4 Traits of Great Shop Management Software

Printing, embroidery, and screen printing are oooold industries. It's no surprise, then, that a lot of the software available to screen printers, sign shops, and the like feels pretty dated.

If you're looking to modernize or make a change in your shop management software, here are 4 important, overlooked components of software that you should seriously consider when making your choice.

Simple.

Good software always has an intuitive user interface. Great software is designed to solve problems in the simplest way.

There's an old saying...

Companies like Apple take this principle to heart when designing software. There's a great story about Steve Jobs when it comes to simplicity. Here's the highlight:

Great shop management software takes the simplest approach to solving your day to day communication, production, and order management problems.

This is how we approach developing shop management software at Ink.Works. We take great pains to keep our user interface simple, but also try to solve the most costly problems (Team Communciation, Order Management, Art Management) in the simplest way possible.

This helps shops that choose Ink.Works operate much faster, with less friction, than other platforms. On average, our clients increase their productivity (especially in shop communication) by 75% or more.

All because we've kept things simple.

Ergonomic.

A sister component to Simplicity for great software is Ergonomics.

Good software let's you accomplish your shop tasks without hunting around or being confused. Great shop software optimizes each user task for speed.

Superhuman, our favorite email client, takes this to an extreme. In a famous blog post, Rahul Vohra found that the single biggest feature his fans loved about the email client was speed.

Users could blaze through their inbox in no time. So Rahul and his engineering team went to work making every single interaction take less than 100ms (a Google rule for making apps feel instant).

Great app ergonomics means intensely focusing on reducing how much time every critical task in your app takes.

Ergonomics in InkWorks are optimized to make team communication, order management, production, and invoicing the fastest experience on the market.

Mobile.

It's no secret that the computer we use the most is the one in our pocket. Combine with a global pandemic, and a new culture of working on the go, and polished mobile apps that follow points #1 and #2 are a must have.

Lots of platforms give you a "mobile-responsive" website. You know what I'm talking about... their same app, just made to look OK on a mobile device.

You have probably felt the sluggishness and cloogy usability of trying to jam an entire desktop app on a phone. It's not great.

That's why we took the time and effort to build our native iOS app, and native Android app (coming soon).

You get a simple, ergonomic experience on all platforms, with all the bells and whistles like Push Notifications for customer & team messages, status and due date changes, and more.

Connective.

Finally, your shop management software should be Connective.

Good apps solve your problems elegantly. Great apps connect to all your major business tools.

When you create a new order for a customer, shouldn't you check in with them in 3-6 months to see how they are doing? Or send them a promo code remarket? Maybe a seasonal special email?

MailChimp can help you set up all of these email remarketing campaigns, but if your shop software can't tell MailChimp when new orders are placed, you're stuck adding all those contacts manually, or hoping they will fill out an online form. 🫣

How about automatically downloading approved art to a hot folder for ripping or screen printing color separations? With InkWorks + Dropbox, no problem! Just build a Zap, and never manually transfer art work again.

Give InkWorks a try.
Basic accounts are free forever.
You get a 30-day FREE trial to kick the tires...

... and at $4.99 / mo with our Fair Pricing Policy, it's the cheapest screen printing shop management software on the market.

Plus, with super simple customer and product importing, you can make the switch in a day! 😎⚡️✨💪🚀

See you next time!