Even the word embroidery itself conjures up romantic images from the past; images of the Bayeux Tapestry, Knights Templar, the Round Table and Merlin the Master Magician with a whiff of sworn allegiances, curses, spells and alchemy thrown in to complete the picture.

But back to the real world and the challenges of today.

As anyone worth his weight in gold lamé hand-embroidered chain stitch will tell you, in the embroidery business quoting on and getting a new embroidery order from a new prospective customer with whom you have no track record, and next to no information on their actual requirements, can be just about as difficult as finding a taxi in London at ten to nine in the morning right before the schools go in.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that Einstein came up with the theory of relativity in less time than it takes to work out the cost of embroidering a miniature Red Admiral on a lady's handkerchief - and Einstein managed to do his bit without even breaking into a sweat. Even Sir Isaac Newton got off pretty lightly in his moment of enlightenment when a short sharp knock on the cranium with a Cox's Pippin jolted him into the realisation that things fall down when you cut the string.

In the bad old days you could end up spending hours on the phone trying to figure out what on earth your customer actually wanted, where they wanted it positioned, what size it should be, what colours should be used, and most importantly how much it would cost to produce.

All the while you had to have eyes in the back of your head to make sure you had everything covered, second guessing your customer and trying to figure out how much room for manoeuvre they had on price and how long they would be prepared to wait for a quote, if at all.

And as the seconds ticked away you were haunted by the fear that if you could not come up with a firm price there and then you might be providing an opening for a competitor to slip in and steal the job from under your nose.

And even after agreeing a price, without having had time to obtain an accurate stitch count estimate from a professional, you might still have to produce samples with no guarantee of closing the deal. Obviously a lot of guesswork was involved every step of the way and the danger of undercharging and making a loss on the order or overcharging and not getting the business was enormous.

But it's really not rocket science, and it really does not have to be that stressful.

RSK NetShirt's new Online Embroidery Designer has changed all that and now it couldn't be easier.

RSK NetShirt can simply be plugged into your existing website or delivered as a complete solution including website. Once you have uploaded your catalogue to the software you simply pre-load the artwork library with your embroidery designs and associated embroidery-ready files.

They're fixed size, you know the stitch count and you know exactly how much they cost to produce. Not only that, they are displayed on the designer in fully-rendered 3D embroidered format.

The software also comes with a range of embroidery fonts in different sizes which once again come with their own embroidery-ready files and, just like the artwork, are displayed on the designer in fully-rendered 3D embroidered format.

And last but not least we have added the crucial missing piece to the jigsaw puzzle in the shape of an auto-digitiser based on Pulse Microsystems' StitchPort technology.

This state-of-the art piece of software allows the end user to upload their own bitmap images from their laptop or PC and have them automatically converted into embroidery format.

The auto-digitiser also features a background removal tool, re-sizer, aspect ratio control and a colour converter to adjust the number of colours used. The converted file can be edited or redone as many times as you wish.

And each time a change is made the final cost of the garment will be re-calculated in real time and displayed alongside the design window.

Crucially, from a production perspective, the software automatically calculates an extremely accurate stitch count, allowing you the shop owner to ensure you will be charging the right price for the job every single time.

Most importantly of all, you will not have spent precious time and money in lengthy discussion with your customer, even to the point of producing samples with no guarantee the order will materialise. With RSK NetShirt your customer has done all the work for you, and even paid up front to boot!

You can also download the source bitmap file and auto-digitised embroidery file directly from the shop admin system thereby streamlining the whole process even further.

For more information on the RSK Tech range of custom decoration designer solutions, call 0800 043 8518, email sales@rsktech.com or visit www.rsktech.com

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