Almost everyone has a smartphone. Since being intro-duced by Apple in January 2007, smartphones have become the fastest-selling gadgets in history and are constant companions to

young kids, teenagers, adults and even seniors wanting to check messages, play games, browse the internet, and take photos.

Similar to a car offering more than just transportation or a person’s eyewear pro-viding more than just clear vision, it’s no surprise that smartphones have become more than just portable personal computers—they’re also a reflection of each person’s style and personality. How can digital decorators use dye-sub transfer to turn smartphone popularity into profits? Two ways:

• Produce highly personalized, photo-quality products and accessories for your customers’ smartphones.

• Tap into the billions of photos being taken with smartphones to create unique full-color gifts for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays and holidays, or to simply make someone feel special.

Smartphones are a great platform for a person to express style and personality. (All images courtesy David Gross)

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B Y D AV I D G R O S S

Smartphones

ROAD TO SUBLIMATION SUCCESS

Profiting from Smartphones

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WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT SUBLIMATION?

•It’s a low cost form of decorating: Sublimation printers with a heat press start at about $1,200.

•It’s powerful: There are hundreds of sublimation-ready prod-ucts to choose from.

•It’s highly profitable: With the right sales and marketing plan, sublimation decorators can often pay for their system in a month or two.

•It’s what your customers want: Your customers are actually looking for ways to use their favorite photos.

With the right equipment and knowledge, sublimation decorat-ing is a simple process that can put a lot of cash in your pocket. Most blank substrates are inexpensive yet have high profit margins. What determines a product’s profitability? Three things:

•The blank substrate has a genuine function (i.e. coffee mug or phone case).

•Quality of the artwork (the better looking or more personal, the higher the value).

•The selling environment (is your target market a high-end gift boutique or a flea market).

Underpricing personalized products is perhaps the most com-mon mistake among digital decorators.

“People will

forget what

you said, peo-

ple will forget

what you did,

but people will

never forget

how you made

them feel.”

— MAYA ANGELOU

36 a-e-mag.com • A&E MID-JUNE 2016

WANT A CUSTOM SIZE,WOOD OR EDGE TYPE?

CONTACT US TO SEE WHAT WE CAN DO FOR YOU! 1.800.726.6753 • bigskywoodcrafters.com

sales@bigskywoodcrafters.com | Fax: 406.628.7915

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38 a-e-mag.com • A&E MID-JUNE 2016

Profiting from SMARTPHONES

Help customers showcase their

special moments via smartphone

cases using sublimation.

SOMETHING EXCITING

Newer smartphones pro-duce high-quality photos similar to those produced by point-and-shoot digital cam-eras. That’s easily enough reso-lution to produce smaller prod-ucts such as cell phone covers as well as a wide variety of other dye-sub products including jewelry, coffee mugs, keepsake boxes, desktop photo panels and more. Use individual photos or create unique treasures by combining photographs with themed design templates. You will look like a real pro while greatly increasing the value of the products.

HOW DO I GET THE PHOTOS FROM MY CUSTOMERS’ SMARTPHONES?

Make it easy for your customers to share their photos by having them email or text them to you.

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Customers can email or text images

directly to you

from their phones.

The only downside is that it may take a short while for the digital image to actually be de-livered to you. Another option for those with a fast-paced storefront or those that want to set up at a remote event is to use a kiosk (for example, the Condé Kiosk). Kiosks are an awesome way for customers to upload photos to you from any smartphone without using an app. (See sidebar on page 40)

WHAT TYPES OF PRODUCTS ARE AVAILABLE FOR SMARTPHONES?

Protective CoverIt’s almost as important as the device itself.

With styles for many iPhone and Samsung mod-els to choose from, you’ll be able to offer your customers high-quality phone covers that feature cherished photos and/or colorful designs. One of the most popular cover styles, the Brookley, offers a protective inner rubber bladder and outer hard plas-tic shell to help phones stay safe. The Brookley’s in-sert is attached after imaging and displays transferred images. Decorated smartphone cases can sell for as much as $40.

Certificate FramesPoster FramesAward Frames

Custom Sized Frames

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Framing for the Awards and Recognition Industry for over 30 years

For Advertising Inquiries, call:800-669-0424a-e-mag.com/advertise

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40 a-e-mag.com • A&E MID-JUNE 2016

Profiting from SMARTPHONES

F or many people today, their phone is also their camera. Today’s mo-bile devices have the capability to

take photos of high-enough quality to decorate a wide range of products for gifts and mementos. Thanks to technol-ogy, it’s not hard to add photo gifts to your existing website or even create a photo gift web store.

Software is available that allows any-one to upload a photo directly from a computer, tablet or phone to a website. Using an online designer, you can crop or edit the photo, recolor it, turn it to black and white, or reduce the number of colors. From there, you can add text such as a name or date, clip art, and different frames.

It’s a unique way to provide customers

with the ability to create designs that incorporate their own photos and pair them with a specific item for the ultimate in person-alization. From cell phone cases introducing a newborn to wed-ding coasters featuring the happy couple, the possibility for custom gifts is endless.

And with processes like subli-mation, individual/short runs are easily doable and cost-effective. Add to this that image resolution isn’t typically an issue because the photos being uploaded are originals, and they’re usually going on smaller image areas.

It’s a year-round market of family mile-stones and events as well as an oppor-tunity for adding on sales to core prod-

ucts. Sublimation suppliers are a great source of ideas on what types of gifts are trending, as well as product descriptions and photography.

