How Superior Ink Manages Their 15,000 Sq. Ft. Screen Print Shop

it's uh producers we're some principle here simple shop management software today we are in Denver Colorado one of my favorite places to be and we're at superior Inc Dominick Cruz and shot anyways peg Versace but a little more ink and less be yeah alright let's go take a look this is a beautiful space here was so was it just a blank open space before this was all this was all production inventory so like we did fulfillment and we had garment storage here so we tore that out and we put in this 88 bathroom and then built out all of our sales offices did you have this space original isn't this was our space but yeah was all open it was just kind of like production floor alright so we decided to bring the team from upstairs to down here Floyd over here does all the stickers signs banners we're actually moving our showroom down here Oh where's the sure - yeah it's upstairs oh oh it's two floors so how long have you been here we decided we just five years so we've been here for five hundred five years this is George and Luke's office some garment samples in there I like the sliding doors and stop those guys myself right okay how'd you get in this we bring down snowboarding skateboarding and snowboarding we're just then printing for your own brand or something back in 1896 that makes you 40 this is Arturo we call him El Toro like the bull term on that morning morning dr. Oona so yeah actually a lot of space in here what's the square footage of the facility okay 15,000 give you the rundown on Inc okay cuz everybody asks if we're a hundred percent water based and no or not for two reasons we like to give the customer the choice I like to educate them on both options I don't necessarily think that water base is the most eco-friendly yet until better options so that's my stance on it we do offer it we do water base on this side and we have all of our classes saw archived on this side so we still like to give the choice to like to give the option plus water base doesn't work for every single garment so we don't want to corner ourselves with one option then eliminate certain types of garments we like to push people towards water base but not just go that way exclusively and I think you know how do you do something you up sell it maybe gels more and actually don't we do something you want to do or you just you're fine I mean it's we probably should it's a cost more if there's more we with the sustainability effort and eco-friendly like we kind of push people towards that and then try to stay away from you know discharge as much as possible and just going options that work like you know I saw it acrylic it's a work in progress but again we like to just lay all the options on the table and then let the customer side that they feel is best so you keep all the water basin over here these are all the plastics all our five buckets and then you know we don't archive any water-based colors we just make it from scratch but a lot of like the skate brands and those customers don't want to move towards water base so we don't necessarily want it to say like you have to spin like the thicker field-mice a song you like the thicker feel plus like like these koozies will go will go look at this for fish pond like there's there's certain projects that plaster saw is like gonna remain the best option SOI baster we're not going to go 100% until we feel like the industry's involved to them so that's a really good question and I know we talked about that at the water base camp actually a put-on but like when you started doing water base here where we're sitting where there's some changes that you had to make in the shopper yeah of your process for sure it's still process of changing things and adjusting things I think the biggest challenge that we still deal with is like who the best company is based on certain aspects there's so many different variables and things to overcome and I don't think that there's one out of the box company that handles everything there's different bases to use there's different fixers there's additives and things it's not like classes all where you're just taking it out of the park and slapping on so they're just learning and then you know obviously all the like the environmental changes you know your dryer adjustments your climate control mixing ratios not you know you have to make small portions and get the color matching right and then you make the big portions adjusting to the type of garment color shifting migration it's a lot of things to know that's why we don't want to go 100 percent you know you've got these smaller manuals over here is that for a live printing or yeah this is our like boneyard of equipment we have a big ole rotary press here like posters and like big canvas prints cutting so projects then we have kind of all of our live printing equipment as well you guys do a lot in life printing we do we do probably like maybe six to ten events a year so not as much as we used to but now we're more selective with them thought it'd work thanks a lot of work but it's fun to get out of the shop sometimes karmen staging over here orders get crabs staged for production incoming job incoming inventory garment counting staging got kind of the circle flow going so stuff comes in move it over to production somebody commented just on the tables or some and said it on the yeah or just go straight to carts depending on what the order is sometimes like we have to adjust our space here because we'll get you know several pallets in you know ten pallets at a time whether stuff's gonna get storage stored for fulfillment later or get staged for production and we the space is always evolving you know got it would you use the racks for just storing customers inventory yeah yeah some people like pre produce inventory and will hold on to it and then pull it from the shelves when they need it but sometimes they're full sometimes it goes light it just depends on the time of the year and who's actually doing storage verses a lot of people are doing on demand