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Why a Majority of Customers Expect Personalization, But Most Brands Still Fail to Deliver

Posted on May 7, 2026 by vPersonalize

Personalization is no longer just a “nice-to-have” novelty; it’s quickly becoming the baseline. Whether it’s a pair of sneakers, a monogrammed bag, or custom team gear, shoppers now expect a seat at the design table.

But, there’s a catch: E-commerce giants like Amazon and Target have conditioned us to expect speed above all else. This has created a difficult paradox: Customers want something made just for them, and they want it to ship yesterday!

Most brands are currently caught in the gap between those two demands.

Where the “Custom” Dream Hits Reality

On paper, offering customization is easy: add a “Personalize” button and let the customer play. In practice is where the gears start to grind.

When an order is unique, it has to run a gauntlet of design validation, file setup, and manual production checks. If these steps live in different, disconnected systems, you end up with:

Glacial turnaround times that frustrate the “Prime-era” shopper.
Costly production errors that cause product returns and eat into your margins.
The “clunky” factor: A user journey that feels like a science project rather than a premium service.

The demand is there. Research after research has shown personalization increases sales and reduces product returns. Yet, the manufacturing and operations to seamlessly support this is not easy to cobble together.

The Four Roadblocks to Scaling

The “Broken Link” to Production: Brands spend a fortune on flashy front-end design tools, only for the order to not be production-able or production-ready, requiring a human designer to manually create it for the factory. It’s a bottleneck that makes scaling impossible.
Bulk-Minded Inventory: Traditional retail is built on “guess and ship”. Personalization requires “sell and make”. Most brands are still trying to force a flexible product into an inflexible supply chain.
The “Expectation vs. Reality” Gap: If a customer spends 10 minutes tweaking a design, they need to trust the result. If the preview is “off,” the return rate is “on”. More importantly, the factory output should exactly match the visualization.
The “Wild West” of Design: Total creative freedom is a liability. Without smart guardrails, you risk brand dilution or, worse, customers printing inappropriate content that your team has to manually police.

The Blueprint for Success

The brands winning this race aren’t just buying new software; they are rethinking their entire workflow around tools for mass-personalization.

Move to On-Demand: By shifting to an on-demand model, you stop paying for warehouse space and start paying for what actually sells. It’s lower risk with higher variety.
Trust the Visuals: High-fidelity 3D previews do more than just look cool, they kill buyer’s remorse before it happens. When a customer sees exactly what they’re getting, they’re more likely to hit “Buy”. The key is to rely on visual tools built for production.
Leverage AI for Asset Creation: Forget physical photo shoots for every possible color combo. AI-generated assets allow you to visualize a million variations in seconds, giving you high-end marketing materials without the high-end production costs.
Control the Chaos: The best systems allow for “structured creativity”. You give the user control over the right things (colors, placement, text) while using automated logic to block problematic designs before they ever hit the production floor.

The Bottom Line

Personalization isn’t a “feature” you flip on; it’s a new way of doing business.The pressure for speed, clarity, and control isn’t going away. Brands that bridge the gap between a customer’s imagination and a finished product are the ones building a more resilient, flexible, and profitable operation and future.

We are here to help

vPersonalize empowers businesses to meet the growing demand for custom products without the headaches of manual intervention. We are the industry leading technology platform for mass-personalization, print-on-demand, bespoke fashion, custom sportswear and sublimated team wear.

Our proven CAD, AI and production automation tools empower brands looking to innovate and scale in the modern, made-to-order economy.

If you are looking to offer personalization and require an end-to-end solution from someone you can lean on for deep technical knowledge and domain expertise, email us at hello@vpersonalize.com or visit https://www.vPersonalize.com

uniform Builder: Why Your Tech Stack Needs to Go Beyond Shopify Plugins

Posted on July 28, 2025July 28, 2025 by vPersonalize

In today’s fast-paced, personalization-driven economy, selling custom apparel isn’t just about offering a product — it’s about delivering accurately personalized items, at scale, with speed and precision.

Many brands start their journey using plug-and-play tools for e-commerce like Shopify, along with third-party apps that offer basic customization features. While these are great for testing the waters, they simply don’t scale when your business starts taking on serious volume or complexity.

