I own a shirt shop in our town's tourist area that sells heat-transferred goods to people visiting the city. We offer a wide selection of transfers and do some nice business, but I feel like we are losing business because we don't stock many of the tacky touristy items offered by our competitors. What are some unique items we can stock that will help us capture more of the tourist trade?

To attract more customers, sell items that peak people's interest and gives them a reason to buy from you. Look through promotional products catalogs to identify things that are not being sold by your competitors. For example, there's a bottle and can holder called the Beverage Babe that is made of neoprene and comes with a curvaceous chest. I guarantee that if you purchased a quantity of these clever products, you will be selling them as fast as you can order them. Discovering new products like the Babe and acting quickly to be the first to offer them is the best way to increase overall sales at your shop.

I want to increase the profits on my sales of T-Shirts. Since I know that screen printing is highly competitive, how can I do this without losing my current customers to cheaper printers?

To make higher margins on anything, you must increase the perceived value of products that you sell and T-shirts are no exception. You do this by being known as a complete provider instead of just a printer. Do this by showing customers how the shirts they buy from you have other uses beyond being just commodity items. Here's how one promotional products distributor, who was tired of being beaten to death on pricing, started effectively selling T-shirts. He knew a local travel agency that was having a booth at a garden show and the owner wanted to increase booth traffic during the event. He sold her on the idea of buying 1000 T-shirts that would be given to the people coming into the show. He volunteered to stand in the lobby of the convention and help give out shirts to every attendee as they entered. The gimmick was that one of the shirts was imprinted slightly different from all the rest and the person who came to their booth wearing that shirt would receive a $1000 cash reward. Only the company's booth personnel knew what made the winning shirt different. The distributor was an instant hero with this project because 811 of the 1000 people who received shirts came by the booth. This was double the traffic the company had had at the previous year's show. In addition to the T-shirt sale, the distributor sold the company sticky notes imprinted with its logo and phone number that were given to the people wearing the shirts.

We are printing a large number of organic shirts and I'd like to tie other eco-friendly products to their sale. What are some items I can suggest to my customers that will compliment their earth-friendly endeavors?

One idea is to suggest that your customers deliver their shirts in post-recyclable totes. These bags are inexpensive ($2-$3 range) and are manufactured of 50% recycled materials. Everyone loves pens and you can now find ones whose barrels and mechanisms are made from 100% compostable/bio-degradable materials that become compost in 90 days. Knowing factual Information like this about the items you are selling will impress your clients and this will make them interested in placing more orders with you.

We embroider shirts for a swimming pool cleaning service and the owner wants me to provide him with a clever advertising idea. What is an item that he can present to his current customers that would enable him to get more referrals?

Pool service companies do receive a majority of new customers from referrals, so the item you need to suggest must be something that makes people want to recommend them to their friends. One great thing to suggest is a large imprinted beach ball. Since homeowners are usually not around when the cleanings take place, the ball is something that can be left floating in the pool after the service is complete. When the customer visits his pool again, he will see the ball in the pool and know that the company is grateful for his business. That starts the referral process going; and since a beach ball is something that the homeowner will probably never throw away, he will be constantly reminded about who provides his pool service

We print T-shirts and other wearables for several local bars in our beach town. One of the bars does an extremely good business, especially on weekends; and they want to add other imprinted items to their clothing offerings. Can you think of a couple of items that bar-going beach types would want to buy?

Think about items that bar patrons can wear or use in an outdoor environment, such as imprinted flip flops and sunglass leashes. There are several suppliers offering sandals that are printed on the soles and straps. One supplier even makes them into walking billboards by cutting logos into the bottom of the soles. When people stroll in the sand, they leave the logo of the business in their tracks. Imprinted sunglass leashes are most effective when logos are printed continuously around the product. They come in a variety of exciting colors, including neon. Beach bags, can holders, and water bottles are other great outdoor items that can be imprinted. The trick is for your customer to come up with some cool designs that you can have imprinted on desirable products.