[Guide] Selling Custom POD Embroidered Hats

UPDATED: January 2023

Hats are an incredibly popular accessory choice across a variety of markets, regardless of whether your customers are interested in style, comfort, or both! Adding hats to your store is the perfect way to combine style, comfort, & affordability. Whether you’re looking to add to an existing catalog, advertise for your company, or starting a brand new shop, you won’t regret adding hats to the mix. Not to mention the market size of the hat & cap store industry, measured by revenue, is 2.5 billion — that’s a massive market!

 

Product Details:

• Base Price: Ranges from $11.67 – $16.46 based on style
• CC Lite Price: Ranges from $14.58 – $20.57 based on style
• Shipping Price: $4.99 + $1.50 additional item
• Shipping Rate: Lightweight
• Suggested Sale Price: $25.00 – $40.00, depending on style
• Print Dimensions: 2.4” x 4” Embroidery Area
• Variants available: 16 hat styles & over 100 color options

**Please Note: Orders placed through our Manual Order feature are subject to a $10 embroidery digitization fee. This fee is waived for orders placed through any of our integrations.

 

Packaging: Hats ship in a white poly mailer bag. Baseball-style caps include an inflated air pillow to maintain the shape of the hat in transit. 

 

Design Guidelines & Best Practices:

For detailed embroidery guidelines, please download our Embroidery Design Guidelines & Best Practices document below.

Designing for embroidery requires unique considerations, but following a few simple rules will ensure your design embroiders beautifully.

1. Less is more. Solid colors, bold lines, & large fonts will embroider beautifully.
2. Avoid too much detail. Gradients, thin lines, & complex designs will generally not embroider well.
3. Photos cannot be embroidered. Generally, our software will reject photo submissions for embroidered products. If for any reason the file is not rejected, it will not embroider in a way that looks accurate to the photo. Please do not submit photo files for embroidered products.
4. Use colors that correspond with our thread colors. We offer 16 different thread colors for embroidery & supply the RGB codes for each color to aid in accurate designing. If you design in colors other than those provided, thread selection will be based on the closest RGB match — not the closest subjective color. To ensure you’re happy with the color selection, please only design using the color below.

1. Royal Blue – R:0, G:85, B:149
2. Athletic Gold – R:249, G:179, B:36
3. White – R:228, G:232, B:255
4. Forest Green – R:45, G:74, B:56
5. Orange – R:237, G:85, B:46
6. Columbia Blue – R:59, G:123, B:176
7. Red – R:180, G:34, B:50
8. Purple – R:106, G:85, B:149
9. Gray – R:116, G:125, B:135
10. Brown – R:82, G:56, B:52
11. Navy Blue – R:46, G:60, B:74
12. Black – R:47, G:48, B:50
13. Kelly Green – R:0, G:124, B:73
14. Maroon – R:108, G:47, B:65
15. Silver – R:169, G: 176, B:177
16. Old Gold – R:202, G:140, B:63

For detailed embroidery guidelines, please download our Embroidery Design Guidelines & Best Practices document.

 

Please Note: Custom Positioning is not available for embroidered products. Your design will be positioned as large as possible within the 2.4″ x 4″ embroidery area while maintaining the original aspect ratio of the design.

 

Most Popular hats: 

CP80 Twill Cap

• $12.817 per unit
  
• CustomCat Lite Price: $15.21
• 100% cotton twill
• 6 panel embroidered; Adjustable Hook & Loop closure
• One size fits most
• 13 color variants available

6990 Distressed Unstructured Trucker Cap

• $14.28 per unit
• CustomCat Lite Price: $17.85
• 100% herringbone cotton front, 100% polyester mesh back
• Unstructured, six-panel, low-profile
• Pre-curved fray visor with contrasting undervisor; Hook & Loop closure
• 6 color variants available

STC19 Flat Bill Snapback Hat

• $14.52 per unit
• CustomCat Lite Price: $18.15
• 80/20 acrylic/wool
• Green Underbill; Black Underbill for Multicam Variant
• Closure: 7-position adjustable snap
• Structured and high profile silhouette
• 7 color variants available

 

CP90 Knit Cap

• $11.67 per unit
• CustomCat Lite Price: $14.58
• 100% acrylic
• 3-inch folding cuff
• One size fits most
• 15 color variants available

Product Marketing:

The target market audience for hats consists of primarily adults from the ages of 18 – 60. However, hat designs span a wide variety of design & market niches! Below, you’ll find a list of some popular design categories for embroidered hats.

• Athletic Designs
• Brand Logos
• Words & Phrases
• Foods (pineapple, watermelon, etc.)
• Flags
• Political Designs
• Event-Themed Designs
• Holiday Themes

 

Whether you’re a seasoned hat seller or this is your first year offering custom hats to your customers, we’re here to help set you up for success.

As always, if there are any tips you’d like to see added to this selling guide leave us a comment below or email [email protected].

Happy Selling!