Monday, May 10, 2010

Why I Love PODs


One of the major challenges I continue to face in The Quest is that of attrition; too often, one or more candidates drop out of existence. I suppose that means that some of my choices aren't generally popular, but even so, I hate to see them go.
Two more of my picks have dropped out and are no longer available from T-Shirt Hell, so fighting the man and exercising ESP will have to be done without a t-shirt to commemorate the event.


Such is the problem with many t-shirt stores; it boils down to a matter of inventory and economics, of course. The typical t-shirt store has to set up their presses for a given design, print up a bunch of shirts in various sizes/colors, then store them on a shelf waiting for them to sell. Shelf space isn't infinite (and hopefully the store comes out with new designs), and it'll eventually be needed for new stock. Those designs that don't sell well enough eventually end up in a clearance sale or are otherwise liquidated to make room for more popular designs. If the design happens to be one that someone later wants well, too bad, it's already gone...

Threadless
is a really great store, with lots of really excellent designs. Even better, they can support whole-shirt designs, rather than limiting designs to a certain area on the shirt that can be printed. And, they can provide special inks when required (glow-in-the-dark, sparkly, etc.) But they're not a POD, so they have to limit their printing, so sometimes you can't get a t-shirt of a certain design you want, or in a certain size. They don't seem to get rid of designs (which I like), but you might have to wait for another printing to get what you want. Maybe they do this on purpose so you have to get on their mailing list to know when those new printings are done, I don't know.

This is not the case with a Print-On-Demand (POD) store, of course. The only inventory needed consists of unprinted products, ready for an order to come in, at which point it can be printed from a design file and delivered. Obviously, this type of business has to have some good printing equipment and an efficient production and delivery process, but given those components, no design need be left behind. Ever. It's always available for delivery in any shirt style, color, or size the POD shop supports. One important down-side is that the specialty shirts - those with special inks or all-over designs - aren't easily supported, and therefore usually aren't.


All-in-all, and especially in a difficult economy, the POD strategy is superior, in my opinion. That's why companies like Zazzle and CafePress are so successful, and are able to continue to add support for different product types (shoes! skateboard decks! ties!) and technologies (like embroidered designs - also on a POD basis). I fully acknowledge having a biased opinion on this, since I use Zazzle as my primary creative vehicle when it comes to t-shirts (and other products!), of course.

As a final note, and on a completely different topic, I wanted to announce the launch of my store, WildKidz Unlimited! Please stop by and give it a look.

2 comments:

Squeegees said...

Selecting a t-shirt from different brands which is suits your company logo would be a difficult job, so custom t-shirt is the best solution for those who want to have a seperate t-shirts with their company logo.

wilddeej said...

This is another excellent point, Silk - thanx for bringing it up! PODs offer the most cost-effective solution for custom products of any kind. They make it extremely simple for any joe-off-the-street (plumber or otherwise!) to economically advertise their business and/or outfit their employees with custom apparel.
Even with my limited graphic arts skills, I've been able to produce items that others have liked enough to buy, so that's a success story in and of itself!