Here’s why, and what your tech stack needs instead:

1. Shopify Plugins Are Designed for Simplicity — Not Production

Most Shopify plugins were built with ease of use in mind: allowing a customer to add a name, or logo to a product. But once orders start flowing in, the limitations become clear:

No auto-grading or size-based layout adjustments.
No support for colour accuracy or Pantone handling till print.
Inconsistent or manual output formats.
No real backend coordination with factory — leaving you and your team scrambling to make files print-ready.

If you’re still manually fixing artwork, separating layers, or creating individual PDFs per order, your system isn’t scalable — it’s duct tape.

2. Backend Automation Is Non-Negotiable at Scale

The real bottleneck isn’t the front-end designer — it’s the backend operations. To truly scale, you need systems that:

Auto-generate production-ready files from online orders.
Handle variable data like player names and numbers without manual intervention.
Automatically grade designs and patterns based on size selections.
Create print layouts (including nesting) optimized for material efficiency.

This is where vPersonalize differentiates. Unlike front-end plugins, it delivers true end-to-end automation, from design approval to ready-to-print output — no human touch required.

3. Accurate Color Management Isn’t Optional

Color fidelity is critical in team wear. When your screen shows a rich navy and your print delivers a dull purple, your brand reputation takes a hit.

Most design tools or plugins don’t handle Pantone, Spot colors or gradients in output. They treat them as on-screen visuals — not as production color spaces that work with RIP software.

Scalable platforms need to:

Support PMS, Pantone and SPOT colors in both design and output.
Maintain color consistency across factories and machines.
Output files that work seamlessly with RIP software (like Caldera, Ergosoft, Wasatch, ONYX), so what’s designed is exactly what gets printed.

4. Smart Workflows Save Time and Reduce Waste

As volume grows, inefficiencies compound. Every extra minute spent preparing files, nesting jobs, or correcting layout issues costs time, money and delays deliveries.

A smart, scalable stack should:

Auto-generate PDFs or AI files, sorted by order that hot-sync to your print job
Apply automated nesting to minimize material waste and improve cutting efficiency.
Integrate with existing RIPs and production systems with no manual steps.

Think of it as the difference between sending a drawing to a printer vs. sending a job to a production line — the latter needs to be accurate, clean, and optimized, every time.

5. Customization at Scale Requires Intelligence, Not Just Interfaces

Most plugins let customers “customize.” But true mass-customization — where each product may have different sizes, layouts, names, numbers, or even artwork — requires intelligent back-end logic to automate layout, placement, and print preparation.

You need more than just an interface — you need a logic engine that understands:

Where to place a name on a size S vs. XL.
How to resize graphics to match your club or league rules
How to print multiple different SKUs in a single, optimized job file.

That’s not something Shopify add-ons were built for — and it’s not something any front-end plugin can handle on its own.

Final Thoughts

If you’re serious about growing a custom apparel or team wear brand — especially with complex designs, variable data, and fast turnaround — you need to rethink your tech stack.

Shopify plugins are a good start, but they’re not the finish line.

Scaling requires:

Backend automation that reduces human workload.
Intelligent print and production logic.
Color matching, variable data automation and automated grading
Seamless integration between design, order management, and fulfillment.

vPersonalize was built for that next stage — where volume meets customization, and precision becomes non-negotiable.

For more information or to schedule a demo, visit https://www.vPersonalize.com or email us at hello@vpersonalize.com

The Future of Fashion: AI, Automation & Personalization

Posted on July 2, 2025July 2, 2025 by vPersonalize

The fashion industry is going through a major transformation. Shoppers today aren’t just looking for style – they want speed, sustainability, and products that feel personal. They expect to see designs they love, customize them on the spot, and have their orders delivered quickly.

To meet these growing demands, forward-thinking brands are turning to AI, automation, and personalization – the three forces reshaping how fashion is designed, produced, and sold. At vPersonalize, we help brands bring all three together in one smart, scalable solution.

AI: Smarter Design, Better Decisions:

Artificial Intelligence is helping fashion brands make faster, more informed decisions. Instead of relying on guesswork or outdated trends, AI tools analyze real-time data from search trends, customer behavior, and sales performance.