so we're trying to work towards that it's process so this is the new press right so what was your what made you want to upgrade and what you have before we had the p12 we went to the P 18 and a lot of that had to do with switching the water base you know you have to have flashes of cooldowns and a lot more heads if you're doing like a three-color job with water based you're gonna actually probably use six or seven heads so just being able to set up more water based jobs and have open areas run around the press and then we can set up multiple jobs at a time so we didn't necessarily do it so we could do 14 color jobs although literally a week after we got this grass without our 14th oh he's testing it out yeah mainly like we'll have clients if we're getting approvals we could have multiple jobs set up at once get everything set up and then as approvals go you're already set with like three or four jobs that you can run got it cuz you do the impressive proof so what made you move to that spoilage I mean just running jobs without having like a final strike proof thank you they obviously have the digital proof which is which is good but seeing it in person it just it just mitigates the risk of what other but what otherwise could get caught by the customer spelling errors placement issues so how do you do that so literally you set up the press run one shirt take a picture email tone yeah we'll give them a heads up like well we're trying to work with printable to get some SMS heads-up messaging but right now it's just production team has their own phone and iPad and they'll just give the customer like a 30 minute window and let them know that a press Bruce coming there's issues with it like there is everything sometimes people won't get back to us a lot of times it takes them more than like an hour to get back to us we'll break down the job and then charge them to reset it back up yeah or sometimes we don't we're okay with that yeah I mean there's there's an understanding we have an option for if they do want a press proof you'll have a lot of more and we'll have all of our kind of fine print on what that entails if they do on a press proof if they decline it we still do it just because we want to have that extra security measure sometimes people say we really don't care we'll shoot them a photo anyways but nine times out of ten we'll just run it if it looks good we'll make an executive decision so but you said that if they want the process so all right so you don't do it for all jobs then you'll ask these boys cuz they're more in the thick of it but basically if they don't fill out the press approval form it's kind of up to us whether we want to do it just for an extra check but if it's for repeat clients and stuff that we have physical samples of we never will do it not just for first time customers it's more of us so it kind of depends yeah it does kind of depend it's kind of a security blanket oh I'll let hunter you can speak more to that because he's in the thick of it do you ever charge for I don't know we thought about it but we decided that it like saves you money back and it does because of spoilage like if you're gonna run a 5,000 piece job and you're worried about making $50 for a press check but if you did something wrong it's gonna end up costing you $10,000 but I'd much rather just eat that $50 press check feet just as a security blanket for us and it's just a good measure it's peace of mind for them and it's peace of mind for us nobody wants to run a bad job they don't want you to mess up their shirts we don't want to mess up the shirts it takes an extra 30 minutes so be it I mean just to have that extra confidence makes sense Saqqara he's been with us for how long you been here about a year from what island okay got a few big shops there too yeah this is great I mean you got a lot of good space so a nice big dryer and everything where we're getting squeezed out is this fulfillment in a garment storage because that's a big thing these days you know what holding and shipping to all the bands are friends yeah holding inventory and then you know offering fulfillment that's where we're a little bit tight on space but it's a lot of warehouse space around here so if we need a girl into something so brains we'll ask you and then you just say and we don't have a space for that man you know that much remind of or will work with a 3pl and outsource it like if they have like say five or six pallets of stuff that they want a preprint will produce it and sent it to them it's more and more of a common request is it that is that because you were with a lot of brands or just overall you feel like it's I think overall I just feel like that's where people are adapting people are moving away from the model of like mass producing when they're doing likes or campaigns you know they'll still produce volume but they're not going to do five ten thousand pieces if it's just if it's a limited campaign that they'd rather do shorter runs and turn them quicker what I'm saying is not necessarily like the standard overall but it's the pattern that I'm starting to recognize more and more on and it makes sense as much as I hate to say that it does make sense but it's also good too because it helps offset that problem of overproduce and Tranter Nover you know because you're producing only what you need and that's you know not to go off on a tangent but in terms of sustainability like people ask what's the Eco what's the most eco-friendly thing you can do for a job and that's the whole Patagonia philosophy the most eco-friendly thing to do is my vintage you know like rebuy stuff that's already produced and that's why I like I'm stoked on the vintage of Meral market because people are like drifting throwbacks are fashionable and that's great most eco-friendly shop is a shop that is like not mass producing they're producing only what the industry calls for it makes sense and that is a huge trend now fashion wise but but the full-size it doesn't really affect mid difference it does well no it doesn't because essentially like somebody