DSF

Has anyone seen any facts or figures as to how big this industry is? I'm mainly talking about the general small guys like us rather than any specialist large scale clothing/material printers.

I ask mainly as the blank imprintables available are minimal, expensive and don't really seem to move on.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Cheers,

Andrew

Good point Andrew, costs seem to stay high and we don't see many new products come along. The only company I've really noticed increase their range is home2gifts.

It must be a huge market, quick walk around P&P and chatting to the suppliers gives you some idea.

Justin

Yeah, I know HTG get a lot of their products from one of the main US companies. The States seem to have a bit more choice and Oz seem to have a decent user base.

I think P&P suppliers other than a handful rely largely on other processes and subli more of an add-on.

It would be nice to have a bit more choice now the industry has been going for a while.

This is something we touched on in another discussion, co-op buying. I often see products in the US that I would like to have a go with but unless you can put a sizeable order in...taxes...shipping etc. It just isn't worth it.

I've been looking for keepsake boxes and thought about getting some custom made, again this would need a few folk to order though.

The co-op buying would probably get complicated as one person will take most of the burden. It could work on the very popular products- mugs/coaster/mousemats - which people order regularly but the less used items would be harder as people don't tend to stock much.

It is hard to compete on things like placemats, thermal s/s mugs and such where alternatives are so much cheaper. Why does a car flag need to be so expensive when it is plain polyester. I could get these exact same flags for 1/4 of the cost. The sublimation tag just seems to be an option for putting the cost up.

Just my 2p's worth.

Ideally we need to get suppliers who are willing to give DSF members regular discounts so we can save a little on the stuff we buy all the time, mugs, coasters and so on. Special offers on specific products are great but regular discounts would help us all.

I think then you would need a membership option to this forum for where the discount would apply. A supplier giving a discount to a free forum would get complicated for them as there would be no qualifying requirements. If I were a supplier I would want to demonstrate the reason for giving a discount to certain customers and not others which is why paid membership might be the best option....... if you get suppliers on board.

It's something we'd need to look at. At the moment you need to have registered to view the trading/offers forums.
If we could get regular discounts from key suppliers then we may need to look at some kind of membership but this is opening up that can of worms again! lol. We'll see how it goes with suppliers and then look into it.

Seems to me there are two different ideas going on here.

The first is buying co-op from the US so that we have a larger range of products; the other is a discount scheme for suppliers' current ranges.

The former helps open up the market, the latter just gives us a couple of pennies reduction.

There are a number of products I see on non-UK websites that I'd like to try at, but "try at" isn't enough for a UK supplier to stock the items. If, however, there were several of us who wanted to try certain items then someone (either a co-op team leader or a helpful supplier) could get the items in and distribute them as required.

One case I've mentioned before is plates. Outside the UK, there are different options. In the UK there is just one - and it doesn't look pretty.

I know some suppliers have tried to sell alternatives in the past - BMS used to sell plates, including plain white ones, but having a choice of just the bog-standard non-pretty one or heavy-as-concrete plain white ones, just doesn't cut the mustard.

I'd like to try out other types, but I'm not prepared to buy in from the US or elsewhere because I'm a small business and will probably be palmed off with anything they can't sell to their big customers. Small businesses like us have no voice. Only those who buy by the truckload can complain loudly enough when things go wrong.

I once contacted a company about buying coasters in bulk, but the reply was something quite snooty about "don't usually sell to end users" and "minimum quantity would be at least 250". Well, I was looking at quantities of up to 500 but their snooty attitude put me right off, so I didn't bother with them any more.

The idea of all coming together to make our voices louder is a good plan, but the administration of a co-op thing and "who's to blame when it goes wrong" would be a nightmare for whoever decides to do it.

And so we're left with the "suppliers discount scheme" - which is fine, so long as that supplier supplies the supplies you want to buy! If supplier X offers 20% discount, but they don't sell what you want to buy, then the discount is meaningless.

How far does the discount scheme go? First supplier X offers a discount, then supplier Y offers a discount and, not to be outdone, supplier Z offers a discount... By the time you've finished everyone's offering the same discount - so there's no incentive for anyone to go anywhere in favour of anywhere else. Suppliers would soon realise this and then remove all discounts.

It's a right old kettle of fish.

It is complicated which is why most of these types of things never get off the ground. There are cheaper items to be found out there but it takes a bit of commitment on buying to get them.

From another more selfish point of view would the bigger subli users who have worked hard to get to a certain level to get better pricing want the smaller guys piggy backing. I can see many complications. Some members can offer far more than others in buying power. I have been part of a national buying group in a past life and used to have quaterly meeting and arguments were going on all the time between the big guys and small guys with both having valid points.