“At Halcyon Digital, innovative garment printing and design is our forte' so we need the best equipment available. Our two iDek d2's have become integral parts of our production day, giving us the edge on speed and turn around time. We ship out thousands of sublimated garments every week and rely heavily on our iDek's to maintain our relationships with our most important accounts.”
-Mark Collins (Halcyon Digital)
You can imagine that, after visiting with more than 2500 embroidery and screen printing shops in the USA alone, not to mention even more in Canada, Mexico and all over Europe, plus being in the business of selling machines and attending industry tradeshows all over the world in the last 10 years that I have seen every type of heat press in use and being sold that you could ever imagine.
In that time, I have also witnessed improper use - machines that barely work well, not to mention ones that are hardly working being used the most. And to top it off, we get calls all the time from businesses and people that are having issues with heat transfer application, longevity of the transfer, durability of the transfer in the wash you name it!
The funniest thing that still is the biggest mystery to me is the vast majority of the same people who buy inferior or used equipment rarely, if ever, take the value of their time into consideration. So many people think that owning two cheap presses is better than one really good dual shuttle heat press. It really makes one wonder when we are in an industry that has more startups and even more failures business-wise than restaurants per capita!
Selling robot rhinestone technology, laser embroidery technology and embossing equipment, where nothing is less than $30,000 and going up to $243,000 I rarely take interest in things that are a few thousand dollars in price, because it’s not worth the time and effort to try and explain how an item, just under $2,500, can make or break your small business.
Why is textile trade in the USA is at an all time low? Because all the good profitable large production work is in the far east and what is left is all the small-medium run, custom quick turnover work that is typically hard to make money at, simply because there are 17,000 embroidery shops, 22,000 screen printers and thousands more sublimation, heat press businesses out there, all vying for the same jobs.
The truth is that most of the above businesses are home based and are not charging the street price that is required to cover the overhead costs of an industrial unit, health care, business insurance, full time staff, marketing and advertising and the 30 other incidentals of running a full blown full time business. Most of the small businesses are trading their time for money only and not adding in the costs of those things listed above. All fine and dandy, that’s what the free market is all about! But there is a sad truth that few take the time to consider!
Is making $2-$5 an hour really worth the effort?
That’s the shocking truth. You will find time and again that people will buy a $300 heat press on eBay or a new single head press for $1000, a really good one, and if you do the math in regards to what time it really takes to make something from start to finish, they only make $2-$5 an hour. Why? Because it is not fair to only include the heat press time. You also need to include the cost of the sale, the driving time to and from, the time on the phone to source and order the product. To receive it, count it, setup, THEN DECORATE, then fold, insert, package, invoice, ship or deliver it, follow up and collect! If you do 12 shirts for X dollars, great but, did you really calculate your net!
Here is where it gets interesting. Most people think that because the person using it in their business is being paid $8 an hour its not a big deal, worse is when they say “I was doing nothing else anyways so I did it watching TV” or whatever!
It takes X seconds to press anything, be it 10sec, 15sec, 20sec, whatever. In that time you are always waiting for the platen to be freed up for the next product or garment.
If you are using a single station heat press it will not recover heat fast enough and you will have inconsistency that will not be discovered until the garment is washed!
If you are using two single station presses side by side you have the same issue as described but double.
If you are using an old press but a good one (they don’t make 'em like they used to!) you are, to be honest, being ignorant! That is the same argument as saying that the old Volkswagen beetle is better than the water cooled one being sold today in 2007/2008! It is simply not true. (PICTURE old beetle and new beetle, car and engine)
Old heat presses don’t have the digital technology to micro-adjust, sense and deliver heat as efficient as we do today. The heating elements of old are inefficient, inconsistent and simply no longer accurate in a world of products that require just the opposite!
Below is a great example of exercise bikes, both burn calories but which one does it better? The one on the right has programs for fat burn, heart rate, random programs and you can watch TV at the same time if you want!
Or how about your phone. Did you ever think that you wouldn’t need a house line and that your cell phone would become such a life line and life saving productivity tool? It’s pretty much doubtful that the phone on the left works anywhere in this country anymore today!
The iDek™ press below equals the productivity tools on the right above. One machine can instantaneously transform into any one of the machines below!
The fact is that, today’s equipment needs to be fast, precise, efficient and effective. In our country labor cost is the most important cost factor next to quality. Think of it this way, and I know you have heard this a million times before, “Time is money!” the question is DO YOU VALUE YOUR TIME?
What are you worth per hour? $8, $15, $20, $35 per hour? How about looking at it this way. A part time job is something less than 20 hours a week. (Based on 50 weeks at 20 hrs/wk) $8/hr would then equal $8,000/yr, $15/hr =$15,000/yr, $20/hr = $20,000/yr, $35/hr = $35,000 per year.
If you could double your time by doing 50% less manual labor and use that time for marketing, selling, promoting, showing, visiting, would that not be a better use of your time?
What if your $8/hr employee could be twice as effective with their time, would you be able to do more, supply more? Would your office be more organized, less chaotic? OR better still, could you save some more money and pocket it, instead of being a charity for inefficiency.
I know that many times the argument is that, I can’t afford it right now. So does that mean it’s better to jump into something that will cost you more for the rest of its working life? If you know that the iDek heat press was $2,495 and cost twice the price of a another decent single head heat press but gave you double the output, double the quality AND cost you half the electricity and labor for the life of the press, would you still buy the cheaper press?
The point is that you only pay a little more one time. That is when you buy the press. You SAVE twice as much for the life of the press. In other words, both presses have a person using them at $8 per hour. With the iDek you get the same work done in half the time and using half the electricity.
So the iDek costs you on average $1247.50 more ONE TIME, when you buy it. But a single head press from anyone else costs you hundreds and hundreds of dollars a year, every year forever! No wonder so many people in this industry complain that they can’t make it a full time job and living. OK you might want the benefits of your full time job, but would you rather enjoy life more and work less? Ask someone like Trump or Bill Gates or better still your boss, manager or best friend who is driving a BMW that same question?
Having said all that, above is my reason for marketing the iDek heat press. If I can help prevent another small business from going under, or going dormant, if I can help one other person take a big step closer to profitability, then I have done my job.
Sincerely,
Robert
P.S. Take a look on the web and see if you can ever find an iDek heat press on eBay? (I am willing to bet that) IF you ever do find one, there are 150 other brands out there for every iDek. People who are making money typically own the best equipment. Because of it they can afford to buy more of the best equipment and they consistently outperform their competitors! Where do you want to be in life, in business, in profit? It all begins with making sure that the first step IS the right step!
