Advice on outsourcing...

[RuthWinchester]

Hi folks. Happy Christmas everyone.

Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question, but I have reached the point where I’m spending too much time making sublimation items and packing them for postage, to do the rest of my job.

Does anyone on here do a white label service, where you make and ship the items, but package it like it’s come from me?

My main sellers are medium & large glass trivets / chopping boards, coaster sets, bar runners and ceramic tiles. Almost exclusively to the UK at the mo, but that may change.

Would be interested to hear from anyone interested in taking it on, or with experience in outsourcing it. No immediate urgency or commitment - just wondering if it’s a possibility, or whether I should investigate hiring an “intern” or two!

Thanks guys - all advice and suggestions welcome!

Ruth

[UK Printed Mugs]

Hi Ruth. Personally I would keep everything in house if these are personalised items. You have control over quality, retain larger margin and can deal with customer complaints/returns easier. So getting someone else to do the work is the best way to go and to grow the business. If though these items are constant designs then indeed it might be easier to either buy in bulk and store yourself (so you can ensure quality is good before it goes out) or white label but this means small margins and not a growing business. This is the route people go before taking on the work themselves.

[RuthWinchester]

You're probably right! I hate sharing my work space with anyone, but getting someone in to do some of the donkey work and who can package fragile items for shipping is probably the best course of action for now.

I just seem to spend SO much time faffing about with positioning prints, dealing with printer issues, wondering why colours are slightly different from one batch to the next etc etc! I kinda want someone else to do it all for me! But as you say, that means potential issues with quality control and also the issue of margins getting even tighter...

[webtrekker]

... positioning prints, dealing with printer issues, wondering why colours are slightly different from one batch to the next etc etc!

I don't wish to sound unkind Ruth, but isn't that exactly what your job entails? For me to class myself as a 'sublimation printer' I would expect to have to deal with all those issues myself.

[RuthWinchester]

not really - I'm a millefiori artist and I kinda stumbled into sublimation as a way to put my designs onto mugs (as a bit of an experiment) and now onto lots of other things. I don't do personalised items or printing for anyone else, so I think of my "day job" as creating the clay patterns, rather than printing the digital versions of them.

I've learned a lot over the past couple of years (mainly thanks to this forum!) but it still frustrates me on a daily basis (and I seem to have chosen to print things that are fragile and therefore take ages to package safely!).

[pisquee]

We work with a number of artists and designers on a white label, and drop-shipped basis, and can work with small items like you're talking about, as well as larger things like cushions and lampshades, so happy to discuss if you want to send a PM for more details.

[Justin]

We've used dropship companies in the past and had issues so we started to offer out our own services some tune ago, give me a shout if I can be of any help

[GoonerGary]

I can see where you are coming from Ruth. I was up to 3am every night up to Christmas dealing with all those individual orders. I also print items for artists and I often wonder how nice it would be, to just design and concentrate on the marketing to generate new work. But the real work of printing and packing gets in the way of those two things.

But I would never dream of outsourcing the work. You would be the 'awkward customer' who expects colours to be perfect, finding tiny imperfections and want them all reprinting lol! I would bring in an apprentice from the local college who would probably think that it's their 'perfect job', working for someone like yourself, which would inspire them to go on and do it themselves.

[pisquee]

Apprentices can be good, but finding the right one can be tricky - more so than more experienced workers, though they are about half minimum wage, and there are sometimes grants available for companies taking apps on.

[Andrew]

Taking on staff members does open yourself to whole new world of pain. The big question is where do you want to be in 2/3/5 years time? Do you want to build the business to have multiple staff and bigger premises, keeping it all in-house or build your portfolio of designs and stay more design focused as a company? It can be too easy to try and keep everything in-house then 5 years later wonder how you got to spend all your time chasing around after staff and dealing with all other sorts beyond design. It's a big step where you go next and only to often a question that gets answered in hindsight. You will find very different opinions on employing staff. There can be various reasons but a big part will come down to luck of the draw on finding reliable staff members that care.