wants for their family they're not gonna go by 50 yeah that's for sure for sure but here's the thing is like it does I think affect the industry it doesn't really affect our business yet because if you have seven outfits in a week and you're using like vintage or throwback stuff and you're not buying a new wardrobe every single day or every the other day like there's still a lot of apparel that's being produced so you say no retail point anymore know what I out of the funnels down to yes but what I have the biggest problem with is like you have drifters or vintage like industry folks that like that retro style but they're buying like big-box brands that are doing throwback so it's like even if it's a niche market people that are drifters and into buying like old 90s collections go to a thrift store and and get those because they're already produced you know what I mean don't go buy it new sure brand new because then you're just investing back into that overabundance you know it's like it's just minimizing consumerism on you know I'm not saying everybody should go to two art thrift store to buy their wardrobe but here and there like add that into your collection bit by bit instead of buying new stuff every time and like eventually I don't think that that necessarily hurts our business you know it's there's still trends and there's still things that we're going to be producing on big and low scales but it's just telling people to be like conscious about their purchasing habits you don't have to buy the next best thing every single time you want to be fashionable do some 90s throwback stuff that's already in the market don't buy something brand new and replicate old vintage I got you has the always actually about the past the legalization of marijuana obviously it's been like that here for a little while yeah has that helped your business or change your notice any difference I mean that was on the belt right now this industry or something that has to do in cannabis industry but you think of whether it's cannabis or education or tech if you add five hundred to a thousand new businesses into a city it's obviously going to stimulate the economy so whether you're a Wii fan or whatever I think about the jobs that it creates think about the revenue that it creates the funnel solar donor and I mean it's regulated it does wonderful things for tax dollars a lot of money's got back to schools and a lot of money has gone back to the homeless population that's what we talked about at lunch today or breakfast is right what do you do invest in people and get the mental care so they don't end up in this a visual pattern so I think that tax dollars and revenue made from the cannabis industries not just helped our industry because we're producing shirts but it helps the economy as a whole because it's pumping revenue into the economy and tax dollars into the economy creating jobs creating housing market demand we have benefited immensely from it and yeah cost of living goes up but that's that's just a sign of business booming I mean that's going to happen it's exciting especially for there's a ton of shops in Chicago yeah well and you think about all the employees that need merchandising it's not just like I don't think like weed stuff is cool I don't want to wear weed weed be there but there's subtle branding and different four-footed doing events giveaways merchandising and then you know obviously employee wear plus they have retail opportunities too they all have stores so we got a folder bagger not really so was it a thought behind buying pulled our bagger Danny had an old one with it if it's smaller run stuff will still do it by hand and then we use like the recycled plastic bags which is why we don't typically use these carriers because these these are not recycled plastics so we push people against doing that so it's very rare that we actually use the bagger so a lot of times we'll fold on the auto and then manually bag which cost us a lot more and you know it takes a lot more time but oh because these are the bags you have to use with this machine yeah there's no like carriers for the recycled plastic because it's pretty limited in terms of supply chain but it's those little things like packaging and sustainability like isn't just about the ink type that you're using it's about all the packaging materials being conscious of your waste you know thinking about the chemicals and then as a collective being conscious about that whole Saint mentality it can't just be me like we're gonna be sustainable everybody has to be on that tip and we all have to agree that that's like size one there you go nice little business idea for full backers to stay with sustain classes and then shout out shout out to eco and close they're in Boulder they make all eco-friendly packaging materials they're the ones that make the recycled plastic bags they make thoughtfully packaged with eco-friendly shipping supplies this is a little used for tape well yeah all their stuff like even their box material is all recycled and you know hiko friendly contents which is which is huge even for like hang tags and stuff too you know shout out to Tim the Toolman Taylor over here because let's do it on Mario we're not just screen printers we're also fabricators as a top secret project that we can't discuss yeah but since we're on the shout out shout out to Husky for this new toolbox feature you got to stay crispy and organized you know not only that they show you something if you don't get a husky sponsorship in this video this is why we bought it right here I came like that custom the upstairs is kind of a little work in progress right now oh this is nice up here yeah we're in under construction up here this is where the showroom used to be it is yes so people would walk through the front a couple of stairs and you know actually they wouldn't even walk through that side they would walk through this like production door and then come straight upstairs I got it so the downstairs was like kind of our construction project now that that's done we're finishing