Gildan Activewear - the store, the shirts, the colors and the corporate responsibility objectives

History: There is a complete article on the transition of this family business to a giant t-shirt corporation here: http://www.answers.com/topic/gildan-activewear-inc

Brand: Gildan is a large, large t-shirt company that seems to be growing by using low prices and high quality standards in a effort to cover the world with moderate quality cotton. Gildan is a public company with nearly 20,000 employees. The company was founded by two brothers, Brothers Gregory and Glenn Chamandy in 1984 and it appears they relinquished their control in 2004.

Products: Gildan offers a wide range of t-shirt styles and products but we are focusing on the 2000 Ultra Cotton, 5000 Heavy Cotton, 64000 Soft Style and the 8000 50 50 poly cotton blend here.

Ordering: I offer the Gildan t-shirts through my wholesale website at BlankTshirt.com and my retail website at YQue.com

Colors: Gildan has one of the largest color selections available for affordable t-shirts. Here is a link to the pantone color chart that shows a small sample of all of the colors that Gildan works with. http://gildan.com/distributors/colorpalette/ This does not mean that every product is available in these colors, but this is generally the colors that are available. Each

Styles: Generally a boxy cut type of shirt the Gildan Heavy Cotton 5000 is the economical choice for many t-shirt printers. Surprisingly it is a decent shirt at 5.4 ounce and there is a wide range of colors. The Gildan Ultra Cotton 2000 is a heavier shirt, not super smooth, but a decent good quality strong shirt that comes in an even wider range of colors. Following these is the Gildan 50 50 t-shirts, 8400 and the 64000 which is a fashion cut style of Gildan t-shirts that are lighter and softer than the standard t-shirts mentioned above.

Sweatshop labor: Here is an excerpt from their corporate website, "No. All Gildan facilities (and contractors) adhere to our strict internal code of conduct, local & international laws and the codes of WRAP and the FLA." There is more information regarding this company and it's policies at their corporate website here. http://gildan.com/corporate/home.cfm These shirts are manufactured internationally and the corporation of Gildan appears to have a strong committment to preserving their brand, which makes it unreasonable for a company to purposefully use sweatshop labor. Based on the PR statements and up front statements I would have to take the company for it's word and read the accredidations if you need more information about this subject. WRAP and FLA are two independent organizations that have accredited Gildan in different parts of the world. The corporate citizenship page has a lot of interesting info on this subject: http://gildan.com/corporate/corporateCitizenship/codeOfConduct.cfm

http://GildanUltra.com

When the web doesn't work

You may be able to find anything on the internet, but it's no guarantee you'll find the right thing for you on the internet when you start searching. T-shirts are confusing at first since there are many different types and prices, but it's also a low-market business and requires a certain amount of knowledge of the brands and price points to make a decision about what type of shirt to buy. Personally I have run out of phone time to discuss these points with customers and it is not profitable to have low prices and keep an employee on board who can answer questions about shirts often just to help people figure out what they want. With this in mind I have decided to offer t-shirt consulting for a fee to offset the cost and to reduce the headaches that occur from spending a large amount of time discussing shirts that may/not result in a sale to offset the time spent. Basically I or an employee can answer blank t-shirt questions from 10a.m. until 12pm for $15 per 15 minutes. Simple enough, but in this way we can concentrate on our customers problems without worrying about making a sale. I'll post a phone number later. Email me at: admin@yque.com if you would like to setup a call back time and we can reach you and talk t-shirts.

No time left for you

No time left for you, I got no time...

My advisor in Screenprinting when I was pursuing my general degree at the University consistently advised me to go to my suppliers catalogues for information about what to do and how to do it. I thought he sucked and just didn't know anything, but basically he indicated that the newest information and more recent techniques are learned through the products on the market. The school didn't much in the way of facilities or supplies for screen printing to begin with and most books on the subject were out-dated. Once out of school I learned through my Guru of screenprinting about tradeshows and all of the valuable resources available through the suppliers directly.

Now as I field questions I see that my job is to organize the products and information for novices to understand enough to get their job done by posting and publishing screen printing information on my websites. I like web design for this purpose, but it's not very easy to get everything in the right place to answer everybody's questions and by the end of each day I tend to think people don't read the website anyway. My first question is usually, "have you been to the website?". Which is obvious that they have or they wouldn't have gotten my phone number. The newest trend is with smart phones many calls I get are from people with small screens, but they find the phone number and make a call to ask questions instead of using their phone. I hardly have time to solve the art problems that arise with custom printing to give good phone estimates with all of the interuptions from people who did not look at the website enough to make a few simple decisions before trying to get a quote, so at this point I am going to force all phone calls to voice-mail and spend my time trying to better organize the website with FAQ and gadgets. Here is the new format for custom t-shirt printing and my blank t-shirt website here: BlankTshirt.com . Post any suggestions as to what you think would make it easier to get the information you need by leaving a comment here or sending an email to: admin@t-shirts.org