"Your contract embroidery partner."
4750 NE 10th Ave, Oakland Park, FL 33334, United States
"Your contract embroidery partner."
4750 NE 10th Ave, Oakland Park, FL 33334, United States
What’s the biggest difference between a profitable distributor powered by a world-class contract decorator (and a committed team of highly-engaged A-players)… … and one with a stagnating bottom line, that’s crumbling under an underperforming decorator’s always-late (and lackluster) embroidery?
If you guessed “not managing the decorator closely enough,” you’d be wrong.
If you guessed “how much cash you dropped on your latest decorated-apparel order,” you’d still be wrong.
And if you guessed getting your digitized file in on time, getting everything right on your PO, and giving your decorator plenty of lead time, you’d still be wrong.
Because while all these things have their place, they’re only part of the equation.
Unless you’re working with a contract decorator who offers superb embroidery, on-time delivery and exceptional customer service, your distributorship is still flirting with going into the red and you’re on the cusp of burnout.
And on-time delivery is one of those non-negotiables your clients expect.
Most embroidered apparel orders are event-driven. If you’re a distributor, that means your clients might have a trade show or company event that they 1,000% need those logoed shirts and hats for—and those dates are inflexible.
If the shirts arrive one day late (which happens more often than we like to hear), your client’s forced to attend the show without logoed apparel. Or they’re forced to postpone their employee awards ceremony.
The in-hands date is so critical to your business, and the downside of not meeting it is massive. If your contract embroiderer misses a ship date, that usually means a few ugly things:
• You’re in an embarrassing situation with your customer, who may be berating you on the phone, over email or via text (or all three), and with good reason.
• You risk eating the cost of the order, because the client asks for a discount or won’t accept the order at all.
• You lost a lot of cred with your client, and even if they continue to work with you, you’ve got the sneaking suspicion they’re shopping around for another distributor.
• Worst of all, you may lose that (big) client completely, and they’ll spread the message far and wide about what happened, tarnishing your reputation.
Look, if you’re a distributor with any time in the field, you know that you can’t wait till the last, last, last minute to place an order with your contract decorator. (Yes, there are rushes beyond your control, but generally this practice is a no-no.)
For example, our clients know that once they’ve approved the sewout proof and we’ve got their blank garments and final PO in hand, we take up to five business days to process the order and get it to the end-buyer. That’s based on our well-honed processes. (This is a partnership here, so we count on you to do what’s required on your end.)
There are other things that we educate our distributor clients about, like including the correct information on your PO, ordering the right garments from your suppliers, and letting your clients know what’s possible (and not possible) with embroidery. That’s what we need you to be accountable for on your end. After that, if you’re working with a contract decorator who’s habitually late, if you’re continuing to wait two or three hours at the diner for them to show up, that’s on you.
If you’re in business to make money and build a happy client base, don’t you agree it’s worth the time to find an on-time contract decorator?
Turnaround time is critical for a contract embroidery service. When you’re interviewing a new decorator, that’s one of the first things you should ask about: What’s your percentage rate of getting orders to clients by the in-hands dates?
At Say It In Stitches, we take YOUR customer relationships (and ours) very seriously, so we never allow late orders to happen. That’s literally not within our work ethic. Once our team commits to an order and ship date, we’ll burn the midnight oil before we ever let you, and your client, down.
Now, we want to emphasize something you already know deep down: If you can guarantee on-time orders, you’ll have that competitive edge over others. And, that can also be the make-or-break moment where you even score the job.
Like we said, with a standard 5-business-day turnaround policy we provide among the very fastest order processing times in the decorated-apparel industry. And that’s just for “standard” processing.
But what about exceptional requirements? Sometimes, time isn’t on our side. You’re forced to hit us with a rush order (due to something that happens on your client’s end). Your client’s delivery locations change and require additional transit time. The blanks you ordered are suddenly out of stock.
Yes, this does happen from time to time. And we do build in time-sensitive or last-minute workflows into our natural workflow.
So what do we do in such cases, so that we can still get your client their order when they need it? We prioritize. We marshal additional resources for your project. We work longer hours. We make it happen for you—no matter what it takes. (And you’ll see lots of happy client testimonials where we made an impossible rush order happen on time.
We’ll do a little bragging here, and say that we’ve won and built many distributor relationships based on our speed and flexibility, and we can help you to do the same with your final customers and prospects.
Here’s the bottom line: When you partner with Say It In Stitches, we consider turnaround time and timely order completion a fundamental part of the value proposition we offer our customers. And we strive to comply with every single one of their requests as efficiently as possible—never sacrificing the quality of the final product.
If you need an embroidered product—embroidered polos, hats, bags, towels, or anything else— and you need it right away, with no worries, follow-ups, or hassles, we can do it for you.
Have General Questions?
Our customer service team is ready to answer your questions at any time. Please contact them via phone at (954) 776-0010 or email at [email protected].
Ready to Place an Order?
To get a quick and accurate quote, head over to our “Give me a quote” page and fill out our form. You can also contact our customer service at any time with a question via phone at (954) 776-0010 or email at [email protected].
New, and Want to Get on the President’s Calendar? If you’d like to discuss your first large contract embroidery project or our process in more detail, book a 15-minute call with me via my calendar.
“We appreciate the unbelievably quick turnaround you did for us for the 360 embroidered shirts last week. As quite frequently is the case, customers wait until the last minute and once again you performed miracles for us. We truly appreciate it. If all of my vendors had your can-do attitude, my life would be a lot easier. Thanks again!”
Harvey Wolfe“Thank you so much for everything you do. I can’t believe how quickly my orders are ready . And I always enjoy coming in to see you all, especially the doggies! Don’t change a thing.”
Say It In Stitches is a professional embroidery operation. You’ve consistently produced excellent work in accordance with our growing demands. Having never missed a deadline speaks volumes to your dedication in making our business a success. We’ve aligned our operation with one of the premier contract embroidery companies in Florida. The staff we interact with continually meet my commitments and quality control expectations.”
