Our New Look And What That Means For You!

Welcome to the new look of Coastal Business Supplies, with improved and more user-friendly shopping experience, cleaner design and a variety of added features! What does that mean for you and how can you take full advantage of our site? We have compiled some of the current highlights of the new look and functionality of the website below.

Fast and Simple Checkout

fast-checkout

The cart icon is now more visible and features a convenient drop-down with a list of products currently in the cart as well as a visual bar that turns green once you have reached the minimum total of $149 to qualify for free shipping. You can now edit the products in the cart such as changing the quantity or removing select items without ever leaving the page you are currently on. Additionally, every product now features its own Add To Cart button on the front pages without having to go to the individual product page.

Wait, but that is not all! Once you go to Checkout, we have cut the amount of click through pages in half, recognizing the importance of check out speed!

easy-checkout

Choose When Backordered Items Are Shipped 

We are excited to bring you as much control over your orders as possible for your convenience and satisfaction. At the time of check out, if products are on backorder, you can choose to ship all of your items together or split your order so that in-stock products are shipped that same day, but back ordered items are shipped when available.

backordered_status

Greater Browsing Features

Our new look is geared towards the easiest shopping and browsing experience possible. Enjoy a clean and organized layout, side menu category options for exact results and more condensed product pages where you can find a variety of colors, quantities, and sizes of a specific product on one central page.

Powerful Search Engine

Find products with higher accuracy and take advantage of the auto predict drop down feature for related products to your search.

search-auto-fill

Help Information Center

Discover the most up to date information and answers to all of your questions on our new Help Information center. Some of the topics include but are not limited to:

  • Company information: shipping, returns, and payments
  • Pressing instructions for our sublimation and heat transfer products
  • Equipment manuals and user guides
  • Webinars
  • Tradeshow Schedule
  • Troubleshooting FAQ’s

Additionally, you can submit a request with any questions or issues or chat live with one of our representatives!

help-info-site

As we continue to receive more feedback and develop our site, more features and perks will be added! Stay tuned for the additional features and improvements coming by the end of 2017!

Disclaimer: The current version of the website is a beta version that may have some potential errors. Thank you for your patience and feedback as we work through and tweak the site for a seamless shopping experience.

Section 179 Deduction Tax Code

What is the Section 179 Deduction?

The Section 179 deduction was a tax code created to encourage businesses to buy equipment and invest in themselves. Typically, when your business buys certain items of equipment, it gets to write them off a little at a time through “depreciation” – it spreads the total deduction out across the “useful” years of the equipment. A bit complicated, and certainly not as appealing as deducting the amount all together.

However, Section 179 allows businesses to deduct the full purchase price of qualifying equipment and/or software purchased or financed during that specific tax year. All businesses that purchase, finance, and/or lease equipment valued at less than $2,000,000 in new or used business equipment during  the tax year of 2016 should qualify for the Section 179 deduction.

What items qualify?

Most any “tangible good” for primarily business use should qualify – though there are restrictions on certain things such as vehicles purchased for business use. Also, a necessary requirement for the tax 179 deduction code to apply, the equipment must be placed “into service” during the 2016 tax year – so ideally, any large equipment purchases that may require special delivery or installation should be placed ahead of time to allow for the equipment to be in service within the tax year window as well.

For a full list of qualifying equipment and restrictions, this list is a great resource for more information.

How much could Section 179 save me?

The Section 179 deduction can have a real impact on your small business, and greatly lower the “true” cost of your new equipment. On the Section179.org website, there is a very convenient and easy-to-use calculator that gives you a peek at what those savings could be. Click here to enter your own potential purchase amounts to see how much Section 179 could save you this year!

 

Epson F6200

Epson F7200

Epson F9200

Equipment Cost: $8,495

Equipment Cost: $15,995

Equipment Cost: $25,995

First Year Deduction: $8,495

First Year Deduction: $15,995

First Year Deduction: $25,995

Cash Savings: $2,973.25
(assuming a 35% tax bracket)

Cash Savings: $5,598.25
(assuming a 35% tax bracket)

Cash Savings: $9,098.25
(assuming a 35% tax bracket)

Lowered Cost of Equipment:

$5,521.75

(after Tax Savings)

Lowered Cost of Equipment:

$10,396.75

(after Tax Savings)

Lowered Cost of Equipment:

$16,896.75

(after Tax Savings)

The Direct to Garment Process: What Happens If I Don’t Pretreat?

Direct to Garment printing is a revolutionary digital printing method for customer T-shirts which offers the look and feel of screen printing but in a much more simplified process. A T-shirt is simply laid onto the flat bed of the printer and the image is directly printed onto the shirt in full color.

dtgprocess

To ensure that the printed image actually shows up on a colored or dark T-shirt however, there are a few extra steps we need to take. The most important step is to always pretreat the garment with “pretreatment” solution. Pretreatment is a milky or clear liquid that acts as a primer base and prevents the ink from soaking into the shirt and disappearing into the fibers. It also helps the water based inks stay put during printing and not mix with each other while still wet. Pretreatment is especially important for the white base that is printed underneath the colors to make them pop!

The pretreatment liquid is applied onto the shirt by either a hand sprayer or a spraying machine , then allowed to air dry or dried under a heat press and finally pressed at 338F for 40-45 seconds at medium pressure to set the pretreatment. The layer should be close to invisible and will completely wash out after the first wash.

pre-treat-infographic

What happens if we don’t pretreat the T-shirt?

Nothing good. The white ink soaks right into the T-shirt, leaving the rest of the colors with nothing to sit on top of. The result is a muddy mess due to the rest of the colors soaking further into the fibers and bleeding into each other.

aaa_9401

Lesson learned: Always pretreat a T-shirt that is a brighter or darker color (you may be able to pull off a light gray shirt or tinted off-white but that’s about it).

There are a few brands of pretreatment available, but generally the pretreatment liquid and the inks should be the same brand. Our top choice is the Epson SureColor F2000 Pretreatment Liquid which is compatible with the same brand printer and inks. It comes as a concentrate and needs to be diluted with distilled water.

For best results, we recommend using the pretreatment process on any colored shirt. Even light colored garments can show through the design and tint it slightly.