At Gooten, one of the things we’re most proud of is our high standard of product and print quality. In fact, over the past several years, we’ve maintained a product quality level of more than 98%, well above the industry standard.
This isn’t an accident. On the contrary, we rely on a set of policies and procedures that help us measure and maintain product quality, ensuring a sky-high level of customer satisfaction.
A couple years ago, we released an eBook called The Gooten Standard, where we discussed these procedures in great detail. Today, we’ll offer a quick synopsis, providing insight into how we maintain quality for our print on demand products.
What is The Gooten Standard?
The reality is, in an industry where products are made on-demand, issues are inevitable. To minimize the prevalence and severity of these issues, we hold ourselves to an above-average standard of excellence. We call it The Gooten Standard.
This proactive approach to ensuring product quality encompasses three basic components: Proactive Quality Administration, Incident Management, and Data/Reporting. Let’s take a look at each of these concepts individually.
1. Proactive Quality Administration
Simply put, we believe in proactively managing quality before problems arise. We do so by conducting a rigorous vetting process whenever we bring on a new manufacturer. This onboarding process includes site visits, sample testing, staff interviews, and machinery process reviews.
During this onboarding process, we assess both blank products and products with artwork on them, checking for genuine redundancy with existing product offerings; overall product quality; and, of course, clean, crisp, sharp print quality. We also perform on-site evaluations to ensure that technicians are well-versed in all aspects of direct-to-garment (DTG) printing.
2. Incident Management
Even with the most rigorous quality control mechanisms in place, problems and issues can emerge. That’s simply the nature of the print on demand production industry.
When errors do arise, we have procedures in place to handle them. Specifically, we have Gooten print on demand team members solely focused on performing incident reviews with our manufacturing partners. These team members look for the root cause of the error and develop action plans to prevent the error from recurring in the future.
Our incident management team reviews issues on a weekly basis, communicates issues with individual manufacturers, and is constantly developing a process improvement plan.
3. Data & Reporting
The final piece of our quality control initiative: The Gooten print on demand team gathers detailed data on quality issues and delivers bi-weekly performance reporting to all of our manufacturing partners. We outline areas of success and failure in issue mitigation. The data we provide ranks incidents in order of severity. Also, we adjust our routing rules using a data-driven approach, meaning we can divert new orders to minimize reliance on facilities with quality- or performance-related issues.
Why Product Quality Matters for eCommerce Services
Product quality isn’t just a buzzword, and The Gooten Standard isn’t just a marketing point. The reality is that, for eCommerce services and print on demand sellers, product quality is essential for building brand loyalty and fueling business growth.
For proof, look no further than our recent case study, “How The Geo Project Launched a 5-Figure Store In One Year.” The short synopsis: Thanks to our high standard of quality control, our merchant partner named Mike was able to add 10 new products to his print on demand store within the first year of launch, become a five-figure business, and gain a “Best Seller” status on Etsy.
Learn More About Our High Standard for Product Quality
The bottom line: eCommerce is trending more and more toward unique designs and product customization, which means quality control is more critical than ever. That’s what makes The Gooten Standard so important, and so vital to the success of your print on demand store.
We invite you to learn more about The Gooten Standard and explore the role of quality in current eCommerce trends. And with any specific questions about partnering with Gooten, don’t hesitate to reach out to us directly.
