off-season. Between roster building, conditioning, and getting your players ready you also need to have your uniforms look official while avoiding breaking the bank. Fortunately, running an apparel sale for your youth baseball team has come a long way in a very short amount of time.
Old School
In the good old days, to run a sale you had to leave your house, go into town, and find a local screen-printing shop. Once you got there you could use their computer system to design your baseball logo or graphic. You had to pay up-front for your order (that required a 24 piece minimum per/design), wait a few weeks for it to be produced, pick up the gear, and finally distribute it to the team members. When you are a youth or high school baseball coach your time is very valuable and this process was cumbersome. Then along came the Internet…
New School
With the advent of home computers and the Internet, online shopping has become a huge business. Shopping behaviors are changing, as consumers are becoming more demanding of instant results. Websites have sprung up that allow you to use their design software online so you can now design custom baseball clothes right from your living room chair. What used to take hours could be done in less than one, and your gear could be sent straight to your door in only a week or two. While this advancement solved “where” you could purchase your gear, the issue of “how many & what sizes” was still a challenge to organizations. If you have run an apparel sale before, you probably understand that most of the profits from the sale wound up in a full box of products that you were not able to sell. Then along came print-on-demand…
New technology in decorating equipment is further changing the game and look of baseball uniforms. Where setup used to play a major role in the cost to produce a custom garment, new equipment has eliminated the time it takes to setup the job which has enabled efficient production of one-off custom orders. Why is this important? The Internet + new equipment = a new way for organization to sell in your custom apparel shop. Now you will have more time for fielding ground balls and warming up your pitchers for long lasting innings. A few e-commerce sites like mylocker.net now offer a solution that let’s baseball teams and coaches run a sale where they do not have to purchase anything. They create an online shop for your organization, you promote it to your fans, and your fans visit the online shop and purchase what they want. Inventory, cash management, volunteer time, and up-front cash commitments are no longer required. Your baseball team earns money because there is no inventory that eats up the profits. You can sell apparel to parents, fans, and students without buying it now.
What’s next? A drone that drops off your order at your doorstep so you don’t have to wait for the UPS truck to deliver it? Knock it out of the park with your own unique youth baseball apparel shop!
Joel Samonie
MyLocker.net
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