The Two Keys to Profitable Pricing of Sublimated Goods

Ask apparel decoration business owners what their number one challenge is, and they’ll likely cite “pricing.” Pricing has routinely been “tagged” as being one of the thorniest issues, but at the end of the day, it’s really not as difficult as it’s often made out to be. The key is developing a mindset that takes into account the big picture, so you can fully understand what it truly costs to generate an order. At that point, you can then apply marketing strategies for working in appropriate margins that generate the profits you seek.

Today, from 10:30 to 11:45 am in Room 335, join Jimmy Lamb for “Sublimation Pricing and Cost Analysis,” in which he will cover two key components: what it costs to produce sublimated goods and what those goods are worth to the customer. The first part is easy to determine by gathering and analyzing business data in order to generate a baseline cost for printing — or what it really costs to produce sublimated goods. The second part is much more subjective, because there is no single solution for dealing with mark-ups. As a result, when setting the selling price, it’s important to focus on raising the “perceived value” in order to obtain the highest possible mark-up, which this session will delve into as well.

Key learning points:

• How to calculate the true cost of sublimation production
• How to lower production costs in order to increase margins
• How to raise perceived values in order to generate higher margins

“This is one of my favorite topics because in my early days of product decoration, I  was working hard but not making much money because I didn’t really understand the process of figuring out costs and calculating profitable selling prices,” says Lamb. “Thus I want to help others avoid some of my mistakes and find a path to profitability more quickly and easily than I did.”

Author and international speaker James (Jimmy) Lamb has more than 25 years of product decoration business experience. Lamb has extensive knowledge in many facets of digital decorating and embellishing including business startup, applications, techniques, marketing, sales, mobile, production and management. He has owned and operated a successful production facility, started a retail franchise operation and has provided production solutions to a variety of Fortune 500 corporations involved in customization, decoration and embellishment. His articles appear regularly in various industry magazines in the U.S. and Europe. In addition, he is presently ranked as #20 on the list of the most influential people in the decorated products industry by Stitches/ASI. Currently, he works with Sawgrass Technologies (Booth 2975) as the Manager of Communication and Education, where he has been instrumental in developing their educational seminars and webinars.