With the holidays coming, many of us will face our busiest time of the year: the hustle and bustle of holiday orders, deadlines and the frenzy of people trying to decide what they'd like to have on their holiday items. 

It seems that many companies are spreading themselves too thin these days with expanding their product line offerings. Screen printers are adding embroidery. Embroiderers are adding digital printing and the overall industry buzz is multimedia.

Pricing is a subject that often intrigues me. As I listen to everyone’s pricing formula’s across the globe, the formulas astound me. I've heard everything from, "I set my prices 50 cents lower than my competition"; "I double the price of the garment and then add $2 for decoration"; "I throw in this service or that service at no charge because I don’t have any expense associated with that service," etc.

I'm often engaged in conversations about digitizing pricing. I never criticize someone else's business model, as a business model is unique to the business that created it. What works for one company may or may not work for another. It doesn't matter if someone charges by the stitch, by the design or by the hour. What should be a concern is the quality and value that you receive in exchange for the price paid for the digitizing.

Having been in the decorated apparel industry for 21 years has been an incredible journey. However, sometimes it's easy to de-value what we do on a daily basis.  On several occasions we've needed gifts for weddings, anniversaries, etc., and would go to various retail stores and look for an appropriate gift. Sometimes, a gift would be very easy to find and other times we felt as though we'll never find that perfect gift.