I'm going to share a lesson that I have learned from my past failures, my only motive is I might save someone starting out not to make the same mistake that I made back in the day.
Started in the business, up and running for about 3 years. Got looking into getting an embroidery machine.....had no clue on what to look for or what machines were the best. After doing some research, I learned that there were some major players in the game, tajima, barudan, swf only to name 3 of them. (MANY) reviews on these machines with so much positive feedback concerning reliability, support, parts. Although these machines were much more expensive than some machines that were new on the market. I thought to myself being a newbie in this.....WHY????? Well talked to one of the newer players in the game and they gave a great pitch.....heck I could even save thousands of dollars off what I would pay for one of the other machines....there all the same....RIGHT? Well this is where the bad decision was made...
I bought the new players machine.....For the first 1/2 year, it ran pretty good...but still not as good of a stitch quality that I was used to seeing when we contracted out the jobs. From that point on...nothing but problems. Quality suffered with this machine, tech support was horrible, and parts weren't as easy to get as I would have hoped.
After about a 1.5 years after purchase I did some more searching for this machine....low and behold I was not the only unsatisfied customer....complaint after complaint on how horrible these machines were and time after time machine owners posted that they would never buy another one.
********************MAIN POINT***********************
Time will test everything. If you are in the market for a new screen printing press, embroidery machine, cutter, printer, ect. Don't just believe the mumbo-jumbo salesman that won't shut up. Customers will tell the truth in the long run. My advice would be to check it out in a year or so and see what the reviews are then. If there good then great, but if they are bad...then you will feel a lot better for not just going after the cheapest press on the market. Listen in the long run I guarantee we have spent more on tech support, parts, misprints from the less expensive embroidery machine, than if we would of just bought a machine that was proven.
I am not about to say that I have the best press in the world....I bought what would fit in my shop area since we are limited on space, and we are in a long term lease. But the first thing that I thought of when making this purchase was my mistake on the embroidery machine. I found the top 4 SP machine companies according to my take on customer feedback....and bought one of them. 3 years later...I have yet to have to call tech support, have yet to replace parts, have yet to question my decision on this purchase. Point being fly by night companies that are unproven leave a lot of doubt in my mind if they are even going to be in the game in a year....spending that kind of cash, I really would like to know.
I hope these new companies will succeed. I think competition is a VERY GOOD thing. It will ultimately help the buyers with lower prices, innovation, and new technology. But I for one will never be the guinea pig again. I found for me that it would of been much wiser for me to purchase a used "proven" machine, than a knock-off lower priced new machine that has yet to be tested.
If this post just helps 1 person, than it was worth my time.
Jon
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Repo I can't agree with you more, but here is where I take a different turn than most...most people post about not liking there equipment and never say the name or who could be affraid of getting sue for slander, but its not slander if your telling the truth. Example say I bought a car from a company and the car gave me nothing but trouble and the company was very poor on helping me after the sale. I would not have a problem with letting people know what the car was and the compamy or sales person and stating I don't know about other cars like the one I have, but the one I have is junk and the company won't stand behind it. I feel giving out blank info with no names really don't shine a light on the equipment or the company and more people will fall in the same hole atlease tell us where the hole is and if we chose to step in it so be it. Oh yeah i know you have to pick your words and what you type very carefully it can get twisted real fast in cyberspace.
Darryl
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Darryl,
Excellent point....didn't want to name drop to much since things do get twisted a lot around here.
The embroidery machine that gave me problems from day 1 that I would not recommend to anyone was PRODIGI. It didn't do very well for me and I will never buy another one.
The screen printing equipment that I bought that I would recommend to all who ask would be the following. Workhorse manual press, heater, expo unit have never let me down not once, years of service and everything is still kicking...although I sold the manual about 5 months ago....with great resale value. For my automatic machine I bought an M&R. Like I said it was not the top of the line model, since those models had to wide of a footprint to fit in my shop. But the diamond back has never let me down not once, and I would recommend it to all that would ask.
We have about 4 years left on this lease, and we will be in the market for a larger press, once that time comes I will surely have enough info on the new players in the game by then. THEN I will be able to see if they have stood the test of at least a little bit of time.
Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me!
