Prices are going to vary by your market area as well. I do most of my
contract work for .50 per thousand. I have to have enough retail work to
make up for the low $$$ on contract work, but the contract work is much
easier and generally is higher volume orders which keeps all the heads
running. I have one customer I do hats for, flexfits front and back for
$2.85. I can do 100 in about 6 hours using 2 single heads.
The end of June and first part of July I do tons of ALLSTARS hats and
jackets. I worked 10-14 hours days all this week (my 2 part time employees
decided to take vacation this week) and still had to come in at 6 this
morning. Almost done with hats and visors (3-4 logos per hat/visor) so next
week I can start my jacket backs (I expect around 150 - 200 this year) and
hopefully still get a few days off for the 4th :)
As far as hats go you don't have to sell them for $5 to get them out the
door. I do around 2500 hats a month and sell them for $8-10 with no
complaints from my customers. The price shoppers will go to places like
Otto to get a deal but I find lots of people would rather put money back
into the local economy and deal with local businesses.
Guess I better get on these names, got 35 more to do by 11:00 :)
Jack, I wasn't busting over the shirt markup...was just comparing to what happens around here. Sometimes I realize you have to 'eat' the sewing/screening but make it on markup...all turns to $$ in the end. I get really hosed because I only have the one head-but now I'm tied to a Melco tech that has 10 amayas and a 12head barrudan...I can now design and proof it here, email to him and have shirts/hats drop shipped to him. I think his charge for the last job was about 50-75¢ a thousand...I really didn't mind much because it was a rush job for a good account, and I made it on the hat markup-still made about 100% (or 50%) if you figure the other way markup. Doubled my cost...and didn't spend 3 days zoning out on the one head. I have catalogs and flyers coming in my office everyday since I"m an independant ad specialty rep-and have one right here...structured poplin cap, 150 minimum, 3,000 stitches...NET PRICE of $2.99. How can we even come close to that? You can't-don't bother. But look at it this way-customer has NO CHOICE of hat style, limited color choice, setup of $75, freight, and how many hat logos are 3,000 stitiches? Not one that I've done...hey, only 25¢ per thousand extra, but that's a half a buck retail so it adds up. My AVERAGE hat going out the door the last month was $10-$15.....on flexfit structured hats-8,9, even 10k stitches. Only doing 6-12 hats per order, but that's all the customer wants...and I did a couple jackets for one guy, $75 each...another customer, 12 jackets, Sanmar work jacket. $69 for the jacket, $110 for the stitches! Back alone was 69,000 stitches and then another 30k on the front. And he walked out happy along with his $15 hats! So I don't regret losing a 700 shirt order (screenprinted) that would have made me a profit of $200 for 2 days work....I did 3 customer orders in the same time for screenprinting, embroidery, some signs, magnets, whatever-and grossed about $3000. with a net around $1200 for the same time period. Yeah, I'd love to have another one or two Amayas....maybe later.
