should have an integrated ERP software system. Without it, you will likely spend a good part of your day completing data entry, and adding sales and other information into each of your management programs. Doing so is costly, as it takes a lot of time — time that you could be using for something more important.

Time is not the only issue, as cost is an important factor. The initial cost of the ERP software is nothing to sneeze at, but it beats the amount of money your company likely wastes in tech support, vendor contracts, and downtime from multiple software updates. Using ERP software eliminates many of these costs.

Since everything is integrated, tech support no longer has to deal with multiple vendors. They only have one vendor to call upon for updates and with which to contract. This saves a lot of time and money, as each hour tech support spends dealing with the vendors is money out of your pocket. However, the labor costs are where you save the most.

When your business makes the switch from separate software systems to an integrated system, you’ll start reaping the benefits right away. Your departments will be able to work together, labor costs will go down, and software downtimes will happen less often.

For more information on making the switch to an ERP, contact us at ShopWorks.

Screen Printing Tips and Tricks

Many small screen printing companies are embracing apparel ERP software to help manage their business. The software keeps track of things such as purchases and inventory, as well as billing and designing the proofs. Having this type of software can lead to happier customers and better print quality, but it is not the only way to achieve these goals. Here are 5 screen printing tips and tricks to help you figure out how to make high quality prints:

1. The print quality highly depends on the quality of the proofs. With ERP software, you can design proofs in the program and submit to the customer for real-time feedback. The proofs created with the software are high quality and ready for the staff to transform into apparel.

2. Staff must know the ins and outs of the machines, and know how to set the screens up correctly. Each screen has to be lined up straight. In fact, all of the equipment you use must be lined up correctly for it to work.

3. Offer a color matching service, and do it the right way. Many smaller businesses color match by eye. This is not the right way to do it. Instead, use a high quality, stainless steel scale to measure Pantones.

4. Use a high quality screen and squeegee. You should only have to put enough pressure on the screen that the ink just comes through it to the shirt. If this process is difficult, you likely need a better screen. In addition, the squeegee needs to be on the harder side to avoid dot gain.

5. The print hand is one of the most important aspects of the printing process. Water-based ink leaves the end product soft after curing. However, ink-heavy images will need many applications, which could change the feel of the clothing. Using a higher mesh count on the screen can help in this process.

For more information about screen printing and management software, contact us at ShopWorks.

Ways To Grow Your In-Home Business

Home-based businesses can be a good business venture, but you may not be content to keep your new business within your home. Expanding can seem intimidating, if you’ve never owned a business, though, so here are some ways to consider for growing your home-based business:

• The most obvious way to expand your store is to rent a storefront and start a physical store that customers can visit. While this is a relatively simple method, as far as steps go — meaning you need to find a space, rent it and open your store — it is also perhaps the most expensive one. You will need to get the proper permits, and the rent may be high, but if you have the capital to take this route, you may want to consider it.

• If you don’t have the capital to rent a physical space, you could hire a sales and delivery staff to put a personal face on your company. People will pay more for convenience, and will appreciate the professionalism brought to your company by the added help. You could also invest in a smart phone program, which allows your customers to communicate their schedule to you and receive updates.

• Consider investing in software solutions for business, like embroidery business software, or an online proofing system. Business software can help streamline your business processes, consolidate your paperwork, and provide customers with a more professional, user-friendly interface. It can also help simplify your life by eliminating useless steps in your work.

You may also like our In-Home Business Tips.

3 Eco-Friendly, Non-PVC Inks for Screen Printing

The commercial screen printing industry is finally picking up after the decline in the economy of 2008. New businesses are constantly popping up—most of these businesses have no storefront, opting to sell their wares online. By selling online, they have access to a larger customer base. With customers ranging between 20 to 40 years old, it’s important to note that many of them will prefer eco-friendly products. Accounting for eco-friendly screen printing goes beyond using organic cotton, it includes using PVC-free inks. We’re going to guide you on three non-PVC screen printing inks, covering their advantages and disadvantages, so you can choose the right alternative for you.

