It’s time to revisit a topic I first raised ten years ago. Zazzle was fairly new and threatening to shake up the textile screen printing industry with its online service. Zazzle has clearly grown since those earlier days but as far as I can see, the impact of this type of concept on the traditional Canadian textile screen printing industry has been minimal.
So once again, as we did ten years ago, click on the link below and watch the presentation. But before you do that, keep in mind a few questions as you watch it . . .
- Is this a totally brilliant concept?
- If it is not totally brilliant, does this concept at least have some merit?
- Is it fine in theory but a whole different thing in practice?
- Have they made it sound simple by overlooking some obvious hassles in dealing with customers who don’t always know what they want?
- Can I use any of it to perhaps modify the way that I do business?
- Obviously there will have to be an investment in software if I were to provide my customers with such an online facility. How much would that be and would it be worth it?
- How would my customers respond to a concept like this?
- Does textile screen printing in Canada work just fine in the current conventional way or does something like this concept threaten to turn it on its head?
Here is the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2Z0ENFJBZg
So, what do you think?
This is what I thought back then . . . All new concepts and ideas should be considered because that is how we progress as a business, an industry and a society. But, a good dose of skepticism doesn’t do any harm in today’s world where sometimes things are presented as great ideas but are found to not work as expected in practice. It would be really useful to see some hard numbers or at least have some indication of how successful the concept has been. They may have sold a zillion shirts this way or they may not have sold one. So, some old advice – look before you leap.