Here’s how AI is changing the game:

Trend prediction: Understand what customers want before it’s popular. Create new design templates and add them to your website for customers to personalize.
Automated pattern grading: Turn designs into production-ready
patterns with no manual work.
Demand forecasting: Know what to produce and how much, so nothing goes to waste.
Smart Product configurators: Allow customers to easily personalize designs on your website using smart tools

vPersonalize was one of the earliest adopters of AI, long before AI became a buzz word, to help auto grade designs, color matching and print automation.

Automation: From Click to Closet in Days, Not Weeks

Traditional apparel manufacturing is slow, expensive, and mostly unsustainable with resource utilization. It relies heavily on manual labor, long supply chains, and high inventory costs. Modern automation tools speed up production, cut down costs, and increase quality. Here’s how:

DTG and Sublimation printing: Offers vivid, accurate prints without the large MoQs of traditional dyeing. Make what sells, when inventories run low!
Robotic cutting: Ensures precision with minimal fabric waste and on-demand production.
Automated workflow: Remove repetitive manual tasks and reduce human error.
Seamless integration: Integrate your e-commerce with product configurator, to your OMS, ERP and CRM. Orders placed online go straight to production, automatically.

With vPersonalize, the moment a customer places an order, our system takes over – design files are auto graded, patterns generated, automatic color corrections with Pantone and Custom SPOT, roster and variable data automation with automated print layout generation, in native AI/PDF ready for production and sent to your factory’s dropbox for production.

vPersonalize is the only solution that allows you to setup custom grade rules for precise Team Number & Logo Grading to precisely align with your club or league’s rules. This means no delays, no manual file handling, and no risk of missed orders.

Personalization: One-of-a-Kind Is the New Standard

Fashion is becoming personal. Consumers are no longer satisfied with cookie-cutter designs – they want products that feel unique and reflect their individual style.That’s why personalization is no longer optional. It’s expected.

Here’s how brands are using personalization to grow:

Custom fits and sizes for better comfort and confidence.
Name and number customization for team apparel and merch.
Color and design choices that let buyers create something their own.
Real-time 3D previews so shoppers can see exactly what they’ll get.

vPersonalize gives you the tools to offer all of this—and do it at scale. Whether it’s one-off’s or mass-customization of a thousand, each item can be produced individually on demand, exactly as the customer ordered.

Sustainability: Tech That Helps the Planet

Fast fashion has a big impact on the environment. Every year, tons of unused inventory are discarded or burned. Water usage is high, and textile waste continues to rise. With on-demand manufacturing and automation, fashion brands can become part of the solution to save the environment.

Here’s how vPersonalize supports sustainable production:

Made-to-order = zero excess inventory.
Up to 95% reduction in fabric waste.
Sublimation, Digital or DTG printing = less waste, on-demand production.
Localized production = low shipping costs and emissions.

Why Choose vPersonalize?

vPersonalize empowers businesses to meet the growing demand for custom products without the traditional headaches of manual workflows. It’s the perfect tool for brands looking to innovate and scale in the modern, made-to-order economy.

If you are in the custom apparel or team wear business, we are here to help. From consumer personalization, print-on-demand, bespoke fashion to custom sportswear and sublimated teamwear, we are the #1 technology platform for on-demand production.

For more information or to schedule a demo, visit https://www.vPersonalize.com or email us at hello@vpersonalize.com

Mastering Sublimated Uniform Challenges: Innovative Solutions for Success

Posted on October 21, 2023 by vPersonalize

In the world of sublimation sportswear, the journey from concept to creation can be a complex and time-consuming endeavor. The challenges faced by manufacturers and brands are unique, demanding solutions that streamline processes and enhance efficiency. In this blog post, we’ll explore the significant role that automation plays in addressing these industry-specific challenges.

Whether you’re dealing with design complexities, roster creation, or product selection, automation offers a practical path to greater efficiency and smoother operations. Let’s dive into how automation can transform your sublimation sportswear workflow.

1. The Challenge: Turning Customer Ideas into Reality

One of the most prevalent issues in the industry arises early in the sales process. Customers often bring a wealth of ideas but struggle to express their vision clearly. This initiates a lengthy and sometimes frustrating back-and-forth between your designer and the customer, resulting in numerous design iterations before approval—often days or even weeks after a sales lead is initiated.

The Solution: Allowing customers to design themselves, modify from pre-made templates you provide, or collaborate with your designer in real time. This not only ensures customer satisfaction, but also boosts order volumes and saves countless hours that would have otherwise been spent attempting to understand your customer’s vision.

