Here at eTrader, we understand the garment decoration industry. We simply just get it. 

Creating an online site for your business is often a complex process full of perils, stresses, with numerous advantages and disadvantages continuously being weighed up.

The costs are enormous, the time it takes to develop is astronomical and you often wonder where you will find the time to undertake such a huge project. The garment decorating/printing sector is more challenged than most. We rarely have time for lunch yet alone develop a fully functioning e-commerce system and visually pleasing website for our customers!

The key to success is doing it right, you don't need to throw valuable money at web designers and create over purposed sites which most of your customers won't resonate with, and the key is making your businesses webpage fit for purpose. eTrader understands you and your business, what you want to do and where you want to go. After all, the direction you are looking to take your business on its online journey is crucial for your printing/embroidery businesses future success.

We have met many business owners over the years, nonchalant and blasé  who often suggest they will just throw money at going online and the results will follow (needless to say it hasn't panned out this way). 

Then there is the polar opposite, the other end of the spectrum. The everyday garment decorator, printer and embroiderer. The small business with limited online resources and limited cash flow to develop their online site. The majority of businesses in the sector are like this in nature, small, diminutive but hard working & honest. These businesses often utilise free resources available to them. The vast majority often use free website providers, with WordPress with its e-commerce plugins proving hugely popular.

This isn't the worst ploy in the world, a cost effective measure in a tight economic climate. But there are drawbacks; there is no sense of ownership using free software. Limited controls, set parameters restricting what you can/cannot do with your website, all culminating in undermining your businesses online image and professionalism as your website looks 'home made' and slightly lesser in appearance than your nearest competitors. All in all not ideal or fit for purpose.

This widening gap between the business owners looking to spend huge amounts and the low end cost effective small businesses has led to the development and creation of the eTrader. The eTrader system ultimately fills the service gap, which is why our product is thriving within the UK.

We quickly realised that the complexity and diverse range of products in the garment decoration industry did not translate easily into the world of online shopping. This was largely due to the bespoke nature of printing or embroidering a garment/product and indeed the vast array of products available from 100’s of brands, styles, sizes, shapes, positions, stitch counts and colours. 

Our e-commerce platform is available to print and embroidery companies all over the UK. We continuously work with a specialist team of web designers & garment decorators to discover what is required for businesses in this sector to succeed. 

eTrader offers all of our valued customers ultimate flexibility and control at a very low price in comparison to other service providers offering similar packages. Our system develops a fully personalised website with a full e-commerce system in place. The website knows no bounds, the customer has full control of the administration side of things covering areas such as customising brands & categories, 'Marking Up' products and pricing structures. The customer also controls the creative aspect of the businesses page. Our web page layouts are fully customisable & SEO friendly, working alongside our fully customisable content creator and adjustable banners giving businesses an array of marketing tools for their homepage to stand out from the competition. 

Customers often say the biggest advantage of using our product is significantly saving time and importantly cost, the websites are live and running within weeks and the costs are significantly reduced compared to web developers. We fully understand the industry; and its customers. We listen to our customers, we know what they want and we provide it to them at a reasonable price. And as for the results, we often let them speak for themselves....

What is Responsive Design?

Simply, when a website is responsive the website is adaptable across various platforms– based on the size of the screen viewing the website. A responsive website automatically changes to fit the device you’re viewing it on. Mobile Responsive Websites are aimed at all manner of sized displays – varying from small screen handheld devices to large widescreen monitors covering every other size in between.

Why Have Responsive Websites?

The need for garment decorators to deliver online is at an all-time high, the marketplace is intense and the competition is tough.

So garment decorators need to use any tool necessary to stay ahead of the fierce competition!

You want your customers to keep coming back; you want them to have the best experience possible through any means necessary. And this now includes your businesses website! Previously, businesses just create websites and the online platform will look after itself. However the continuous rise and development of tablet and mobile technology has meant viewing websites has become an ‘on the go’ experience – customers are not afraid to purchase using their phones and tablets anymore. The chances are your nearest competitor is not making use of responsive design, so why not make the most of this new development and stay ahead of the competition?!

What Does This Mean For Your Business?                             

We all understand Google & SEO are crucial for your businesses online performance. Google fully values responsive websites and the customer’s online experience. Google has recently not so subtly stated the desire for all websites to eventually go this way. It is much easier and much more efficient using responsive design from Google's SEO perspective - Google's bots find crawling websites, indexing and ranking pages much simpler using responsive design as it simple requires just one URL!

 The value for your decorating business is incredible – 24% of Google searches are now being performed on tablet and mobile devices and 26% of e-mails received are viewed on mobiles, with a further 11% on tablets. The development of handheld and compact technology has led to the fast tracking of mobile responsive design– it’s a new concept to web designers but customers from all sectors are already demanding it.

With the development of a responsive website, the sky is the limit! Decorators alike can rejoice – your business can now provide customers with quality online service wherever they are, whatever they’re doing 24/7, 365 days of the year.  The use of responsive sites can also generate greater leads; the multi-platform nature of the website furthers your reach to customers outside of your traditional audience!

