Custom products, or personalized products, have been around in the industry for quite some time already. Thanks to the advancements in modern technology, the process of customizing different products are now made more convenient and effortless. Hence, more and more merchants offer personalized products, which are unique and in accordance with the preferences of their customers.
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An overview of the custom product business
There was an era wherein mass production bloomed. It was a time when consumer goods such as cars and clothes were massively manufactured at a fast pace, with a cheaper cost. The mass production era in the retail industry made the consumer goods readily available to the end users. The only set back that can be seen in this phase is that people were not able to embrace uniqueness or order their preferences. It was a time when the quote “one product fits all” was most appropriate.
Following the mass production era is a time wherein the process of customization was born. The end consumers know what they want and they are actually willing to pay for it. Consumers see the products they buy as a reflection of their personality, whether these are cars, furniture, clothes, shoes, or accessories to name a few. Customers favor the suppliers who are able to personalize their products according to the former’s preferences. As a result, these suppliers, and their retailers, gained the loyalty of these customers.
Even brand name companies have ventured into customization, wherein the consumers are now part of the product conceptualization. This is made more effortless because information can easily be disseminated through various platforms and media. This paved the way for the continued growth of the custom product business, which attracted more and more customers, especially in the younger generation.
How to personalize your products
Packaging
The simplest form of customization is offering a personalized package. It can be through a gift wrapping service or an eco-friendly gift bag. While it may seem that it is not much of a product customization, it personalizing your customer experience.
Temporary personalization
Stickers and labels are great materials that you can use for a temporary product customization. You can offer these together with your mass produced goods and your customers can put these on the product themselves. It is a great marketing strategy to be able to offer personalized products that your customers can update or change after some time.
Permanent personalization
Some forms of permanent personalization are through screen printing, embroidery, or engraving. Even offering products in custom colors are one form of permanent customization. It may be more difficult for you to mass produce your goods with permanent personalization, but customers are more inclined to wait for a certain period for customized products.
The best product to customize
Ultimately, any product or item can be personalized according to the preferences of the customers. Those with flat surfaces such as mugs, water bottles, and key holders are great candidates for customization. However, the best product to customize is clothing, cotton statement shirts in particular, because of its durability. Since cotton shirts never go out of style in any season, these are considered a staple in the fashion industry. With the custom shirt printing business, attracting a wide variety of audiences, it has gained quite a significant demand. Hence, various shirt printing stores in different regions emerged. These stores can be visited by consumers physically or online. In Singapore, Meowprint T-Shirt Printing is renowned for providing high quality custom printed shirts. The shirts can be personalized through embroidery or silkscreen printing, and they even offer custom-made apparels. In the United States, customers can send their own design through a mobile app, have it printed, and delivered right through their doorstep. Custom couple shirt printing is also popular in Korea and other Asian countries, while custom printing for sports team shirts is widely known in the United Kingdom and Europe where football is popular.
T-shirt printing process
Screen printing
This shirt printing method can only print black images into a shirt, which is why it is necessary to edit a colored image through another software before the image transfer and printing process. There are several factors to consider in screen printing to yield a high-quality output. For instance, low-quality printers tend to produce an unrecognizable image on the shirt, while some transparency sheets shrink because of the heat induced when it goes through the printer.
Embroidery
There are several ways to personalize T-shirt prints, but embroidery generate the highest-quality prints. Together with screen printing, this type of T-shirt printing process is used by most suppliers in the custom shirt business.
Transfer paper printing
If you are printing for a one-time project, you can custom print your own shirt through a transfer paper. Transfer paper is available in most bookstores, with one type, suitable for light colored textile, and another used for darker hues.
Inkodye printing
Inkodye is a water-based mix of dyes that can be used to print images in a textile or fabric. For the best results, the shirt must be ironed and free of creases and wrinkles before the image is transferred. Inkodye is suitable for most cotton shirts and it should be ironed without steam.
With product customization in bloom, the T-shirt printing business is set to follow suit. You can test the waters by setting up your own T-shirt printing business. What is good about this business is that you can run this online. However, you have to invest in a high quality printing machine. You also need to source quality materials such as durable cotton shirts and excellent inks in several colors. After all, quality makes or breaks a business, but other than that, you will be all set.
Production customization has been around in the retail industry for a long time, with no signs of stopping any time soon. Rather, the business involving personalized products continues to grow, in parallel to the modernization in technology. Custom products, especially in the clothing industry, still prove to be a profitable business.
