FAQ

Visit the “Apply for an Account” page to submit your application.

If you’ve received a pre-approval letter, you can skip some steps by starting at our pre-approved signup page.

We’re very careful about choosing which Clients we work with, for several reasons:

• We want to be sure our Clients can benefit and are prepared to profit from what we offer;
• Clients must already be an established company with an excellent track record, and experience in the apparel or apparel decoration industry;
• We don’t want to overwhelm a certain geographical area with multiple Clients selling to the same customer base, so we take strides to ensure adequate physical separation between shops. In other words, we won’t let your competitor around the corner in.
• It’s the only way to be able to offer such low wholesale prices. The general public, for example, requires far more hand-holding and assistance than companies who already know at least the basics.

Lucky you! This means you’ve been found by our radar (a consultancy we work with to seek out the best potential Clients) and we know we already want to do business with you. We won’t make you go through as many hoops to set up your account. It’s an exciting thing to be pre-approved – we’ve vetted your company, we know that you’re a rockstar in your space, and we want to work closely with you.

Go to the pre-approved signup page to begin.

In a nutshell, we offer two primary products:

1. Heat-applied transfer appliques: We print these to your specs on our very expensive, fancy fully automated equipment, and ship you the transfers. You apply them to garments or other products of your choice, with any heat press. With few limitations, these can also be applied by your customers at home with a household iron, if you wish to resell the iron-on transfers as a standalone product.
2. Completely decorated products: You can also (or instead) choose to have us finish the product instead of buying the transfer. We offer 50+ products on our web site, including women’s and girls’ apparel from some of the top brands, and accessories like hats and tote bags.

Generally, we work with two mediums, which are available to you:

1. Rhinestones/Rhinestuds: You know what these are. Rhinestones are the crystal (glass) form. Light enters the stone and refracts. Rhinestuds are of a similar size and shape as stones, but they’re colored metal (aluminum) and as such, the light reflects, giving them a different (though no less incredible) quality. Between stones and studs, we have practically every color made today to offer you; over 3 dozen different colors in 2 sizes.
2. Glitter: This is a specialized type of heat-applied vinyl that’s thick and has glitter for the top layer. This product is very versatile, durable and easy to use. It’s often used to fill in large spaces in a design where it’s more cost-effective to use than if you filled in the same space with hundreds or thousands of rhinestones. Combining these two products is something we frequently do, and gives a premium mixed-media sort of look.

We can also create designs using matte or metallic vinyl, cut on our cutter like glitter. However, if your shop already does printing, you might not have as large a use for this product.

What DON’T we do:

• Printing, screening, DTG, plastisol or sublimation – basically, anything with ink or paint;
• Embroidery or sewing, basically anything that uses fabric/thread;
• Cutting, tailoring, or customizations to apparel products;
• Sequins or spangles (they’re not really in style these days anyway);

You may do some of the things above, or have your own subcontractors for those processes. We’ll let you handle that. We’ll do your “bling.”

That’s always the big question, right?

For custom designs, which will probably be the majority of what you buy from us, the price depends on:

• the specifics of the design (size? # of colors? which colors? what element types? # of stones?)
  and
• what product you’re buying (iron-on transfers or completed products?)
  and
• the quantity (we’ll show you pricing for small quantities starting at one piece, and larger quantities).

Because of all the factors above, we can’t quote a price on a design based on things like a description, or even artwork. We do need to take your project specs and complete the entire design conversion process before you can see a price. And you do pay a highly-subsidized, very low design fee for this work, even if you aren’t happy with the price and/or never purchase the product. The process is highly labor-intensive. On average, BlingFORCE spends about $40+ on doing the design work, but with a few exceptions, you can typically expect to pay around $10 for this work. We subsidize it so it’s not too much of a risk when you’re doing a project on spec to show a customer.

We realize this still isn’t ideal, but it’s the only way. If we were to make a flat-rate cost that worked with most designs, the price would have to be much, much higher to account for designs that use expensive elements, more elements, etc. We’ve been doing this for years, and have learned this really is the best way to get you the lowest cost.

Perhaps you’re used to selling custom printed shirts in bulk for cheap – $7-$10. This is NOT that. Rhinestone and glitter-embellished apparel, especially custom designed apparel, brings a premium that increases the value of the product 2-4x.

Here’s an example of our MSRP on a bling shirt with a single-placement front design, made from all rhinestones, with a custom logo such as a team name, on a good quality shirt – we’ll use the Bella 6405 relaxed fit v-neck (our #1 best seller) for this comparison:

1-11 pcs: $27.99
24-95 pcs: $19.99
96+ pcs: $16.99

Of course, you can price these any way you like, depending on a multitude of factors including the demographics/income of your customers, speed to delivery, quantity, etc. You can also expect to add a premium to its value if you have a walk-in storefront where the customers can sample/size the apparel items, so their purchase is not sight-unseen like it is online. You’re also free to charge any sort of setup fee they’ll pay.

Some of our customers retail customized bling apparel for up to double the prices list above.

Let’s for example say you’re using a shirt that costs $5 blank, a transfer that costs $4.50, and you have say $1 in labor costs for the pressing. You’re in it for $10.50. How much can you sell an incredible, fully-customized bling shirt for?

Yes, see our Example Pricing page.