upstairs and then we're gonna move all the showroom to downstairs so you guys do a lot of the building out then or do you work with a couple guys to help you oh I do quite a bit of it but you know we we sub out a lot of the construction stuff this is kind of our temporary break room while we're under construction I just talked to you this is one of our clients they do all their fulfillment out of this side here so you just pick this every day and the chip they actually do their own shipping out of here they have ups so we have tall T and then threads worldwide they do fair wage jewelry manufacturing in Guatemala for women women's empowerment it's a great company shout out and in Talty so we have ups that comes once a day so actually we do draw straws and we'll piggy back down all the USPS orders down the stairs got it for everybody yeah no no they just take a bucket down once a day but if it's like a ton of stuff that shipping out we have these double doors and we'll just grab it with the forklift this is where all the video production once was so so yeah and you guys do some neat videos on your YouTube on Instagram well I mean what's the thoughts behind putting the time into it oh well you know it's you got to show people what we're doing you know like when customers don't have the opportunity to come in here if they're not local we like to just give them an inside look of what we do what our space looks like what our vibe is our culture I think it's super important to let people know so what are you gonna do with this place I'm just more of a lounge this space is gonna be like kind of we were key vibes okay we're gonna have like our conference area up here and then just desk and table space that customers or employees can come work at and just kind of have like a little chill zone this is we're moving the sticker production up here and then we'll take his space and build that in the showroom you got a solid side shop here downtown like wood and we were kind of talking about this at lunch but how do you feel like you mentally keep up with everything you know all the moving pieces and hiring people I ask myself that every day like I've said this before but just having like staple employees is super important like you know Hunter has been with us for five years and there's just so much that he so much responsibility that he has and takes off my shoulders and then just having key people on the front of the house like admins that are able to handle the day-to-day you know just tasks that in ins and outs of production and dealing with customers so that I can focus on more of like my role which is kind of visionary and integration and like adopting those strategies asking yourself like where motivation lives and sometimes just digging deep to like make sure that you stay motivated and excited to do what you do because a lot of the tasks are like there are things that are there's no perfect recipe it's just a matter of like having the drive and passion to stay consistent and be disciplined every single day too to take on the tasks that you have you know there's no perfect recipe it's just a matter of like honestly a lot of time it's having your staff motivate you and trying to be a good leader so that I always want to help work the employees doesn't really happen with having hunter in quarry because they're pretty driven dudes but you know you always want to be a good leader and set a good example and stay motivated what do you feel like you productivity wise as the business is growing in your roles change where do you feel like you add the most value now you know lately which is pretty new for me but like I think honestly is like understanding employee needs and like having a good relationship with them to make sure that they are excited and passionate about what they do is like where I think my value has been most recently so thinking about creative things and ways to drive the business forward thinking about ways that we can improve our company culture and having having a good positive dynamic for you know having a place that people want to work so at the end of the day like we need key people and I feel like it's my job to kind of carve that road map to make sure it's a good environment to work in both for myself and for the people here but your value is constantly changing like being versatile and being able to adapt to like whether you need to go fold shirts and be a good example on the production floor or you need to talk about sales meetings strategies attending trade shows to make sure that you don't have any lulls in business it's all being first of all to what the business expects of me it's constantly changing we're running up now you're good that's pepper and Chauncey pepper check it out how are you doing send out daily orders from up here so Talty is actually one of our very first customers like 10 years ago is when we started working together that's in the early 2000s when the trend was the bigger the better you know full cover all tight coloreds no so it was a challenge back then but I mean they're still doing like a lot of cool simulated process stuff they these are tall tees so they're they're made for like snowboard and ski community so they're their client base is like a lot of parts of Asia Japan places in Europe I think you want to start doing more like you said no this yeah I mean this is a good beta model for one customer but the more people that want it the more we're gonna have to adapt to adopting that because the last thing that you want to do for a small brand is print 5,000 units or have 10 or 15 different SKUs produce it for them and ship it to them and it shows up at their headquarters or even sometimes even their house and that's a daunting task to have to fulfill all of your own orders and deal with that you know how do you charging customers for something like that like are you trying to charge like storage or yeah there's um there's a storage fee and then like a like a pick and pack fee per unit that's the most common way to do it other ways is like Reb shares you know