Stoked on Printing started the way many stories do, through a need. Starting in 2009 co-founders Shane Snodgrass and Kevin Oakley found themselves needing solutions for quality merchandise for the bands they were touring with. Time and time again, they were held at the mercy of their suppliers, delivering subpar products and service, making it difficult to ensure they had merchandise at the right place and the right time. Having quality merchandise replenishments on time is a make or break for artists on tour, so they set out to find a better way. Starting the business in a spare bedroom, with DIY home-built equipment, they began learning the ins and outs of how to decorate a shirt. Little did they know, by committing to learning apparel decoration, lunged them on a course of perfecting the craft, and finding new and innovative methods to support their customers.

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By 2010, expanding out of the spare bedroom and into the garage, eventually, there was a need to move again into a first warehouse. With the additional space that was added, they expand manufacturing capabilities into automatic screen printing, as it offered the ability to begin servicing new markets of customers. Immediately, they saw the need for forward-thinking apparel decoration in the promotional product space. Servicing distributors taught them the discipline of continuous process improvement, and the need for efficient, sustainable manufacturing practices. Through 2017, they continued to expand and transition in and out of an additional 3 facilities to meet the growing needs of their customers. By the end of 2017, the organization had grown from a team of 3 to a team of approx. 30. They had continued to grow the organization's offerings and decoration styles into Screen Printing, Embroidery, Heat Transfer & Finishing.

As a result of their guiding disciplines, a new facility was developed in 2017. Their goal when setting out to build a new facility was to create a state-of-the-art facility, by deploying best-in-class equipment. By following their 8 years of persistence to pursuing excellence, they did just that. By properly tooling their teams, they began providing exceptional merchandising solutions to a new market of consumer brands. Providing merchandising solutions for consumer brands brought the need for additional product sourcing & fulfillment services to ensure they have superior quality merchandise, on time (which aligns with the company’s initial formation). During this time, the company had grown to become widely recognized as a leader within the industry. They were sought after for collaboration in content and product creation, and have been published by major brands such as Bella Canvas, Sanmar, Next Level Apparel, Fruit of the Loom, Screen Printing Magazine, Inksoft. Additionally, co-founders Shane Snodgrass & Kevin Oakley both received Rising Star Awards recognized by Screen Printing Magazine for their commitment to innovation and Kevin Oakley was added to their editorial board.

Beginning in 2018, they saw a change coming in the way consumer brands interact with their customers. They saw the need for eCommerce solutions with a hybrid manufacturing approach to allow flexibility of order size, on-demand personalization, and more. They felt obligated to provide their customers with a technology solution that would enable them to be able to offer the right product, at the right time, online. This mindset, spearheaded by their initial need, would leverage on-demand manufacturing so that now consumer brands can offer a wide catalog of products, not limited by on-hand inventory at a 3PL. With this new solution in mind, they immediately began the development of software that could provide this new approach to their customers. After 2 years of development of our proprietary software, they released MerchLoop, a product for their customers to provide hybrid manufacturing in eCommerce. By forward-thinking, they had built the technology that allowed them to become a widely recognized provider now also in the on-demand space, by providing service during the 2020 surge of eCommerce following COVID-19. To better serve our customers they additional grew into a second facility and again deployed the highest quality equipment to ensure. Now, by perfecting the services of on-demand manufacturing and fulfillment, bulk manufacturing, and employing a vast array of unique merchandising solutions they began bringing all of this together into a simple Merch Management solution. Allowing consumer brands the ease of merchandising, with easy inventory reorders, hybrid manufacturing of both on-demand as well as bulk, it allowed the flexibility needed for consumer brands to thrive in an eCommerce-focused environment.

Moving forward, the company is committed to continuous improvement and innovation of both merchandising manufacturing, as well as support for our customers. They continue to foster strong relationships with their partnering customers, suppliers, and team members, taking feedback to build a better organization for all. Stoked On Printing and its family of products, Contract Decorators and MerchLoop.

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