Orders of Transfers only:

In almost all cases, an order that contains transfers only will take 2-3 business days to produce and ship out from our factory, from the date the order was placed, IF the order was received prior to 3:00pm MT.

Some important notes:

1. This year we have been operating more on a 2-day window, with over 85% of orders shipping out in 2 days or less;
2. If we finish your order early it will ship early; we don’t wait till 2-3 days just for the sake of waiting.

Examples:

• Order is placed at 1:00pm on a Monday – would ship out on Wednesday or Thursday of that week;
• Order is placed anytime on a Sunday – would be treated as being received on Monday morning, and would ship out on Wed. or Thursday of that week;
• Order is placed at 3:01pm on a Monday – would be treated as being received on Tuesday morning, and would ship out on Thurs. or Friday of that week;
• Order is placed at 3:01pm on a Friday – would be treated as being received on Monday morning of the following week, and would ship out on Wed. or Thurs. of the following week (2-3 business days after Monday AM)

Potential exceptions to the above:

• US “bank holidays” aren’t treated as business days;
• There may be blackout dates where our production facility is closed, we try to communicate these dates ahead of time;
• There may be times when we don’t have all the materials in stock to complete an order, so we will contact you and either split the order into pieces while awaiting arrival of the new materials, or need to push back the entire order;
• Transfers orders of $750+ may require extra time to produce – it depends on our existing production schedule and exactly what is contained in the order. If we think this is going to be the case we will contact you ASAP with an estimate.
• On rare occasions, orders that contain custom text may take up to one additional day to produce, as these items may need to be sent through our Design Team to have the custom text strings created (there is never a design charge for custom text).

Orders of Completed Products (Shirts, etc):

In most cases, an order that contains one or more completed products, such as bling-embellished apparel items, will be made and ship out from our factory, within 3-5 days.

• The exact timing will depend on whether or not we have the product blank (e.g. blank shirt) in stock in our warehouse. Note that we don’t stock MOST of the products in our selection, but we place orders from our vendors 2-3 times per week, and items take 2-5 business days to arrive here blank before the design application work can begin.
• You can see guidelines for timing near the bottom of each product page once a product is selected. Here is where to find this info:
  
• If you need to order transfers AND completed items and want the transfers to ship out as soon as they are ready (without them waiting for the completed products to be completed) then you should order the transfers and completed products separately.

Shipping methods and costs:

We make a few different shipping options available during online checkout. Rates are calculated based on the weight of the order in your shopping cart.

You can get your own shipping timing estimates on usps.com or ups.com – our originating ZIP code is 83642.

1. USPS First Class Mail – is always going to be your cheapest option. It is available only for orders weighing <1 lb, and you should expect arrival 3-4 mailing days after shipping. The USPS does not guarantee a delivery date using First Class Mail.
2. USPS Priority Mail – will often be the cheapest shipping option for orders of approx. 1-5 lbs, and is an option for any order up to 70 lbs. Expect arrival 2-3 mailing days after shipping. The USPS does not guarantee a delivery date using Priority Mail.
3. “Ground” – will often be the cheapest shipping option for orders of 5+ lbs. Typically we ship Ground orders via UPS Ground, but if it makes sense (is cheaper and/or faster), we may ship “Ground” by USPS Priority Mail. We recommend getting a quote in the shopping cart for both Priority Mail and Ground, and use Priority Mail if it’s cheaper.
4. UPS 2nd Day Air – would be delivered the 2nd business day after shipping. Saturday delivery is not available. Delivery is guaranteed and if UPS delivers late we’ll refund your shipping costs.

We accept the following payment methods for all orders:

• Credit card: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover
• Debit cards that can be used like credit cards (it would have a Visa or Mastercard logo on it)
• Paypal
• e-check (facilitated by beginning a Paypal checkout; note that e-checks may take up to an additional 5 business days to process/clear before your order can be released to production)
• Invoice me later – open to established accounts for which we have set up payment terms
• Physical check – please allow additional time for the check to arrive by mail and clear before production starts.

Keeping an extremely tight rein on credit and payments allows us to have an exceptional track record when it comes to accounts receivable, and this enables us to give you the lowest pricing possible. Our general recommendation, if you need to order now and pay later (e.g. if you have given terms to your customer) is to use a credit card for your BlingFORCE orders so you can get a grace period to pay from the credit card company.

• New accounts will be set up as pre-pay only, meaning payment for any order must be received in full before production can begin;
• After 6 months, and depending on the volume of the account, we may extend payment terms to you. Our payment terms are Net 20 after shipping, and you will be able to use terms on both online (self-service) orders or orders which we build for you and invoice you for.
• A credit limit will be established based on your ordering history;
• Overdue payments start accruing a late payment penalty of 18% annual from the invoice date, with no grace period. For example, an invoice due Net 20 will have a late payment fee added on the 21st day.
• If you have one or more invoices that are 30+ days overdue, we will not be able to accept new orders until all 30+ day overdue invoices are paid in full.
• After 60 days overdue your account will be sent to Collections and permanently closed. Warning! Our Collections process has been 100% successful but does incur significant legal and collections costs starting in the minimum of many hundreds of dollars, which are passed onto you by our Collections company. We want to avoid this process whenever possible so if you anticipate having payment problems please contact us ASAP so we can work out another payment solution.