2. The Challenge: Collecting Roster Orders

Collecting and managing roster data can be a time-consuming and error-prone process. Some customers email, some send Excel sheet, but you often find yourself responsible for data verification and error correction. The wrong size or a typo in name or number can result in you having to remake the garment.

The Solution: Allowing your customers to do the roster data entry with an intuitive interface, either line by line or upload Excel spreadsheets with size and team data, ensures data accuracy. Adding automation to turn that Excel intro print files would further save a significant amount of time for your production team.

3. The Challenge: Maintaining design accuracy

Sports team and leagues have strict rules on font size, spacing and how they should grade across apparel sizes. The rules are even more complex when you use different fonts (e.g: 2-stroke fonts), with or without miter, etc. Maintaining quality control over these can often take days of review after an order is initiated.

The Solution: Use a technology platform that can automatically grade your design across sizes, while ensuring design accuracy and alignment across multiple text & logo placement rules. The solution should support multiple grading methodologies to suit your club/league/association regulations, while being customizable.

4. The Challenge: Tedious Conversion of Mock-ups

Translating approved mockups into production files often requires manual labor, resulting in potential delays and human error, leading to discrepancies between the approved design and the final product.

The Solution: Use technology to reduce manual work. Once a design is approved, use automation to generate the corresponding print files, add barcodes, nest to save fabric, add laser markers and annotations to greatly reduce lead times and costly errors.

5. The Challenge: Adding Names & Numbers to Print Layout Eats Away Your Time

When manufacturing team uniforms, the task of adding roster data can quickly become a time-consuming endeavor. Designers can get bogged down for hours switching out names and numbers to the appropriate sizes, often causing more room for human error.

The Solution: Use a manufacturing-aware design and production automation platform offering full print-ready variable data automation. If you can simply upload a spreadsheet with team information or use customer-entered data, generating production-ready files with roster data accurately placed, scaled, and print-ready, you can save days or even weeks of manual work.

6. The Challenge: Color Matching

Sublimation manufacturing often involves various image rendering devices, each with distinct color management methods and ranges. Some customers may not grasp that computer monitors display in RGB mode while printers operate in CMYK mode, leading them to select colors solely based on screen values. Even sophisticated customers who have an understanding of PMS and Custom Spot Colors, have trouble communicating their color profile correctly. Add to that the possibility of designer error and the potential to remake an entire batch of uniforms looms large!

The Solution: Use advanced technology that supports color matching from design all the way to print. Invest in color detection and correction platforms that can detect and autocorrect color errors made by your customers or designers. Ensure that the solution you choose supports multiple output formats to suit your print workflow: from device matched CMYK, CMYK TIFF to native AI or PDF file with PMS pantone or Custom Spot Color support.

The right partner changes what’s possible!

If you are in the custom apparel or team wear business, vPersonalize can help. From design personalization, print-on-demand, bespoke fashion to custom sportswear and sublimated teamwear, we can help with technology for a digital future.

We are the industry leading provider of software for mass customization and on-demand manufacturing at scale. With our platform, your customers can design themselves, modify templates you provide, or collaborate with your designer in real time, saving you countless hours attempting to decipher your customer’s vision.

Add our intuitive roster collection interface to your existing e-commerce, so your customers can enter the details line by line or upload Excel spreadsheets. Our system even allows you to rectify design errors that customers might overlook before production begins.

Easily set up password-protected pages, ensuring customers only see and order approved products. With predefined product options and sizes, there’s never any confusion about availability.

Our platform automatically grades your designs across sizes, while ensuring design accuracy and alignment across multiple text & logo placement rules. Our solution supports dozens of grading methodologies to suit your club/league/association regulations. Once a design is approved, generate the corresponding production file automatically in minutes—and with 100% accuracy.

vPersonalize stands out as the only manufacturing-aware design and production automation platform offering full print-ready variable data automation. You can simply upload a spreadsheet with team information or use customer-entered data. Our technology takes it from there, generating production-ready files with roster data accurately placed, scaled, and print-ready.

We also feature the industry’s best print automation solution that precisely takes a color from design all the way print, matched to your color profile. Our automated color correction platform even auto-corrects color errors made by your customers or designers. We support multiple output formats: from device matched CMYK, CMYK TIFF to native AI or PDF with PMS Pantone and Custom Spot color support.