Providing templates so customers can position their photo on an item and see what it will look like and give it context is a good sales and production tool.

MOBILE DEVICES MAKE OFFERING ONLINE PHOTO GIFTS A SNAPBY JP HUNT, INKSOFT FOUNDER AND PARTNER

IMA

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A&E

Device Stands These provide a personalized charging site for

smartphones, e-readers or tablets while also provid-ing a stylish way to view those devices upright on a desk, kitchen counter or nightstand. Even when emp-ty, these hardboard device stands look great. Device stands are easy to produce and are available in several sizes. Decorated stands can sell for $20 and up.

Repositionable Sublimation Sticker Material With SubliWrap, everything from charging blocks

to laptops can be decorated to make them stand out from the crowd and keep them from being taken or confused as someone else’s. SubliWrap is easy to cut, provides amazing image color, and features an adhe-sive backing that can be easily applied and removed many times over without air bubbles or leaving a sticky residue.

WHAT OTHER TYPES OF PRODUCTS ARE AVAILABLE USING SMARTPHONE TECHNOLOGY?

As mentioned earlier, there’s plenty of resolution available within most smartphone photos to produce a large variety of dye-sub products. The following

continued on page 64

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LASERS BEAUTIFULLY

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64 a-e-mag.com • A&E MID-JUNE 2016

make excellent sentimental gifts for anyone that wants to show off their spouse, chil-dren or pets:

• Personalized cuff bracelets • Bezel pendants • Charms • Dog tags • Ceramic and travel mugs (a coffee

mug will cost less than $2 to produce and generally sells for $20 or more)

• Keepsake boxes • Drink coasters • Keychains • Holiday ornaments • Tabletop photo panels

WHERE’S THE MONEY?Jesse James was once asked why he

robbed banks. He answered in complete astonishment, “Because that’s where the money’s at!”

•Sell your personalized products at a pet grooming shop by setting up an at-tractive display of products and having the pet grooming staff take the orders for you. Cut them some of the profits and everyone wins.

•Get a copy of your community calen-dar for a list of celebrations and events that will allow you to create products on-site.

•It’s easy to create a photo booth us-ing a smartphone, green screen with app, and a selection of awesome back-grounds.

WHAT’S NEXT?

I hope this article has been helpful to point you to just a few of the excellent op-portunities with sublimation decorating both for smartphones and using smart-phone technology.

David Gross is president of Condé Systems Inc. For the past 24 years, he has been devoted to advancing sublimation technology. He can be reached by

email at dgross@conde.com.

CHOOSING MATERIALWhen choosing which heat-applied

product to use, the bag’s material will deter-mine which one is needed. Heat sensitivity is a huge consideration as you don’t want the bag to melt in the heat press. There are low-temp heat transfers specifically for this purpose.

By choosing the right product for the job, you make sure the adhesive will stick to the fabric. Otherwise, you may find it falls off in the wash. If the bag has a coating, such as waterproofing, that also may require special handling. Some decorators use ac-etone to remove waterproofing in the print area on some nylons.

Whenever you use an unfamiliar bag for the first time, do a test print before produc-tion. It can also save time and frustration to steer customers into choosing bags you know work well with your heat-applied products.

How a bag is constructed also impacts production in terms of the graphic place-ment, application and the design itself. For example, the thermal linings often used in soft-sided coolers can melt during pressing.

If you’re personalizing a thermal-lined lunch bag, one workaround is to choose a style with an outside pocket to isolate the print area so the rest of the bag does not have to be subjected to heat.

You have to ensure your print area is flat. When there are pockets, seams or zippers, you will need to use a smaller platen, pad or pillow to ensure you have the needed pressure to get a good bond. About 90 per-cent of personalization is monograms or first names, and another consideration is making sure the name fits within the print-ing area.

Courtney Kubitza is a sales and business develop-ment manager for Stahls’. She has been educating customers on heat print-ing within the apparel

decorating industry since 2010. She can be reached at courtney.kubitza@stahls.com.

ers about the wonderful products you have available. Just like with your brick and mortar store, the amount of effort you put into marketing will determine your success with your e-commerce site.

A couple slight differences with e-com-merce are that you need keywords to help your customers find you. Keywords are the words and phrases that internet users type into a search box or search engine, such as Google or Etsy, to find what websites or stores match what they are looking for. To find good keywords, put yourself into the minds of your customer and brainstorm keywords they might use to find your product. Remember, your customers may be coming into the search without infor-mation or experience that you as the cre-ator of the products might have. Steer clear of industry terms that may not be famil-iar to your customers because they would never know to search for those terms.

A second difference is that instead of your customer coming into the brick and mortar store to gaze upon your wares and being able to pick up and touch the prod-ucts, they will rely solely upon the pictures and the descriptions you post to fill all that in. Be creative and take the time to do it well. You should have a good selection of products at multiple price points for your customers to select from.

DON’T DISMISS E-COMMERCE, TAKE A TEST DRIVE TODAY

There is a big wide web world out there, full of potential customers all over the country and for that matter, the world. Don’t dismiss that potential because you are scared. Take a test drive on Etsy today and take a look at all the tools that they have to help you be successful.

Kevin Lumberg is a Sub-limation Sales Specialist at Johnson Plastics. For further information, Kevin can be reached at 800-869-7800 ext. 5737 or

by email at kevinl@johnsonplastics.com.

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Profiting from SMARTPHONES

Personalizing BAGS

An Introduction to E-COMMERCE

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