The CEO Creative vs. Shirtsy  

– Two Apparel Vendors, Compared Honestly

Decoration, Priced By Print Size — And What That Does To Your Reorder

If you are costing a run, the line item is the print size. Not the garment, and not the order.

The Transfer Ladder, With The Real Numbers

Our DTF shelf is priced by print size, and the ladder is published on the products themselves: a 4 inch pocket print at $0.99, a 6 inch infant at $1.99, a 7 inch toddler at $2.99, a 9 inch youth at $3.99, a 10.75 inch adult at $4.99 and an 11.75 inch adult large at $5.99. Bought as sets the same ladder runs $1.99, $3.99, $5.99, $7.99, $9.99 and $11.99. There are 151 published transfer designs at a $3.99 median. Sizing the print is therefore the first costing decision, and it is the one that moves the total most.

Transfers You Press, Or Garments We Decorate

These are two different purchases and they behave differently on an invoice. A box of transfers is stock you hold and apply yourself: low per unit, no size commitment, and the artwork stays reusable across whatever blanks you already own. A decorated garment arrives finished, which is what a client order or a staff rollout needs. Our customisable line is 122 published products, of which 44 are custom apparel at a $33.99 median, 26 are embroidered at $39.95 and 24 are engraved at $25.99. Most buyers end up running both, and the split usually follows whether they own a heat press.

A First $60 Order, Costed Both Ways

As transfers: twelve adult 10.75 inch prints at $4.99 is $59.88, so thirteen crosses the line. One design, one press session, thirteen shirts you already have on the shelf. As finished goods: two customisable Bella + Canvas jersey tees at $29.99 is $59.98, or a single embroidered Gildan Heavy Blend hoodie at $69.99 clears it on its own. Both routes reach the $60 that generates a reported tradeline. They commit you to very different quantities of inventory, which is the decision the price alone hides.

The Reorder Is Where Consistency Is Won Or Lost

Four to six weeks later the second order has to match the first, and three things decide whether it does: the same blank, the same print size and the same print colour. Our print colour attribute is stocked in black and white, so a design built around a third colour needs that settled before anything is signed off. Blanks matter more than people expect. A Gildan Softstyle and a Comfort Colors garment-dyed heavyweight take identical artwork very differently, and switching between them mid-programme is the most common reason a reorder comes back looking wrong.

Sizing A Run You Intend To Sell, Not Issue

Buying to resell is a different sizing problem from buying to dress a known team, and it is the one a per-order habit never had to solve. Nobody hands you a list; you are guessing a distribution and eating whatever is left. The stocked catalogue gives you the shape to guess against — the middle of the range is where the depth is, at 509 products in S, 506 in M, 505 in L and 510 in XL, and it falls away above that to 148 in 4XL and 115 in 5XL. Two things follow. Weight the run toward the middle and treat the top of the range as made-to-request rather than held stock, and if you are also selling to families, remember the youth line is a separate 67 products across 21 tees, 21 hoodies and 22 long sleeves rather than an extension of the adult sizes. Leftover stock in a size you guessed wrong is the cost that does not show up in the per-unit price.

Held Stock Against Made To Order, In Cash Terms

This is the part that changes most when you move from per-order fulfilment to a trade account, and it is worth being blunt about. Made-to-order means the money leaves as each item is made, so cash out and cash in stay roughly in step and you never hold anything. Held stock inverts it: the goods arrive first, the money leaves later, and whatever you have not sold is sitting on a shelf. Net terms exist for exactly that gap. Thirteen adult transfers at $4.99 is $64.87, and the balance is due 30 days from the invoice date, which is raised when the order ships — so in practice the run has four weeks to sell before it has to be paid for. That is the whole mechanical advantage, and it only helps if your sell-through actually fits inside the window. If it does not, order smaller and more often rather than larger and once.

Seasonality, And Why Apparel Alone Goes Quiet

Apparel demand is not spread evenly across a year, and the gaps show up in a reporting pattern as months with nothing in them. The same account covers drinkware at 273 products, office supplies at 441 and business card printing from $84.95, all on one credit line of up to $5,500 assessed against your EIN with no personal guarantee. A modest drinkware order in a quiet month keeps the invoice arriving without anyone pretending the business needed more shirts, and each one is submitted monthly to Equifax Business, Creditsafe and FairFigure.