How many times have you asked yourself, “I wonder how much I made on that screen printing job?” In order to find out, you really have to answer two different questions: What did I charge for the job and what were the total expenses incurred? The answer to the first question is relatively easy; it’s the total of your invoice less applicable taxes. The second question is a little more difficult to answer, as there’s a multitude of costs that go into your business and screen printing production.

Who are you selling your screen printed apparel to? Who are you trying to sell it to? You might have set up your screen printing shop with the simple goal of selling screen printed goods. But to execute an effective business plan and lead your shop toward success, you have to know your target market, or who is most likely to order your goods.

Children’s wear has always been a large component of the screen printing market. Sports jerseys, school apparel and child-sized souvenir and promotional clothing are the bread and butter of many screen printing shops.

Knowing when to raise your prices can help you protect profit margins. Knowing when and how to lower your prices through sales and promotions, on the other hand, can help you boost sales and attract new customers to your screen printing shop.

Running an efficient screen printing shop starts with reducing your waste. A print shop generates many different kinds of waste, from misprinted shirts to leftover ink and chemicals to cardboard boxes and other containers. And eliminating this waste isn’t always a straightforward process; some screen printing byproducts are potentially hazardous and require special attention. How do you get it all under control?

Price setting is a balancing act. You need to set prices that maintain your profit margins for your screen printing shop but feel fair and reasonable to your customers.

The market for workwear can be a golden opportunity for garment decorators. Construction, emergency and industrial workers not only require clothing that shows they’re part of a team, they also require clothing that keeps them safe.

The quality of your screen prints doesn’t matter if you’re not showcasing your products in an attractive way to your clients and potential clients.

When you hear “screen printing”, your mind probably goes to decorative applications: t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats and signs. If you’re a screen printing professional, you might be concerned about the future of your craft, as other printing methods like direct-to-garment printing have encroached on screen printing’s traditional turf. The good news is that there’s much more to screen printing than apparel and promotional items.

Is your screen printing shop ready to upgrade to an automatic screen printing press? If you’re consistently struggling to keep up with customer demand on your current manual setup, or if you’ve hit the point where you feel you need to increase your staffing, it’s probably time to start seriously considering an automatic press.

In the competitive world of screen printing, you have to offer services to your customers that make your screen printing business stand out. Finishing services – such as relabeling, hang tagging, bagging or specialty packing – could be what makes a potential customer choose your shop over a competitor’s.

An automatic screen printing press is an exciting addition to any shop’s production floor. Automatic presses speed up production time, so press runs that used to take a day now only take hours. However, screen printing shops that adopt automatics shouldn’t be too fast to retire their manual screen printing presses.