Welcome back to Part Two of the Post-Coronavirus Print Economy series. 

We know the changes — to the world and to the economy — will be a hard pill to swallow, but we’re confident that the businesses in our industry will rise to the challenge. 

It’s not about striving to get our old “normal” back. It’s about taking these new circumstances, and taking our changed world, and adapting as best we can. 

In order to help with that adaptation process, we’ve made a list of suggestions and opportunities to help you get started. Today we’ll cover ideas like servicing smaller runs and betting on e-commerce — and we hope that, by the end of this article, you’ll feel a little more inspired about your growth potential.

Accommodate Short Runs and Smaller Budgets

With record layoffs and furloughs, most businesses and organizations will function for a while with smaller staffs and fewer members. The translation? They’re working with smaller operating budgets. They’re also going to ask for  smaller minimum order quantities of decorated apparel and promo products. 

Our recommendation? Smart decorator partners should figure out how to service smaller runs, as companies and groups recover from the massive economic slowdown sparked by the coronavirus.

Don’t Miss Out on Your Opportunities

While you’ll no doubt still fulfill larger orders, it’s important to accommodate companies as they get back on solid ground. Here are three ways to do that:

  1. Present product options in varying price points via InkSoft Proposals so your customer understands you can work with any budget.
  2. Actively advertise your ability to deliver on smaller order quantities.
  3. Align your short-run production and fulfillment to execute on these smaller orders (using InkSoft Jobs for optimal workflow). To make this happen, you might need to invest in direct-to-garment technology or find wholesale contract decorators who can help you meet this demand. 

That Big Boom You Just Heard? It’s E-commerce

While we knew e-commerce sales would jump, the numbers might surprise you. Listrak reported that online sales jumped by 40% since President Trump declared a national state of emergency on March 13.

The uptick started in February, with e-commerce sales surging by 108% year-over-year, according to Quantum Metric. However, the average order value decreased by 31%, indicating that shoppers are impulse buying or purchasing just what they need.


If your shop doesn’t have an easy-to-use e-commerce site, now’s the time to set one up.

If you’re not reaching out to your clients to set up their online stores or beef up their current setup, you need to do it. Today.

Don’t Miss Out on Your Opportunities

It’s easy to get an e-commerce store up and running within a few hours. 

Inksoft Stores is an all-in-one e-commerce solution that makes it easy for customers to order customized apparel and other products from your shop.

Here’s a short list of some of the ways an InkSoft Store can streamline your operations:

  • Allow customers to order online, with convenient self-service and online payment options
  • Fulfill orders quickly on your end when you receive complete order details
  • Give your customers fast, accurate online quotes 
  • Eliminate time-consuming back-and-forths with online art and order approval.

The Bottom Line

We get it — being forced to change operations that were working fine before is one massive grievance. 

But once you get past that annoyance and that frustration, and you start to look — really look — at the opportunities for growth available to you, we think you’ll find what we’ve found.

That “working fine” isn’t what we should be aiming for.

We should always be on the lookout for new ways to improve, for new technologies to take on, and for new capabilities to educate ourselves about. At the end of the day, we don’t want to only add an adequate amount of value to our customers’ projects and lives — we want to add as much value as possible.

So whether you take on ideas like servicing smaller runs and working with smaller budgets or you lean more heavily into e-commerce, remember this: change brings growth. 

And we at InkSoft can’t wait to see how your business takes these circumstances and grows.