>>Graphics Hot Spot
Got your money bags?
Making a Profit on Bags
Josh Ellsworth is an industry expert on apparel customization and General Manager of Stahls’ CAD-CUT Direct. His portfolio includes a You Tube
site ( youtube.com/joshellsworth) with more than 50 educational videos,
a blog ( joshellsworth.com) that is updated regularly and consulting visits
that have been made to some of the largest apparel-customization businesses in the U.S. You can reach Josh by email at josh@cadcutdirect.com
and you can find him here, on the hot spot, talking about customization
beyond the basics in every issue. Tune in for marketing strategies and sales
tips in the heat-applied graphics discipline.
In order to properly accommodate a bag,
its barriers must be removed to achieve an
even, accurate pressure. The barriers include any seams, buckles, zippers or buttons that are in the way. To accomplish this
simply raise the print area, right? Easier
said than done.
Bags come in thousands of styles. Take a
look at the bags in the showcase on page
78 to get a slight idea of the constructions.
If we look at the general styles of bags, we
can place the relatively flat bags in the easy
category. Those with some seams and drawstrings get placed into the moderate category and those with lots of bulk, buckles or
zippers go into the difficult category.
The marketplace for bag decoration is an interesting profit opportunity for an apparel deco- rator. Naturally, the same customers who purchase decorated T-shirts, sweatshirts, jerseys
and plackets are those with the potential to purchase decorated bags. When you think about it,
it really makes perfect sense—the rule of selling more to current customers rather than spending the money to find new ones comes into play. But why haven’t you done this yet?
Many decorators prefer to subcontract this work out or not do it at all. The problem
is, that same customer that orders heat-applied graphics on a one- to six-piece minimum
order for decorated apparel has no need for the 25 or 50 bag minimum that contractors
usually require. No wonder so many have yet to find this sector of the market to be profitable or worth any time. Maybe that can
change today as we take a look at the business opportunity of decorating bags with
heat-applied graphics.
Remember, heat-applied graphics is a
low- to mid-size run technology. For the
purpose of bags it’s suited over screen printing in runs of 50 pieces or smaller. It’s also
the choice in higher-volume runs where the
bag of choice is very tough to screen print.
Now let’s get on to business….
Equipment considerations
Decorators have a choice: Which of these
styles will you want to accommodate?
If you answered easy, then it may be as
simple as using a heat press and some buffer
Bagful of options
The bag market is very diverse. A challenge
that plagues apparel decorators is the variety
of shapes, sizes and constructions. The big
thing with heat-applied graphics is that, to
achieve a desired result, accuracy is required.
Time, temperature and pressure are critical
to the adhesion and overall durability of the
graphic. With an accurate heat press, time
and temperature are a cinch. The wild card
is pressure. You cannot just position a bag
on top of a heat press and press it.
Even high-end leather bags can be decorated with heat transfers for a sharp personalized look. (All
images courtesy the author)