We are here to help

In conclusion, vPersonalize is your ideal partner for print-on-demand. We understand the intricacies of the sublimation sportswear industry like no other, and we’re here to empower you with efficient industry-tested solutions. Your success is our priority, and together, we can shape a better and more productive future.

Visit www.vpersonalize.com or email us at hello@vpersonalize.com to schedule a call.

5 things to include in your business plan to grow sales and revenue

Posted on January 13, 2021January 13, 2021 by vPersonalize

This article is published as part of our “SMB Success”, a program designed to help small and medium sized brands succeed. For questions, comments or suggestions, please write to editor@vpersonalize.com

One of the most important things any business should do is create and update their business plan at least once a year. A lot of small businesses skip this step and lose out on growth. Just as you use a GPS to drive, an Annual Business Plan (ABP) provides a route map for your business for the next twelve months.

Once the previous year’s dust has settled and you can look to the year ahead, spend time in January to gain a clearer vision of where your business aims to be. Not only will an annual business plan define your objectives for the coming twelve months; it can also construct the roadmap for meeting those goals.

Using the strategic planning and performance measures we outline below, combined with a review of your expectations and results from the previous year, you’ll be able to create an annual plan that gives everyone in your organization a sense of where they’re headed and how they will get there.

Here are five things to get you started:

1. Create a Mission Statement

Although you know why your business exists and what you offer, it’s still important to craft a summary that can quickly and effectively communicate it to the rest of the world. Taking the time to build a clear mission statement, and annually reviewing it to make sure it’s still in line with your vision, will help you and your team stay focused on your core business.

It goes without saying that setting and pursuing goals is a critical part of growing your business and will play an important part in your annual plan. Goals will vary from business to business, ranging from reducing expenses, increasing operational efficiency to increasing your market share or bringing traffic to your website.

Although it can feel overwhelming, start by outlining the top 3 to 5 goals and a plan to meet those objectives. Initially outline broad, end-of-the-year goals, then work backwards to create quarterly objectives.

2. Do a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis

A SWOT analysis is used internally to organize your top strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats into an organized list, which is usually presented in a simple two-by-two grid. A SWOT analysis will help outline the best opportunities to pursue and what you should highlight to achieve your business goals. It also assists in identifying areas in which you need to improve and can bring threats to light, where they might otherwise catch you off guard.

Understanding your customers’ needs and how your product fits them will help you establish effective strategies for marketing and sales, as well as future product development. Identify your most valuable markets, develop buyer personas, and track consumer behavior to ensure that you stay ahead of your competitors.

With so many alternatives existing today, it becomes increasingly important to stay ahead of your competition. Take the time to evaluate your industry, market size and competition. Identifying your major competitors, researching their products, marketing, and sales strategies.

This will not only help you stay aware of industry trends and consumer expectations, it will also help determine what sets you apart and what your unique competitive advantages are and what can be further developed.

3. Set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it! Measuring performance regularly is a big part of scaling your business. Tracking and analyzing your performance across multiple key areas will help you gain a clear understanding of what is working and what needs improvement.

Some important KPIs to include in your annual plan are sales metrics, customer acquisition, revenue growth, operational metrics such as fulfillment time, returns and refunds. Some not so obvious KPIs are referral rate (word of mouth by an existing customer is the best sales tool you can get).

4. Discover Your Growth Engine

This is where you’ll put a lot of the previous analysis to good use. What marketing strategies should you focus on to increase traffic and time spent on your website, improve conversion rates, and directly reach people that are looking for your products and services?

Think through operational efficiencies you can drive to increase customer engagement and satisfaction (newer products, giving customers more control over product design, faster fulfillment, lower price, etc). Some common themes that work across industries are: what can I do to make my products better, faster, cheaper and put my customer in the driver’s seat.

These typically involve streamlining workflows, improving communication, automating processes or adding product personalization.

5. Plan For Success

Once you have discovered your growth engine, take that information and develop a plan on how to implement and manage it this year. Allocate budget for capital expenses and key areas that will drive growth and revenue for your business this year. Start your research and identify the best suppliers, ecosystem and partners that can help you implement your plan and reach your goals.

