20 terms · Decoration to fulfillment
The promotional products glossary.
Plain-English definitions for the terms you’ll hear when ordering branded merchandise, decoration, and company webstores — from the team that does this work in-house every day.
Last updated: June 10, 2026
Decoration methods
Screenprinting
A decoration method where ink is pushed through a fine mesh screen onto the garment, one screen per color. Durable, vibrant, and highly economical at volume — the standard choice for t-shirts and larger runs.
Embroidery
Decoration stitched directly into the fabric with thread. Reads premium, lasts the life of the garment, and is the default for polos, jackets, and caps. Priced by stitch count rather than color count.
Heat-press (heat transfer)
Decoration applied by pressing a printed transfer onto the garment with heat and pressure. Handles full-color detail, individual names and numbers, and small-batch or on-demand pieces — no screens to burn, fast setup.
DTG (direct-to-garment)
Inkjet printing directly onto fabric, like a photo printer for shirts. Excellent for full-color art and tiny quantities; per-piece cost stays flat, so it loses to screenprinting as quantities grow.
DTF (direct-to-film)
A newer transfer method where art is printed onto film, coated with adhesive, then heat-pressed onto the garment. Combines full-color capability with strong durability and works across many fabric types.
Webstores & fulfillment
Company webstore
A private, branded online store where a company’s employees, locations, or partners order approved gear on demand. The provider manages inventory, decoration, and shipping. See our complete guide to company webstores for the full picture.
Hybrid webstore
A webstore that combines stocked inventory (top-sellers pre-produced and warehoused for fast shipping) with print-on-demand items (decorated only when ordered). The hybrid model keeps bestsellers fast and slow movers risk-free.
Print-on-demand (POD)
Producing an item only after it’s ordered, rather than holding finished inventory. Eliminates inventory risk and waste; the tradeoff is a production lead time on every order and a higher per-piece cost.
3PL (third-party logistics)
An outside operation that warehouses, picks, packs, and ships product on a company’s behalf. FlexONE™ is Prodigy’s integrated 3PL — the engine behind our webstore fulfillment and kitting.
Kitting
Assembling multiple items into a single ready-to-ship package — a new-hire welcome kit, an event box, a client gift. Kitting turns a pile of products into one deliberate unboxing moment.
Drop shipping
Shipping orders directly to each recipient’s address — employees’ homes, multiple office locations — instead of bulk-shipping everything to one place. Standard for distributed teams and webstore programs.
Garments & materials
Blanks
Undecorated garments or products before any logo is applied. The blank you choose — its brand, fabric, and fit — sets the ceiling on how good the finished piece can feel.
Ring-spun cotton
Cotton yarn that’s been spun and smoothed so the fibers lie flat — softer hand-feel, better drape, and a smoother printing surface than open-end cotton. The marker of a mid-tier-or-better tee.
Open-end cotton
Cotton spun by a faster, cheaper process that leaves fibers looser — a rougher feel and a fuzzier print surface. Common in budget tees; right for one-day events, wrong for anything people should keep wearing.
Art & production
Vector artwork
Logo files built from mathematical paths (AI, EPS, SVG, some PDFs) rather than pixels, so they scale to any size without blurring. The format decorators need; a screenshot of your logo is not it.
PMS / Pantone matching
The Pantone Matching System assigns a number to each exact ink color, so your brand green is the same green on every order, from every press, every time. Brand-consistency insurance for decoration.
Imprint area
The printable zone on a product — left chest, full back, the side of a bottle. Every product has defined imprint areas with maximum dimensions, which is why the same logo gets sized differently per item.
Setup fee (screen charge)
A one-time charge to prepare decoration for a design — burning screens for screenprinting or digitizing a logo for embroidery. Charged per design and color, not per piece, so it amortizes away at volume.
Mockup
A visual proof showing your logo on the actual product — placement, size, and colors — before anything gets produced. At Prodigy, you see mockups and exact pricing before you commit. No surprises on delivery day.
SKU
Stock-keeping unit — one unique product variation (this shirt, this color, this size). A webstore with 12 products in 5 sizes and 3 colors is really managing 180 SKUs, which is why tight catalogs run better.
Hear a term we didn’t cover? Ask us — we’ll answer and add it here. For the deep dive on stores, read The Complete Guide to Company Webstores.