What to look for in a embroidery digitizing company.

The most common question we receive is what to look for in a digitizing company. There are many company to choose from with various prices and abilities. The first thing I would ask is what are you looking for? Are you a large scale embroidery business? Are you a small business? How many designs do you need digitized each month?

For the sake of this article we will assume you run a medium size business who needs about 50 designs digitized each month. So what do we look for in a digitizing company?

First would be the background of the company. We are looking for a company who has been in business for a while. Now this does not mean a new company cannot satisfy you, but it is easier to go with an establish company.

Next we will look at turn around time. Prices are important, but if you can get the cheapest prices in the world and can't deliver on time you will go nowhere in this business. So we need a company that turn things around in a reasonable time frame. The average time frame for digitizing is 1-2 days. There are many companies out there that offer much faster turn around. So this will be a toss up between price, quality and turn around time.

Price is once again important, but I feel the next most important item is quality. The quality of the designs is what sells the customer. Yes a low price fast turn around is nice, but if you can't please the client your not going to last long in this business. This is where an established company is important. You want a company that has major experience with the actual sew out of the design. Only when they understand the machine in which it will be embroidered can they provide top quality.

I hope this will help people understand that price is not everything. The most important thing in most business is return customers. If the quality of your digitizing is good you will get people coming back even if your prices are a bit higher then your competition. Furthermore I would ask any company for a few "sample" designs. As long as these are a low stitch count you shouldn't run into many problems with being provided a few samples to determine quality.