Jacqueline McGinnis of Youngstown Ink decorates apparel for local schools and sports teams, including spirit wear, team gear, and uniforms.
For years, she managed those orders with paper forms. Creating the designs, flyer, and order forms for a single school or team order could take 10 to 12 hours before production even started.
Today, she runs those orders through online team stores with Itemstores. A typical store takes her less than an hour to set up, and she puts the time she gets back into sales and reaching out to more teams.
- Setup time
- 10 to 12 hours → less than 1 hour
- First store
- About 40 orders in 7 days
- First store live
- Within a couple of hours of signing up
Running spirit wear orders on paper
Before Itemstores, every school order started with a mockup.
Jacqueline would create designs for a school, build a flyer and paper order form, and send the forms home with students. Parents paid the school, the school passed the orders to Youngstown Ink, and Jacqueline billed the school after fulfilling them.
Creating the designs and order forms alone took roughly 10 to 12 hours for each order.
Then came the recurring problems: missing order forms, finding payments, and parents trying to place orders late.
“I needed something virtual and something that made it simple on me.”
That led Jacqueline to start looking for a way to move her spirit wear ordering online.
Why Youngstown Ink switched to online team stores
Jacqueline considered OrderMyGear and Square before choosing Itemstores.
For her shop, cost was part of the decision.
“I looked at OMG and Square, both were a lot more expensive than I could afford and didn't have the same options.”
Itemstores was new to her, so she spent time reading about the platform and exploring the site before deciding to try it.
“Everything looked like what I needed, so I figured I'd give it a shot.”
Your savings vs OrderMyGear
$5,000
/ year
Her first online team store was live and taking orders within a couple of hours of signing up.
“It was very quick, like a couple hours!”
The main learning curve was figuring out the decorating tools and adding products from the SanMar catalog.
The problems she expected, missing orders or incorrect pricing, didn't happen.
40 orders in seven days for a school tennis team
Jacqueline's first store was for a school tennis team.
She started by figuring out which products the team liked and building a library of blanks. The store included products such as tank tops, jackets, quarter-zips, and uniforms.
Building that library mattered because Youngstown Ink uses many of the same blanks across different schools. Once Jacqueline had products set up, she could reuse them for future team stores instead of rebuilding everything from scratch.
About 40 orders came in during the store's seven-day run.
Payment was smooth, and Jacqueline could track orders each day. Instead of collecting paper forms, she could tell the coach which parents had ordered and which had not.
She could also see which designs were being ordered most and remove designs that weren't being used.
This gave Youngstown Ink and the coach a live view of the store instead of waiting for paper forms to make their way back to the shop.
From online orders to production
When the tennis team store closed after seven days, Jacqueline moved directly into production.
She generated a work order showing how many of each print she needed, how many products needed to be ordered in each size, and which items needed embroidery.
She printed the work order and used it to run production.
This replaced the process of manually working backward through individual paper orders to determine what needed to be produced.
Packing the team's orders
Once production was finished, Jacqueline used Itemstores to bulk print packing slips for the team's orders.
Each packing slip included a photo of the item next to its description, making it easier to match finished products with the correct customer order.
“This saved me so much time.”
The same online team store that collected the orders and payments could therefore carry the job through production and packing.
From 10 to 12 hours to less than 1 hour per store
The biggest difference for Youngstown Ink is the amount of time required to get each spirit wear store ready.
The old paper-based process took 10 to 12 hours to create the designs and order forms for one school or team order.
Today, Jacqueline can set up a typical online team store in less than an hour, depending on the number of products and artwork involved.
She puts the recovered time into growing the business.
When asked what she does with the time she no longer spends setting up orders, her answer was simple:
“More sales and reaching out to other teams.”
Her most-used Itemstores features are item grouping, artwork management, and the production tab that tells her how many of each item she needs.
Would she recommend Itemstores?
We asked Jacqueline what she would do if Itemstores disappeared tomorrow.
“I would be devastated as this works really well for my set up right now.”
Then we asked who she thought shouldn't use Itemstores.
“I couldn't think of an apparel decorator that would not benefit from Itemstores.”
For Youngstown Ink, moving from paper forms to online team stores didn't just change how customers placed orders. It reduced the amount of work required to launch each store and gave Jacqueline more time to find the next team.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to set up an online spirit wear store?
Youngstown Ink now sets up a typical school or team spirit wear store in less than an hour. Its previous paper-based process took 10 to 12 hours to create the designs and order forms for one school or team order.
How do online team stores work for apparel decorators?
An online team store lets an apparel decorator publish products for a specific school, team, or group and collect individual customer orders online. In Youngstown Ink's workflow, Jacqueline uses Itemstores to set up products and artwork, collect and track orders, prepare production quantities, and print packing slips after production.
Can I use SanMar products in an Itemstores team store?
Yes. Jacqueline used the SanMar catalog in Itemstores to add blanks for her team stores. Because Youngstown Ink frequently uses the same blanks across different schools, she can build a reusable product library rather than starting from scratch for every store.
What happens after a team store closes?
After Youngstown Ink's tennis team store closed, Jacqueline generated a work order showing print quantities, products and sizes that needed to be ordered, and items requiring embroidery. She printed the work order and used it to run production.
Can Itemstores generate packing slips for team orders?
Yes. Jacqueline bulk printed packing slips after production. Each packing slip included a product photo next to the item description, which helped her package individual team orders.
Is Itemstores an alternative to OrderMyGear?
Youngstown Ink considered both OrderMyGear and Square before choosing Itemstores. Jacqueline said those options were more expensive than she could afford and didn't have the same options she needed for her decorated-apparel workflow.