We are here to help

One of the top growth engines in the apparel and fashion industry is product customization and automation. From consumer personalization, print-on-demand, bespoke fashion to custom sportswear and sublimated teamwear, we can help with technology for a digital future – mass-customization, on-demand production and online commerce.

We are the industry leading provider of software for mass customization and on-demand manufacturing at scale. Our technology helps apparel brands and their manufacturers bring designs to market significantly faster, expand product lines and make those products on demand.

We are privileged to have been able to assist some of the best custom apparel and print-on-demand companies in the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe scale on-demand production profitably.

For more information or to schedule a demo, visit www.vPersonalize.com or email us at hello@vpersonalize.com

Super Charge Your Custom Sportswear and Sublimated Teamwear Business

Posted on November 23, 2020January 13, 2021 by vPersonalize

Over the years, the market for custom sportswear and team uniforms has grown significantly. Participation in school sports has nearly doubled in the last decade. The market in the US alone was pegged at over $10 billion in 2019. This, alongside the growth in popularity of athleisure and sports apparel, has created a booming, albeit competitive, marketplace.

Two things stand out about this industry: first, almost every design is custom and made-to-order. Second, most of the brands use overseas production to keep their costs down, although it impacts their delivery time, sometimes by as much as 6 to 8 weeks from purchase. This is true even for the big name brands, with well-oiled supply chains.

Full custom, made-to-order teamwear in a week?

For many big brands that do custom sportswear, the business constitutes a small percentage of their overall revenue and some brands choose not to do custom products at all due to the cost, turnaround time and supply chain complexity involved.

Unsurprisingly though, customization significantly increases overall sales. Studies have shown that customized products offer a 3x-5x higher revenue per unit. One Deloitte study found that 71% of consumers were willing to pay a premium for personalized products. Customized products also have one of the lowest return rates in the industry, with a reported 60% decrease in product returns.

The big question then is, can anything be done to make the made-to-order business work without friction, where everything from design to production is predictable and repeatable? More importantly, can this be achieved with existing workflows and local supply chains?

End-end automation

For the custom sportswear and team apparel industry, creating artworks, taking orders and turning the designs and roster information into print ready files across sizes is the most complex and time consuming part of the operation and providing an easy way for teams to customize and place their order remains the single biggest obstacle to growing sales and revenues.

Although there is clear evidence that offering customization, smaller minimum order quantities and more self-serve options leads to increased sales and customer satisfaction, there currently aren’t many avenues for accomplishing it all at the same time. Customization usually means longer lead times and higher minimum order quantities, while team designs often require a significant amount of time and resources to create and much hand holding when working with coaches, managers and team players.

As the market landscape evolves, automation will be key to ensure that businesses can provide unique value to their customers in an efficient manner that is flexible enough for individual customization but maintains short lead times at unit costs comparable to that of mass production. Switching to local supply chains, without substantially increasing cost will be critical for faster delivery.

The brave new world of purchase-triggered manufacturing

Today, a typical workflow in the team uniform sales market involved a customer making an order inquiry, working with a sales person to conceptualize a design, which would then be sent off to a designer to create a mock-up. The sales rep, designer and customer would then play a game of telephone until the customer approves and places the order. After the sale, the design would then need to be converted into actual production patterns across each ordered size and roster names and numbers added, the final output color matched, the design verified and finally approved for production overseas.

However, more and more coaches, teams and players want a bigger say in the design, want instant feedback and faster delivery after purchase. Teams want the ability to design, share and purchase the product of their choice without having to coordinate a series of meetings with a representative. This goes against the long standing model for team uniform sales, but the ongoing shift in consumer behavior due to the pandemic and increasingly contact-less commerce has only accelerated this transformation.

This new paradigm will be key for brands, both big and small to scale revenue and sales in the years to come.

Customization is king, but cost and turnaround is key

The global sportswear market size was valued at USD $185.24 billion in 2020 and is anticipated to expand to USD $250 billion by 2025.

In order to compete in a growing, but incredibly competitive marketplace, individually personalized, made to order products with fast delivery is key. Many of these may seem like a paradox – custom and fast, bespoke and inexpensive. Overcoming this paradox requires the right technology and an agile manufacturing process that can scale efficiently. Scalable customization requires processes that can adapt to increased variability in customers’ requirements without sacrificing production efficiencies or cost.

