We recently had an enquiry from a customer for a few thousand printed and made up fabric homeware products and were given a target price.
It’s a common scenario, a buyer will often have a target price depending on either the price they have paid for a similar item in the past, or based on other quotes they have received.
However, when we calculated the costs to digitally print and make up a top quality textile product, printed and made up here in the UK we could not achieve this target price. We were extremely surprised at this, as we know that our prices are extremely competitive.
We then asked for a sample of the product that the customer was looking for and when we received it we instantly realised why we could not achieve the customers target price.
The sample had been screen printed on a very light weight inferior fabric, so it was quite clear that we were not comparing “like for like”.
We had quoted a price per unit based on digital printing on a heavier weight higher quality fabric.
You may wonder how we could tell that the customers sample had been screen printed? It was obvious as soon as we saw it, as the fit / registration of the design wasn’t good and large overlaps we also clearly visible where one colour had overlapped in to the other.
Please Note – any reference to lead times are a correct estimate at the time the article was published. Lead times are always estimated and never guaranteed, and for our current estimated lead times see: lead times & deadlines.
So, after seeing the sample, you may think that we could re submit a quote for a screen printed product on a lower grade of fabric and this is something that we may have considered. However, the high number of colours within the design would mean that a lot of screens would have to be engraved making the setup costs too high and we still wouldn’t be competitive.
If the order was for a quantity of say 10,000 units then the setup costs would have been justified and a lower unit price could have been achieved.
So, it’s a fine balancing act, if the quantity of a specific order is low, then we would always digitally print the fabric before making up in to the finished product, whether it would be tea towels, cushions, pillow cases, aprons, oven gloves etc.
If the order is many thousands of units then perhaps we would print the fabric with Rotary screen but when the quantities are somewhere in the middle it’s not always easy to meet the customers price demands, especially when they don’t compare “like for like”
After speaking again with the customer they confirmed that the sample had in fact been printed in Turkey on a low quality, light weight fabric and they ordered many several thousand units, therefore the single unit price was extremely low.
We prefer not to produce our prints on inferior fabrics as this causes issues not only with initial colour matching but also causes continuity issues as lower quality fabrics can vary so much from batch to batch.
Basically, we pride ourselves on offering top quality UK made product, printed and made up in the UK and if we can’t produce a product to match a customers anticipated target price it’s probably because they are not comparing “like for like”.
We will always offer a free sample so that you can see exactly the type of product that we are quoting for.