Surprisingly, in the last decade, there has been a sudden increase in embroidered hats and other merchandise. Regardless of what your personal aesthetic may be, there’s no denying that hats are one of the most popular go-to accessories. That’s why from a business standpoint, following the rising demand and creating custom embroidered hats can be a smart decision to make.
That said, most businesses come with their own set of risks and it can be challenging to keep track of logistics, warehousing, and your profit margin. Besides this, there are elements, like creating your designs, deciding on your merchandise mix, and, most importantly, where to source your merchandise.
To help make things as straightforward as possible, we’ve come up with a comprehensive guide for how to create, buy, and sell custom embroidered hats. While doing retail can often be complex and exhausting, it does not have to be! We’ll cover everything you need to know to keep the process as manageable as possible.
What Is a Custom Embroidered Hat?
A custom embroidered hat can be any hat provided it has some degree of embroidery. For the most part, custom hats can include a variety of different designs; however, these days floral patterns are quite popular.
Besides floral patterns, embroidered hats can include typography, animals, logos, emblems, and various other patterns. Other customization options for hats include heat transfer vinyl and patches.
Generally speaking, however, embroidered hats are the most popular due to sports, college, and even corporate merchandise. When it comes to the retail world, almost all major fashion brands sell their own embroidered hats.
How to Buy Custom Embroidered Hats
Research
Before making any financial commitments, it's important that you decide what kind of embroidered hats you feel inclined to make. One move to make would be to check various media avenues both offline and online.
Online, Google Trends and Pinterest, as well as, social media sites, like Instagram and Twitter are great options. Keeping track of online trends can help you better understand the kinds of products in demand, the demographic, and the most common designs. When it comes to offline research looking at magazines, as well as, merchandise in popular stores is a smart move.
Customize
When it comes to customizing your designs, you can either find a designer to help you with the process or create it by yourself. For those with a budget, finding a suitable designer, especially if you have a specific design in mind can save you time and produce a design that is aesthetically appealing.
That said, if you're looking for a more affordable route, there are several software and websites available for free that allow you to customize accessories and clothes.
When customizing your hat it's a good idea to keep in mind your brand colors and find a valid color scheme that corresponds to them. If you're looking to just create a fashionable hat based on current trends looking at color schemes helps you understand what design works best.
If you're looking to cover a majority of demographics, picking colors like white and black for your base is smart as neutral colors can go with most outfits and various different aesthetics.
Source Your Hats
Once you're done with creating your design, it comes down to one of the most crucial aspects of the process of selling hats: sourcing your hats from a reliable supplier.
When finding a reliable supplier and sourcing your hats, you should keep in mind how much time and effort you're willing to invest.
If you have a reasonable amount of time, finding a supplier offshore can be quite cost-effective. However, it's important to keep in mind that you may need to set processes for logistics and quality assurance, which can be both costly and time-consuming if you're operating on a small scale.
For users looking to open stores to start selling products on a small scale first, working with third-party sites and wholesalers operating domestically can save you both money and a lot of stress.
Finally, when placing the order, having a fair idea of your budget and the minimal demand for the product is vital. For users new to the world of retail, starting small can save you money.
How to Sell Custom Embroidered Hats
There are so many ways to sell a product, but you should primarily have a fair idea of who you're planning on selling it to.
Before you start selling, however, it's important that you settle on a price that covers purchase and overhead costs. For anyone new to it, absorption costing or marginal costing are effective ways to ensure that in the worst-case scenario you at least break even.
Decide on a Sales Platform
To make sure your sales are targeted to the right demographic, deciding on the right sales platform is vital.
With this, looking at platforms like our Print-on-Demand Store can save you money when it comes to inventory management and capital invested. What print-on-demand stores do is allow you to create custom merchandise and place orders as required. This means your business's orders are placed as and when a consumer places an order on your site. This nullifies the need for you to maintain an inventory and items get printed as soon as the order is placed. Customer service and order tracking is also provided so it’s a no-brainer for especially up and coming business.
Besides this, these days creating your own website through Wix is both affordable and straightforward when it comes to setting up payment gateways and also cutting back on expensive development and design costs that come along with creating websites.
Besides creating your own website, moving to third-party sales sites, like Amazon, Shopify, or eBay can help you cut back a bit on developing your own website. However, creating your own website does have its benefits in the long run.
Advertise
Settling on an advertisement strategy and deciding on advertising costs is crucial to your business venture being profitable. Google Ads and display ads on social media platforms, like Instagram and Facebook, are pivotal to determining your business' overall success.
If you're advertising on Amazon, Amazon ads can be quite affordable in comparison to bidding on Google Adwords. If you're new to everything, getting help from a digital marketing agency is an effective way to start out.
Besides this, finding more organic means through innovative social media posts and marketing through influencers are also valid routes to take.
Key Takeaways for Business Models with Custom Embroidered Hats
Starting a new business venture is a challenging and sometimes scary experience, but that's why it's very important that you keep your business processes simple and focus on your marketing strategies to improve sales.
Keeping your business processes simple can be done by sourcing your merchandise from an affordable third party. Also, settling on a concise merchandise mix to reduce the money you spend can be directed towards effective marketing.
While selling online is an intensive topic, we hope that we helped make things easier for you by highlighting some key areas for you to focus on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are custom embroidered hats popular?
Yes! Custom embroidered hats are one of the most common hats when it comes to creating merchandise for sports teams, colleges, and companies.
Can selling custom embroidered hats online be profitable?
Yes! Provided that you make sure you have reasonable profit margins and that your overhead costs are covered through effective pricing, you can ensure that you at least break even. As far as profitability is concerned, it's relatively straightforward, provided you direct your marketing channels to the right demographics and on the right platforms.