1. Water-Based Inks—Water-based inks are a PVC-free screen printing ink option that is a good idea in theory. Unfortunately, a disadvantage of this eco-friendly screen printing ink is that it’s not as vibrant as the PVC-filled ones. This means that the designs will not be as durable and they do not adhere to clothing with the same ease as the traditional types of ink.

2. 100% Solid Inks—The newer solid inks look very similar to the PVC inks once they are applied to clothing. Unfortunately, these eco-friendly screen printing inks are not as versatile as PVC, and applying them to apparel is still more difficult. However, providers of solid inks are constantly coming up with better and better formulas.

3. Non-PVC Plastisols—The non-PVC plastisol inks are very similar to PVC screen printing inks. They yield close to the same amount of printing jobs and the quality is very similar. These are some of the best eco-friendly screen printing inks and they do not have the issue of drying on the screen, which is common in many PVC-free formulas. Plastisol ink screen printing offers a wide range of colors and special effects—another thing uncommon to PVC-free screen printing inks. While advantages in all those regards, it’s also important to note that these inks do not offer bleed-blocking or wet-on-wet printing.

Although ink manufacturers are gaining ground in making better PVC-free inks, the end products are still unable to fully compete with the quality and versatility of PVC inks. It’s important to know these advantages and disadvantages as you move forward with any alternatives. Over time this will change, but, until a large shift in the ink market happens, these are the issues you will need to account for if you want to market to eco-conscious customers.

Also, make sure to check out our screen printing management software.

Screen Printing Made Easy

If you own or manage a screen printing business, you know how many different components you must juggle in order for the business to run smoothly. First there are many different employees, then there’s the screen printing equipment, add all of the different information and files and images before finally tossing in the customers, and you’ve got quite a mix to keep track of.

Screen printing software helps streamline your business by facilitating the smooth transfer and storage of information and providing you with a platform where you can communicate with your employees and customers.

In looking for a business software suite for your business, it’s best to choose one that has been created specifically for your business. This means that the software you use for easy screen printing will be able to specifically address the issues and concerns that regularly arise at your company. You also have access to support from people who have worked and continue to work in the same industry as you.

If you are a digital printing company and you need business applications, we have the solutions for businesses just like yours that we are confident will meet all of your needs. Our print estimating solution was designed with input and direct involvement from digital printing industry officials, managers, owners and leaders like you so that it can directly answer your needs and solve industry-specific problems. Here are a few of the most useful applications built into our onsite digital printing software that will specifically help your company:

• Our program gives you the option of modeling production processes and tracking production schedules by individual machines or departments. This enables you to pinpoint the problem or slow areas, and make adjustments to bring those machines and departments up to speed. With every part of your company working optimally, your company will succeed like never before.

• You can also price and present items by square or linear dimensions or units. Since our application was designed to handle digitally printed paper, cloth, vinyl and other material-based company products, there are a number of pricing options that other software systems simply don’t support.

• You can store production and design variables in one place, including the types of material that were used in a particular project, the imprint locations, the file location, and much more, for easy access in the future. This helps you streamline your storage and inventory system, and cut back on paperwork and computer files.

• You can also detail job costing, per order, as a product is pulled from inventory or purchased.

Innovative Sign Business Software

The software experts here at ShopWorx have worked hard to develop sign business software solutions and print software applications that are perfect for the digital printing industry. There are three main features of the innovative business technology software package for the digital printing business industry that really distinguish this package from other software solutions for businesses that are available.

1. Each individual item in an order has its own, unique set of units, and the defaults of these are based on your product settings. This gives you greater control over sales orders, individual items within those orders and pricing and tracking.
2. You are able to store production and design information in a single place for every single job you take. This way, if you want to revisit a job in the future to see how you ran it or see some of the finer details of a previous job, you can easily find the information you are looking for.
3. Your ShopWorx program captures detailed job costing information as the order makes its way through your shop.