Reducing your business’s operating costs can lift your profits – here are some ideas to consider!

When you cut costs the right way, it can be a major benefit to your screen printing business. It can help you to increase your profits, which you can use to continue your business’s growth. Cutting costs the wrong way, however, can have drawbacks. The wrong cost cuts can jeopardize quality and upset your operations.

Cutting costs begins with examining your budget and looking at what’s working to increase your profits and what’s holding you back. Sometimes cutting costs is a matter of spending money smarter rather than just cutting line items.

1. Reduce your supply consumption

You can maintain your quality while reducing your supply consumption. For example, if you’re using 110-count mesh for all of your prints, you’re using more ink than you need to be. Similarly, if you’re relying on aerosol spray adhesive, you may be wasting adhesive every time you print. A water-based adhesive that you brush on can reduce your adhesive consumption. Are you diluting your chemicals? A lot of chemicals shipped straight from the supplier are meant to be diluted before use, but a lot of screen printers skip that step. Diluting your chemicals according to the manufacturer’s recommendations can reduce your consumption and your costs.

2. Reuse where possible

How much ink are you disposing each day? How many shirts are you tossing in the garbage? Reclaim ink whenever possible to save on your waste. Shirts that are thrown out can be turned into cleaning rags. Boxes and bags you receive supplies in can be reused to pack orders.

3. Buy in bulk

Purchasing supplies in bulk can save you serious money. If you’re a small shop that doesn’t want to keep a huge stock of items, buy the basic substrates and inks you know you’ll make use of. If you offer very similar items, consider consolidating those items into one option so you can buy in bulk. Finding a regular supplier can help you save money on your larger purchases.

4. Set restrictions for your customers

You want to accommodate all of your customers’ requests, but doing so without restrictions can hurt your bottom line. That can mean having an order limit, or restricting customer-supplied artwork. Order limits can keep you from taking jobs that are too small to be profitable, and setting restraints on customer-supplied artwork can save you a lot of time in having to rework artwork that isn’t up to printing standards.

5. Take advantage of financing options

One of the biggest expenditures for a screen printing business is new equipment. Rather than worrying about coming up with the entire cost of a new press or dryer, take advantage of financing options to preserve your business’s cash flow and save you money.

6. Rethink your marketing plan

Marketing is expensive, and a lot of businesses waste their marketing dollars by doing the same things over and over again without evaluating the benefits. Print ads can be costly and ineffective. More and more, online and social media marketing is what draws customers in. Referrals generate a lot of business for screen printers. Survey your customers to learn how new customers are finding your business and put your marketing dollars toward supporting those avenues.

7. Don’t sacrifice quality

It can be tempting to cut costs by buying lower quality supplies and equipment. While finding the best supplies and substrates for the best price is smart, cutting corners by buying low quality supplies can end up costing you money and customers in the long run.

8. Support your staff

It’s true that personnel can be one of a business’s biggest costs, but be careful when it comes to turning to your employees to cut your costs. Cutting benefits or salaries, or expecting a smaller staff to do more work, can cost you valuable employees.

Cutting costs and spending money wisely can help you grow your business by maximizing profits. Just remember: It’s important to balance cutting costs with maintaining quality services. You have to balance the benefits with the drawbacks and make cost-cutting decisions after careful consideration.

Looking for some more tips that can help you save your screen printing business money? Check out these blog posts:

Tips for Managing Your Screen Printing Shop’s Inventory

Effective Ways to Reduce Waste in Your Screen Printing Shop