Starting up an Embroidery Business help

patriciaa · December 1st, 2008, 10:00 PM

I am a college student and we have a Small Business Project that is from Sept - April. In April we have a tradeshow and get judged by a panel of judges. We have to create a business from scratch and we have decided on doing an embroidery and screen printing business. I was wondering if there was anyone out there that would help us with getting started? how to price your items (profit, mark up)? what type of machines are the best? Is it best to lease or buy the machines? ect. All the advise and iformation would be greatly appreciated.

PatchSuperstore · December 4th, 2008, 10:12 AM

What kind of budget do you have to start this business? The machines to embroider can run you $4K - $90K + Screen Printing is an over saturated market in my opinion and you could probably work out a deal with a local printer so you don't have to master through the learning curve and come out of pocket at first with equipment cost. The economy is slow for things like that right now so make a deal locally and see what kind of market you have there then buy your own equipment if it makes since. If you already know then there are tons resellers who can sell you the equipment like http://www.swfeast.com

Good Luck

SunEmbroidery · December 6th, 2008, 11:16 AM

Embroidery and screen printing to start is a lot! For embroidery alone plan on 10,000 - 15,000 and up just to get stated. You can probably get a used machine now for a good price be be careful that it won't be technically outdated in a few years. For example, if it read designs from a disk reader will it be easy to replace the reader when it breaks? One of the best sources of information is the ISS Shows http://www.issshows.com/ If you could attend a show there is a wealth of information about the decorated apparel industry. There are a number of free trade publications including http://www.asipublications.com/Stitches/
http://www.impressionsmag.com/impressions/index.jsp
http://printwear.hotims.com/r5/searc..._by_category=y

Pricing will vary depending on what part of the country you are in, your equipment and if you do niche work. I wouldn't lease a machine because it is considerably more expensive. With the present economy there will probably be a lot of used machines on the market. Price wise that is good but then you won't have training (machine and software) unless you can work that out with the seller.

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