Sportswear is a popular revenue generator for many print shops, but for Compound Sportswear, finding a niche within that category has been a big part of its success. The company’s roots date to 2011, when owners Stephanie and Cliff Fretwell participated in a grassroots campaign to reinstate wrestling as an official Olympic sport.
They found success selling “Save Olympic Wrestling” T-shirts worldwide to raise funds and awareness around the sport. This effort helped build Compound Sportswear’s name within the wrestling community and started a chain of events that eventually led to a bustling team gear business with a trusted name in team wrestling.
Moving to a Full-Time Business
Along with their deep-rooted interest in wrestling, the Fretwells also noticed a significant gap in the offerings that wrestling club owners faced at the time. Most coaches needed more options for good-quality apparel, design, and customer service. To meet this need, Cliff started a team wear design and manufacturing company as part of Compound Sportswear to serve this market and offer club owners better-quality wrestling apparel.
Cliff leaned into his expertise from working in design at an ad agency to help drum up new looks for the uniforms that broke with old, outdated styles and gave the apparel more character. This approach gave Compound Sportswear a competitive advantage against most generic blank apparel providers and helped continue to grow the company’s name.
Since then, the company has grown immensely, with a substantial lineup of printing equipment from manufacturers like ROQ, SAATI, and Spyder and a multi-talented staff that handles artwork, production, and online stores.
The equipment line has grown in relation to Compound Sportswear’s various services, including screen printing, sublimation, direct-to-film, and embroidery.
Regarding team apparel, the business now covers everything from baseball and softball to soccer and performance fishing.
Adding Printavo for Production
The company recently implemented Printavo and InkSoft to improve its operations and manage customer orders. Before signing up, the business used various software, including Google Calendar, OrderMyGear, and Shopify. However, since none of these programs were fully integrated, it caused some disconnected workflows and difficulty transferring customer order information from sales to production.
“With Printavo, the communication from the front end to the back end is a lot smoother in all departments,” says Megan Gower, project manager.
This improvement is vital for Compound Sportswear since the team wrestling season kicks off in September. It’s a relatively short season but makes up about two-thirds of the company’s business, so having the right tools and a cross-trained team is crucial to making the most of that busy season.
For production, adding Printavo production management has also helped ensure the shop is ready to go when the team orders start rolling in.
“The odds of orders getting missed now are a lot less,” says Cameron Fretwell, production manager. “With Printavo, I can set expectations on jobs with the Power Scheduler in terms of how long it’s going to take to print, and I can get back time where time I may have lost before. Plus, putting an iPad+ on my press and looking at everything I have to do for the day is extremely important for me and the press operators.”
Megan adds that as Compound heads into that busy season, their current setup will equip the existing team with the necessary resources to succeed.
“In the past, we would have to hire more people for the busy season and get them trained really fast,” she says. “Now, we’ll be able to manage a lot more orders with our current staff.”
Using InkSoft Stores
While the business is still relatively new to InkSoft Stores, they’ve started using them to tap into the market and let wrestling teams know it’s another outlet they can use to promote their athletes. Cliff says the business launched a set of online stores and signature shirts for several student-athletes who made the international wrestling finals this year, leaning into the Name-Image-Likeness opportunity.
“Those online stores have exploded over the last two weeks, so that’s exciting,” says Cliff.
Part of what Compound aims to do is help these athletes build a long-term strategy if they’re interested in selling merchandise. Teaching them how to market themselves, he adds, is the goal.
The business is also exploring additional ways to combine its existing offerings with the power of tools like InkSoft Stores, such as print-on-demand storefronts with DTF-printed goods.
Continued Manufacturing
Implementing Printavo has enhanced Compound Sportswear’s on-site services and helped the business refine its manufacturing branch.
“Having the data for in-house and out-of-house production to talk to each other is important to us not just from a projection standpoint but also from a logistics standpoint for third-party manufacturing and embroidery,” says Cliff.
Streamlining all of Compound Sportswear’s operations also helps keep them nimble as the wrestling market becomes more competitive. They can build and print orders faster and offer customers high-quality options like custom embroidered singlets.
Looking Ahead
Part of staying competitive also means the team at Compound continues to do market research on apparel, design, and style in places outside the wrestling world. The team keeps up with broader trends, such as fashion and design, as part of their research.
While those looks and trends don’t always translate directly to the sport, Cliff says it helps keep the company in tune with what’s big in custom-branded merch and always offers something different from what other printers might carry.
With new tools in place, the team says they’re excited for the upcoming busy season and will use online stores and production management to make it a strong couple of months. While the business has grown and evolved immensely from the early days of selling a “Save Wrestling” shirt for a DIY campaign, Cliff says part of the inspiration comes back to seeing Compound Sportswear’s name out in the wild.
“Just to show up to an event and see our logo is still cool to me,” he says.
That real-world recognition, he says, helps inspire the business to keep striving to create functional, customized gear that wrestling athletes wear with pride.
For more information, visit www.cmpsportswear.com.
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