you'll take a bigger bigger percentage of the overall sales it's a little bit more risky but yeah I think the biggest challenge like a for a brand starting out and then for us too is just the integration how are they set up to sell are they in retail exclusively do they have e-commerce and then everybody has a different ecommerce system so how are you going to talk to that and how are you going to be efficient with returning orders and you know you have to think about the customer service that goes along with it - people get the wrong sizes who's gonna deal with the returns of that you know the customer or or us what do you do with that now a lot of it's done with us and then you know we'll just whoever that's part of like the customer service role so whoever's account that is they're gonna deal with a lot of the return stuff but that's that's probably the biggest challenge that we need to figure out is staffing for specifically for that do you charge fees for returns in the back yes and no I mean it's just a bit it kind of like there's a variance and there's like a tolerance level but typically that should be covered in like the storage fees just yeah exactly I mean returns are pretty what do you say Paul how many returns you guys get is it is it easy to manage yeah we don't get too many fortunately yeah I mean a lot of brands have a customer base that's pretty familiar with like the blanks that they sell and they know what the cuts are like and it would be the same for like you know for these guys you know obviously these are all maids but they've ordered this stuff before so their customer base pretty much knows how the fit is so that they'll know that the sizes are true so they pay to ship it back and then yeah then you pay to resit I mean what do you do if you order from Dillard's online I think yeah I see I see both even for small like big businesses I was returning these shoes and I had to pay for return back now it was like more of like a kind of Nordstrom Rack type of company so I did have to pay for shipping or I dropped it off some people market it as that like free returns or free exchange if you know like it's because the Amazon model so right prevalent it creates these expectations that it's almost like if it's not free it's almost it's a bit surprising yeah yeah but I mean that's like even this 3pl that we're using or we were touring like it's all it's all rope it's all AI mm-hmm like there's literally people that are like the only role of the warehouse is people I don't even know what their role is anymore cuz they have robots that go literally pick stuff off the shelf bring it to the shipping department the label process is automated like for even not even just Amazon but like big 3pl vertically-integrated like fulfillment centers right so then the question for a small business or like for us or other print shops is like do you want to handle your own fulfillment and staff up for that or do you want to just partner with somebody that literally has that process so streamlined that there isn't human error you do a mix of both we do so like if somebody's gonna be mass producing something like for a church say and they want to produce all their inventory at the beginning of the year and then just fill orders as the ministries order then we're gonna work with the Threepio because that's going to be like six pallets of stuff that is like either on a daily or weekly cycle and so you pay the 3 P on the same kind of model that you charge your car yeah basically yeah so what they would charge us we get a pretty good deal because we're doing multiple accounts but we're just pushing it a little bit and the goal isn't to make money off of fulfillment it's just to adapt to them to the market and not lose that business you know to somewhere else but if you're a small business it's gonna be a little bit different like if you're storing ten boxes here we'll part just handle it ourselves versus sending out a couple boxes to a 3pl make sense but it's something I'm learning like I'm not I'm definitely like not by any means a master like we just started like getting into this market so there's a ton of stuff to learn and it's just a big question as a shop owner like is something that you want to build into your business because it's like a whole another business in your business but that's where that's where I feel like the industry's going yeah what keeps you motivated questions for now I mean just quality of life you know I was talking to Tim about that the other day I don't know like you could always think of like what would you and what would you rather be doing but this industry is like a collection of like driven people that come from creative backgrounds that are like constantly pushing the envelope and what keeps me motivated is just like the assurance that I'm in the right thing and that I would definitely not be happier in any other industry every job comes with this challenges but at least you know like you have the security blanket that you're you've made the right choice in terms of picking the right profession because there's a lot of people that are not stoked on what they're doing again continuing to be a leader for the for the team is a big driver of motivation that's awesome looking for one-word answers I'm going like storyboard this is Dominic from superior Inc essentially prints for all the ski and snowboard companies out here if you guys ever need free lift tickets be sure to find him I'll leave the address then link okay yeah we got you season passes we hand them out like candy around here alright guys thanks for joining peace out [Music] you [Applause]

Channel: Printavo

Views: 13,765

Rating: 4.955801 out of 5

Keywords: printavo, shop, software, management, screen printing, embroidery, screenprinting, printlife, print shop, shop management software, screen printers, t-shirts, custom t-shirts, direct to garment, dtg, business, sales, marketing, scheduling, print shop management

Id: xe2CSqKTwrE

Length: 33min 0sec (1980 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 02 2019