Here are some of our favourite examples we have found from garment decorators around the UK. Try them out on different devices & see how they ‘Respond’ - giving you the best user experience possible!

Kustom Kits 

Kustom-Clothing

Axent Embroidery

 It’s a simple, but highly innovative concept. Mobile Responsive Design provides an all-round solution to your online services covering all your customers viewing devices. It’s beneficial for both your print business and your customers. Your customer gets the optimum online experience using your website and you simply provide them this using just one platform.

Using just one platform also allows you to reach wider audiences at a relatively low cost, but the greater benefits are in term of SEO – your campaign becomes much easier to manage.  Instead of managing each platform’s SEO, using responsive sites make managing a much simpler process – only one SEO campaign has to be managed instead of potentially having to manage several. Saving your business both valuable time & money!

 The customer experience is vital for any business but more so in the print & decorating business - retention is critical (See last week’s blog for more on that). Mobile Responsive Design on your site is a simple but effective way of providing your key customers what they want, when they want and wherever they want!

In this weeks blog we have put together our top five ways we help print & embrodiery businesses with their websites.

We provide garment decorators the most comprehensive website for their business providing them a proven sales tool for their business. In no particular order here are five ways we help print & embroidery businesses succeed online:

We take the stress out of your hands and actually build your website for you. You need to focus your energy and effort on running your print & embroidery business and do not need to be wasting time building one yourself. 

Where our competitors offer a drop and drag website you build yourself we do the hard work and build for you. Save a considerable amount of effort & time and leave it to the web design company to actually build your website for you, we aren't just an off the shelf solution.

If for some reason you ever need to get in touch with us we are simply a phonecall or email away. We love to help customers with any queries they have and ensure we provide them quality, quick and reliable UK based customer support. 

You won't find us using a ticketing system or using a North American or Australian call centres!

We have 100s of brands available for customers to sell on their websites. Simply pick & choose what you would like on-site. You don't have to be tied in to any particular wholesaler or supplier, you sell exactly what you want to sell on your website.

Our easy to use online ordering makes winning business easy. Whether its creating a public/private shop for a repeat customer or using the easy to use four step process both your new and existing customers will find ordering quicker and simpler than ever before.

We don't stop once the website is built. Our team help you maximise your websites potential with in-store and online training in a number of areas including but not limited to SEO, PPC, Email Campaigns, In-Store Marketing, Blogging, Social Media and much more...

For more information on how eTrader Websites can help your print & embroidery business you can reach us on

029 2074 1663 or email info@etraderwebsites.co.uk

The rise of influencing personalities on Social Media otherwise known as ‘Influencers’ has led to the rise of Influencer Marketing.

Influencer Marketing has grown rapidly and involves big brands working alongside prominent Social Media personalities (mainly on Instagram and Youtube) to help promote their products and/or services with some huge brands paying millions per post.

You might be asking yourself, what does this have to do with the garment decoration industry?

Influencer Marketing is slowly filtering down into the high street and may soon be cluttering up your Social Media feeds, so it may be something your business needs to consider in the near future.

Twitter lists are one of the biggest hidden secrets in Social Media, an under-utilised tool to help gain followers and interact with potential new customers.

The challenge for businesses is the platform itself has over 330m users and over 500m tweets are sent per day through these accounts. Twitter lists allow you to cut through the cluttered news feeds and interact with accounts based on interests, keywords and topics (They also give you the chance to keep one eye on your competition!)

Simply click the three dots (…) next to an account name and click add or remove from list, this will give you the option to create a new list or add accounts to an existing one.

Ideal for garment decorators you can group up lists of potential customers by sector, existing customers, local schools and many other target customers. Engage with these lists on a regular basis instead of using a slapdash approach and using your general news feed.

Your businesses website is no different to your store appearance is everything. Customers will walk past a tired, messy and cluttered store with minimal or next to no interest. 

The same goes for your website!

Customers will click and shop around looking for the simplest user experience possible. They do not want to be confused, overloaded with information or be faced with a difficult to use website. In Lehman terms they want to go online, order their printed t-shirts for an event, work or whatever the occasion may be and checkout. They are not as excited as most garment decorators by set up costs, stitch counts and number of colours within a print.

Strive for simplicity and provide your customer base an easy to use experience, shopping basket and make sure they do not need to search around when it comes to buying branded clothing.

In March Instagram introduced a brand-new checkout to their app. Consumers can now buy their favourite products without ever leaving the app, but what does this mean for the Social Media platform? And how could it possibly affect garment decorators?

But there is a catch, for now anyway…

Instragram checkout is only available for several leading global brands such as H&M, Mac, Nike and a few others. But this is seen as the next step in the Instagram strategy, turning influencers and social engagement into sales.

It works by simply attaching a checkout button to posts where customers click and simply fill in their details once and they will be saved for future purchases. This will likely be a popular tool with customers as its an all in one checkout, where your customer information remains secure and purchases can be completed without going to an external site.