Screen Printers Open - A Forum for Screen Printing and Embroidery

I just looked at the application from LRG usa. http://www.lrgusa.com/media/scms/lrg_application_07_20_10.pdf
I'm looking at the instate application right now.
Looks like a lot. I need to find an alternate source of income, I cannot afford to lose money.
What is the product liability insurance thing all about and how much do you think it'll run?

For the most part, they make all the money, you do all the work for nothing and assume all the liability. Not worth it in my book.

The first shop I worked was predominately a licensed small school print shop.  He does VERY well. 

We only printed stuff for university use.  I have never heard of LRG, as we used CLC when I was there, and then I used CLC for a year or so when I was doing stuff for a small university.  It's a big hassle, but those that say the money isnt worth the hassle aren't doing it right.  It can be VERY profitable if you can get your foot in the door.  The small schools that arent in the big city are the ones to go after.

The product liability insurance will vary but it can start around $1000 a year. It is all based off of your estimated total production. Start with a class D license. Pay the $300 app fee (gets you more than one school and not just in state) , the $80 annual license fee and $100 annual registration fee based on D class and then based on school the royalties approx 8-10%.

Figure that is roughly $1500 for license and insurance before royalties. So if you do 1500 shirts and figure $1 each into license plus the royalty if the shirt wholesales or retails for $20 it cost you $3 each to be able to print it. Not bad if you have a market to sell them. I would hope that if you were to venture into something like this you would be thinking way more than 1500 shirts but this low end licensed is good upto 5 mil $ in product.

Check CLC and you will see what the big boy schools get! The low end is $5000 for a single school in state license before royalties and they run anywhere from 8-20%.

We use to print for this guy that did black college football ...he would do like the Turkey bowls or rival game stuff etc.  I don't think the D3, D4 schools would be that much(licenseing fee) and you could still make pretty good money on the good ones witha fan base.

Darryl

Yeah, it used to be like that. It's kind of changed in recent years. All schools are getting "corporate" and it's a lot of hassle and red tape involved in the homecoming games especially. Not as fun or as free as it used to be.

Probably need to look more into it cause shop business is stagnant or up and down at best.

I had a great client that jumped through all the hoops for his local college team. The amount he spent including time and lawyers....and everything that went with it put him out of business. He was selling balloons though. There is not enough room for mark up with balloons. Maybe there is with apparel, I am not sure.
Matt

We are about 10 miles give or take from a Screenprint company that does Alabama, Auburn, Troy Trojans and a bunch of smaller colleges.  We help them out from time to time, but the artist there who I,m friends with shows me the pile of shit he goes Thur with designs pages of proofs just to only print a couple. They all so have to deal with contracts every so many year...bids from other printers wanting the biz.  They print a butt load of stuff but they all so pay a butt load to get it going.  I know I,m small so I stay in my own little pond every once in while I'll stick my fin in the big pond to see how it feels.  We had the chance a few years back to contract print for Russell and after the meeting was over I Knew we could not keep up with the volume they wanted (semi truck loads once a week) that meant we would work for Russell and no outside work...not we couldn't just would not have the time to.
Outdabox if you can get a middleman on the inside that might give you a leg up, and just contract print for them.

Darryl