But, done right, full custom made-to-order apparel is not only possible, but a significant revenue opportunity.

Discover industry specific technology and automation from vPersonalize

vPersonalize is the only design-to-manufacturing technology platform that makes on-demand and custom manufacturing possible at time and price points similar to traditional mass production.

With vPersonalize’s patented technology and automation, go from purchase to a finished product in hours using your existing supply chain. That is full custom sportswear and sublimated teamwear, made-to-order locally, in just days, at unit costs comparable to that of mass production!

Some of the best sportswear and print-on-demand brands in the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe are already leveraging vPersonalize to scale on-demand production profitably.

Discover an end-end software platform and automation, specially built for the custom sportswear and sublimated teamwear industry. Go from purchase to a finished product in hours, with your existing supply chain.

To learn more, visit https://www.vpersonalize.com

Technology for mass-customization and on-demand manufacturing

Posted on April 23, 2020September 12, 2024 by vPersonalize

This article originally appeared on WTiN 17 April 2020 based on an interview by Joe Link.

Technologies have emerged with the promise to streamline operations, but for a solution to be successful it must work at scale and be cost effective. To date, large swathes of the apparel industry accept that change is necessary but have been slow to adopt disruptive technologies. On-demand manufacturing is a term we hear a lot: the emerging business model is seen by many as the future of the apparel industry. Similarly, the print-on-demand and personalization trend has been gaining traction in the last decade as consumers show a weariness towards mass-produced, bulk fashion

vPersonalize duo Bala Selvarajan and Robert Johnson talk to Joseph Link about the importance of mass personalisation and on-demand manufacturing to the textile supply chain. Below are some excerpts.

vPersonalize’s Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), Robert Johnson, believes that transforming the supply chain is a collective effort that ties together the technology providers, brands, direct-to-garment (DTG) sector, textile printers and consumers.

“On the supply side, we see a growing migration to dye sublimation and print on demand because it offers better margins and the ability to create retail quality products on-demand,” says Johnson. “This in turn creates a new pool of suppliers that brands and retailers can tap into. The real power of this disruption is that this new supply chain is local.”

One outcome of this disruption, Johnson points out, is the re-shoring movement. It has become a viable prospect to use technology to manufacture locally, through which turnaround times can be slashed.

“The main driver of personalization is targeted small-batch manufacturing which allows a brand to create, and experiment with, thousands of designs and size variants. The benefits include lower inventory costs and the ability to only manufacture a product after it has been purchased. This is the real promise of personalisation and on-demand manufacturing: make what sells, when it sells and get it to the nearest store where it sells,” Johnson adds.

“Print-on-demand always held the promise of bespoke, made-to-order apparel,” Johnson says. “Large sections of the textile supply chain still rely on heavy manual labour and when you have a large workforce operating different machines, human error becomes an issue.

“With a purchase-to-production-line solution, a lot of these uncertainties go away and what is designed and visualised is exactly what gets made,” he continues. “This brings predictability and repeatability to what has largely been a manual and cumbersome process for decades.

“On-demand manufacturing reduces wastage. Our [vPersonalize] solution enables a design to be taken directly to a production line in minutes, which makes local manufacturing possible,” Johnson adds.” And with local manufacturing comes reduced reliance on international shipping and the resultant carbon emissions. We have just one planet to leave to future generations and we are getting to a point now where we need everything to be sustainable.”

Outlook

“As more customers start working remotely and with smaller teams, the move to virtual product development, sampling and small-batch production will accelerate. We are focusing on the existing pieces of our technology that can support our customers during a period of social distancing and beyond, using tools that reduce the need for in-person contact like virtual product development, design-to-manufacturing accuracy, automation and online commerce,” says Selvarajan.

“The impact of Covid-19 is unprecedented and there is little by way of data or experience that can help us navigate this. But, we are seeing significant changes to consumer purchasing behavior, perhaps permanently, accelerating towards e-commerce and abandoning physical spaces. While online commerce is recording historic numbers, brick and mortar companies are seeing unprecedented closure”

vPersonalize focuses on apparel brands and manufacturers, helping solve some of the key technical challenges that are specific to them, says Selvarajan. He continues: “In all of this, the common theme will be to help our customers bring designs to market considerably faster and to help them manufacture those products on-demand.”