Summer Is A Busy Time
We happen to do a lot of t-shirt printing for folks who work outside for a living, such as landscapers and roofers. Summer is a very busy season for us. Many are going to switch over from long sleeve apparel to short sleeve. There’s an old saying that goes, be careful what you wish for because you might just get it. There is a very fine line sometimes between having enough work to meet our overhead versus having too much work where we can’t seem to fill the orders fast enough.
I remember last year at this time when it was so easy to do business compared to the challenges that we seem to be facing now. It used to only take a couple minutes to research and locate blank screen printing apparel, but now due to the supply chain crisis facing our nation, it can take hours to find something and then shortly after you eventually locate it, it’s gone again. I can’t think of a lot that is more frustrating in business than to have a potential buyer that’s all ready to go and you can’t fill the order because of lack of blank product availability. It’s not as if we’re the only St. Louis Screen Printing and embroidery company out there that is experiencing these challenges as everyone in my industry is in the same predicament. I should really count our blessings though, when I take into consideration that so many other St. Louis digital t-shirt printing companies in the area are experiencing labor shortages as well.
One strategy that we have adopted is to go the route of purchasing the best equipment that is available. Unlike employees, the machines show up everyday for work. They don’t get hurt and they don’t complain. Lesson learned, the better the equipment, the less employees are needed in order to run them.