Hey, just want to say upfront that I am a total newb when it comes to this business. I had never even heard of DTG until I found this forum. I've read through a lot of threads here, but am even more confused now. This looks like an amazing community with brilliant people, I can't wait to learn more.
Basically here's what I'm doing here.
I have an idea for a t-shirt business. Would prefer to do all the printing/fullfillments myself. I'd like total control. I'm looking to start with about 10 designs. I can't imagine doing a lot of volume in the beginning, so outsourcing to a screenprinting company shirts doesn't seem to make sense. They have all these fees and minimum orders. I don't want to buy 200 shirts and not know if they'll sell.
So then I looked into DTG, but the prices seem outrageous. Plus I'm looking to design really simple shirts, using 1-2 colors. Not like full color designs that take up the whole shirts. Something like this:
Then I read about DIY DTG and thought maybe I could print shirts myself in my house with an Epson 1400 ... but I couldn't find a guide on how to build one.
I've looked at e-commerce software and really like Magento. I'll probably pay someone to design a shop for me. I have web development experience and am confident I can get the shop up and running. It's just the printing the shirts that I'm having issues with.
I don't want to charge more then $15 for a shirt. Can anyone give me a Epson 1400 DIY guide.. or should I screen print myself rather then having a local company do it?
If you don't want to start with 200 shirts... don't start with 10 designs. In my opinion DIY DTG is something for tinkerers to do for fun - it's not at all a viable business solution. Screenprinting yourself is certainly one option. Especially if you are doing simple shirts.
Partly depends what you want to invest, both in terms of time and money. It's a lot cheaper and easier to order minimums on a couple of designs and see if they sell than it is to dive into your own print setup.
What do you want to do long term? Keep everything inhouse, printing your own shirts? Or have someone else do it while you concentrate on different tasks? Because whichever of the two paths you'd rather take, I think it makes sense to be moving in on one from the start.
Thanks for the link to that article. It convinced me not to try and screenprint on my own.
My next quesiton is, for a diesng like the shirt above... do I need DTG or would screenprinting be OK? I've read DTG is a lot more eco-friendly... which is one thing I'm going for.
Is this venture something you would like to do full time, or is it a part time thing? The reason I ask, is because realistically, it would be near impossible to learn how to screenprint, handle the designing, do all the marketing and run a viable business. I agree with Lewis. You can learn to be an apparel decorator, but the learning curve is very steep. You can market your own line, but that takes a big time committment as well. I would focus on what you're best at currently - which would seem to be internet development and marketing, develop 3 - 5 designs to start with, find a printer that you can work very closely with - so you can monitor quality - and then if you want to learn the garment decorating process, you can, as time allows.
I agree with Lewis and Mike. There are many facets to this type of business, including Production, Design, Marketing, Sales, etc. As a startup business, it's very difficult to be involved with and manage all of those aspects yourself. It's best to isolate which of those you want to handle, and then outsource the rest.
Since you are new to business, I would recommend outsourcing the production. There are a lot of good screenprinters out there that can help you.
This would definitely be a part-time business to start... Then who knows a year from now it could be full-time.
Should I be concerned with launching a t-shirt site with only 3-5 designs though? Would that scare some people off?
There's no real right or wrong answer to how many designs to start with. If you are appealing to a niche market and have 3-5 really good concepts, you should be fine. If you start selling what you have, you can start adding new designs soon enough, which will entice those who already bought to become repeat customers.
My next quesiton is, for a diesng like the shirt above... do I need DTG or would screenprinting be OK?
Either can handle it. Also, you say "or would screenprinting be OK" as if is less likely to be able to handle it: it's actually more likely to be okay than DTG. DTG's forte over screenprinting is very small runs of very colourful shirts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DCrockett
I've read DTG is a lot more eco-friendly... which is one thing I'm going for.
There are aspects to screenprinting that aren't very eco-friendly. The same is true of DTG.
Part of the problem with DTG and eco-friendly is that I don't think people are considering the process as a whole yet when they draw conclusions: they think about how the actual shirt is printed (ink on t-shirt via printer) and think "I'm sold, it's better." It needs to be considered cradle to grave.
In other words you also need to consider the solvents used to keep the printer going, how much ink is wasted because it's such an inefficient medium at the moment, the production of the printers themselves, the fact that the current rate of obsolescence is high (meaning those printers are going to end up in landfill), etc. etc.
I am not aware of any comprehensive study (or even a poorly done study) that breaks everything down and truly compares the two. Each party wants to tout the environmental benefits of their medium, but the fact is that both have negative consequences on the environment. I could cite horrors on both sides.
why don't you learn screen printing first before even going to business with it?
start simple...... 1 color design. prepare screen, apply emulsion, burn image to screen, print to t-shirt and cure. and after doing all those and you're happy and enjoying it then heads ups to next level. produce your 10 designs and start selling them to your friends. and if it sells to them then you're in the business.
Put DTG on the side for now. Start with manual screen printing...and somewhere along the way add t-shirt vinyl heat pressing.
Newb looking for guidance 
