Printwear and Promotion Live 2013- doors opened to the punters at 10am on Sunday February 24th. They were queuing up with their suitcases and bags ready to scavenge as many freebies as possible.  It was absolutely manic for the entire day, with a first day attendance of 2000 visitors. This is a 7 percent increase on Day 1 of last year’s exhibition. There were over a 120 stands with all of the industry’s leading garment brands such as Gildan, Fruit Of The Loom and Regatta. As well as the clothing brands showcasing their new products there was a huge machine presence at this year’s exhibition. Midwest’s Happy HCR-1508 8 Head Machine was opposite our stand which embroidered some very impressive complex designs over the course of the 3 days. 

GF took its usual position; just on in the left hand corner as you walk in. But this year our offerings were different! We had less space for our core products i.e badges, pennants, sashes and epaulettes. This was due to the fact we have a brand new exciting industry specific white label solution to promote; etrader- websites for garment decorators. And as if all of this wasn’t exciting enough we were also giving away free ice cream- complete with a chocolate flake. 

It was a toss-up between our websites and the ice cream as to which was the most popular offering, but I think the websites just edged it. We talked to over 140 different companies over the course of the 3 days and received some great feedback and many additions to our growing group of etrader website owners. 

So a big thanks to everyone we saw at Printwear and Promotion LIVE this year, we hope you enjoyed your time on our stand and we hope to see you next year.

If you didn’t see us at the exhibition check out our etrader websites here: www.etraderwebsite.co.uk, revolutionize your online business today!

This January’s edition of Printwear and Promotion features a two page spread about the website solutions designed specifically for garment decorators. The article tells the story behind the product; where the idea came from and how this notion was acted upon.  It also describes at length the two variations of the websites; the etrader and the etrader + solution. The remaining content is dedicated to the details of the etrader relaunch; there is a new fresh logo design, website, YouTube channel and many more new etrader features.

The etrader team will be at Birmingham NEC on the 24th-26th February this year for the Printwear and Promotion exhibition. Here they will be showing how their website solutions work with live demonstrations as well as answering any queries you have about the website.  

If you didn't receive the January edition of Printwear and Promoton Magazine then you can view it online here (PAGE 70-71):

For more details please visit our new website: www.etraderwebsites.co.uk

With more than two decades’ experience in the print and embroidery industry, the team at Golden Finishes have developed an innovative website solution for garment decorators everywhere.

Working with a team of leading web developers, we had originally set out to create our own online store. But we quickly realised that the complexity and diverse range of products in the garment decorating industry did not translate easily into the world of online shopping. After much persistence and perseverance we arrived at the first edition of the fully functioning ecommerce platform.

It was a long learning curve, which was both highly capital and labour intensive. As an afterthought we wondered how the average local print and embroidery firm would ever be able to put their business online effectively and for the vast majority we thought that this would be a hard, if not impossible, task.

etrader has since been made available to other garment decorators and there have already been some great results from current etraders. They have all since benefited from a professional and modern online presence; an example of this is Branded Business Clothing http://www.brandedbusinessclothing.com 

We developed the website solution to mirror the trade that garment decorators do in their shops. The solution allows owners to change and update their content in real time, as well as controlling brands offered and costs.

Through our own experience in the industry, as well feedback from existing etraders, we are continuing to further improve their solution. We have redesigned the brand and put together a website to accompany the launch of the new and improved etrader website solution.

The improved website solution will have additional product categories, helping it to become even more user-friendly, as well as benefiting from improved search rankings thanks to the optional marketing and social media packs available. The solution gives you the control and tools you need to make your business a success online.

The etrader platform is the only online solution which understands what garment decorators need from a website solution, because it was created by people in the same industry. With functionality and usability at the core of the solution, it provides customers with a simple ordering process with secure transactions guaranteed. It also gives customers the ability to order from an etrader website from anywhere, at any time, whether it’s on a smart phone, tablet or computer. 

To find out more about how our etrader websites can work for you and to see some examples, go to our new website; www.etraderwebsites.co.uk

The Printwear and Promotion show as ever this year provided a fantastic platform for us at GF Europe  to put faces to those voices we have spoken to over the years.  This year was no exception. At the show this year our products fell into two distinct groups: our core business and our online solutions.

Our core business consists of finishing customers’ printed and embroidered work and our ready range of  blank products.  Our blank products are brilliant for our clients to print or embroider themselves and we showed badges and pennants in various colour and size combinations.   These products are produced in a 100% high quality polyester fabric that provides great results using dye sublimation processes.  Visitors to the stand were also able to see a wide selection of printed, woven and embroidered badges as, over the years, our skills have developed.   We produce sew on badges, badges with an iron on backing or maybe with Velcro attached  and  we are experts in developing a wide variety of epaulettes. 

Our clients need only send an email with a picture of their requirements and our Customer Services team will get back with our competitive prices and delivery times. Our sashes are always well received – both as part of our Readyrange for printing and as completely printed products. Again this year at the show we were able to talk to many visitors to the stand about our embroidery digitizing, and one of our show offers was a free digitizing (up to 10k stitches) of  a clients design.

The second group of products on our stand were our e-trade and e-trade+ division. We have been developing our e-commerce online solution for the past years and these allow customers to offer branded or unbranded products. Two levels of entry dependent upon your requirement allows printed and embroidered clothing to be bought on line.

I hope all who visited our stand found something of interest as well as the popcorn which our team dispensed throughout the three days and here’s looking forward to hearing from you during 2012.