Mastering efficiency and organization are key to growing a successful decorated apparel business, and River City Stitch is a shining example of this. Founded in 2007, the Midwest company has grown from a small, part-time operation to a bustling business with two locations, multiple presses, and a loyal customer base.
Since their start, owner Kim French and her team have built a reputation for high-quality printed products and graphic design and partnered with businesses regionally and locally.
The shop also implemented Printavo and GraphicsFlow, which have improved River City Stitch’s handling of artwork and production workflow.
From Humble Beginnings to Expansion
Kim says the business began around 2007 when she and her then-husband purchased a business in their native Prescott, Wisconsin.
“They had a four-head embroidery machine, a single head, and a heat press,” she says.
The duo opened a retail store with the equipment, offering exclusively embroidery and heat press decoration.
As business began gaining momentum, the couple contracted out screen printing to supplement more decoration jobs.
Between 2013 and 2014, the company brought on Amanda Hines as a graphic designer and eventually began screen printing in-house.
The uptick in order volume and services offered also meant River City Stitch needed new resources to stay on schedule.
Improving Production and Artwork Management
Kim says that moving into 2015, she recognized the need for better shop management tools.
“We needed a way to keep jobs organized versus just storing everything in my brain,” she notes. They adopted Printavo to manage production better, a significant step up from their prior process.
Since bringing on Printavo, the company has also expanded to two locations. A print shop management solution has helped the business scale and stay organized.
“The production calendar is our biggest asset,” Kim shares. “Since we have two locations, we can see exactly where jobs stand in the production pipeline without constant emails and texts.”
More recently, the team discovered an additional need for solutions to improve the art approval process.
Amanda explains that their original workflow involved sending emails between her, the customer, Kim, and other employees, creating a lengthy and sometimes confusing communication chain.
“We had a bottleneck, so when I saw GraphicsFlow was an Inkavo company, I realized it would be a great way for me to work with the customers directly,” she said. “Everyone at the business could view what’s going on, and we reduced holdups with customers reaching out to me directly through email.”
Before implementing GraphicsFlow, customer communication was often back-and-forth discussions of print job colors, item quantities, shirt types, and artwork change requests.
“With GraphicsFlow, I can make customer artwork changes instantly; I don’t have to wait for someone to email me,” Amanda explains.
Changing the Design Conversation
In addition to streamlining production and mockups, River City Stitch has used GraphicsFlow to streamline the design conversation with customers. With GraphicsFlow’s built-in library of design elements, the team can build customer designs quickly and professionally. Similarly, customers can submit design requests using those same elements through the Art Portal.
“We used to get terrible screenshots from CustomInk weekly,” Kim explains. “People would ask, ‘Can I get this shirt from you?’ it would be a poor design. We want to print better quality than that.”
With all the designs in the GraphicsFlow library being vector-based, River City Stitch can easily prep customer artwork for print production, whether embroidery, screen printing, or other methods.
Looking Ahead
With an established customer base, River City Stitch has continued to focus on marketing the business, growing its client list, and getting a clearer sense of order volume.
“Now that we have an automatic press, we can keep track of how many shirts we print much more easily,” says Kim. “Thanks to Printavo and GraphicsFlow, we have time to plan out marketing in ways we couldn’t before because we were so bogged down with emails.”
With two locations, the business is also now focused on expanding its capabilities with manual and automatic screen printing and a dryer that can handle the capacity of both screen printing machines.
For businesses considering Printavo and GraphicsFlow, Kim and Amanda have one message: “It’s super easy and user-friendly. We always see people asking about order and artwork management in Facebook groups, and we always recommend it. The structure and communication improvements have been invaluable to us.”
River City Stitch’s journey showcases how building a strong business and pairing it with the proper tools can transform a shop’s trajectory. By adopting GraphicsFlow and Printavo, they’ve optimized their workflow, improved communication, and positioned themselves for continued success in the custom apparel industry.
For more information, visit www.rivercitystitch.com.
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