On boards related to screenprinting and shirts and in discussions on Facebook I run into lots of people that shop around for the “best price.”

As one person said today,  $.10 on 50K shirts is a big deal. However, more often I see people going across the road for two cents on 100 shirts. Even ten cents on a hundred shirts, is that worth it? Shopping around with no loyalty has a cost as well. Loyalty is a two way street and what do you get for that ten dollars you “saved.”

Real tales of what loyal vendors have done for us or for our pals:

• Not shut down the supply of shirts when we got temporarily behind in payments and we could explain exactly why (and they could believe us…)
• Let us return 5000 shirts without restocking fee that we ordered wrong.
• Took back $350 worth of emulsion that had gone bad even though slightly out of date.
• Took a call at 10pm to help us fix our a machine in our darkroom.
• Had shirts ready in twenty minutes to replace shirts in a job we screwed up.
• Let us order shirts numerous times after shipping cut-off time.
• Let us return shirts we forgot about returning until after the time they clearly allow.
• Took responsibility for an ink defect that we never could have proved, and paid our customer from their insurance a large sum to accept defective shirts.
• Let us return printed shirts that were defective.
• Countless free samples because they know when we get a sample from them they get the order EVERY time.
• Extra sharp pricing on a tough quote and also for a preferred charity.
• Getting an important quote immediately.
• No hassle returns of any shirts just on our word because they trust us.

I could go on and on and on. What are these things worth?

And for the ten cents on 50K shirts? For your best supplier, give them a chance to match it or even just come close.