But we must remember that our customers’ lives are changing too and with them their demands and expectations as to how they can order bespoke clothing. This is particularly true for the young segment of consumers (16-40), which has a strong expectation to be able to order online and to be in charge of the creative process. It’s important to watch and cater for this group simply because it’s huge and will in most cases be the largest part of your business.

New technological advances in online retailing are now meeting these expectations, making it possible to sell bespoke clothing online and giving the customer full control of the creative process. Shops that have sold garments online, sometimes with stock designs, have been known for many years, but we’re now finally seeing online shops that sell garments and print/embroidery/labelling of the customer’s own design.

To be precise, it is now possible to have a site where the customer can order the garments, create or upload the graphics, have it all visualised and proofed online, “check out” and pay for the order.

It’s fitting to now finally have this technology since the typical garment decorator derives 70-100% of his or her revenue from orders that include decoration.

As these technologies mature and become commonplace it will drive a much larger proportion of customers online and generate bigger demand by being more accessible to customers.As bespoke garments become more and more common for sport and work, the market will grow and the largest part of this growth will be realised online.When the supporting technology is good enough online selling becomes the ideal channel because it puts full control and visualisation right in front of the customers.And it saves the garment decorator time and money because the customer has done a part of the work to begin with, and the order is readily available in a format that fits right into an automated workflow.

Some businesses are already moving online: the Tshirt companies that cater for hen and stag nights have been fast to move online already and close to 50% of orders are placed online.As technology such as RSK NetShirt becomes commonplace it will rapidly increase to 80-90%.The success in this sector clearly demonstrates that given the choice the young segment will choose online.

And in sportswear we are seeing large players moving online with new team wear offerings, but I expect shortly we’ll see a number of smaller companies going online with solutions that can easily surpass these big players. Because it’s purchased by companies of all shapes and sizes, I predict that the situation for promotional wear will remain for a long time that some buyers prefer online while others prefer off-line. But in the specific segment of very large buyers we will see a clear trend towards online because the online project management features will fit the users.

So it is clear that the companies that are now investing in online selling will benefit from it.The big question is to what extent it will affect the garment decoration industry as a whole.Will online and off-line co-exist happily side by side, or will there be a clear trend that online dominates?

Web: www.rsktech.com

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